Study on lead time improvement for production of bearing components
Abstract
Production of bearings is based on different mechanical processing of metallic or nonmetallic materials. The process flow is composed of two main processes: hot processes and cold processes. Hot processes are forging, hot rolling, primary and secondary heat treatment. Cold processes are mainly turning and grinding operations. Deep-drawing processes are used also in bearing cages manufacturing. Rollers are obtained by cold pressing processes. In this study it is presented a comparative analysis about the influence of the raw material shape on the production time. Also an analysis of the predominance of the set-up time in total production lead time was developed for all manufacturing processes of a complete
bearing. Experimental tests were performed. The material used in experiments bore quality steel tubes and steel bars. In the experiments were used samples catted from tubes and forged rings. The improvement of the total lead time due to the shape of the raw material was determined. The lead time was improved by 11%.