Gates adds metal tube site to boost hose base

ERJ staff report (R&PN)

Denver, Colorado -- Gates Corp. has opened a facility to make metal tubing, a product that will allow the hose and belt maker to provide more of a full system to its hydraulics customers.

Gates opened the factory in Glade Spring, Va., earlier this year to build the modular tubing assemblies, according to Mark Lehnerz, Gates advertising manager for the Worldwide Fluid Power Division.

He said products from the plant mainly are used by large equipment manufacturers-original equipment customers such as John Deere, Caterpillar, Case and others. Gates didn't disclose the investment cost or size of the facility. Total employment is about 50, including production personnel, customer service, engineering and technical support.

The most revolutionary piece of equipment at the Glade Spring unit is an automated robotic tube bender, which takes a straight piece of tubing, and bends and contorts it to fit the platform that it will be used on, Lehnerz said. The bender-which can be used on just metal tubing or tube/hose combinations-eliminates operator error, can make multiple bends and allows for quick turnaround on production of high-volume subassemblies.

“For large equipment, a lot of bending is necessary,” he said. “When you see a boom arm on an excavator, the tubing follows the contours of the boom. Anything that's rigid or does not flex or twist, you can have tubing. When you have portions where the boom has to move, that's where you have rubber. That's where hose/tubing combinations come in.”

The plant also incorporates a “no-braze” technology that eliminates the potential damage caused to tubing connections by heat generated by brazing and welding. The tubing ends at the Gates facility are end-formed or roll-formed, depending on termination requirements. The company said this results in stronger, one-piece connections.

When the tubing can't be end-formed, couplings are crimped on the tubing ends, also eliminating brazing and potential leak paths.

“This is pretty progressive technology,” Lehnerz said. “It's not a me-too type of product.”

The idea behind adding the metal tubing capability was to make sure Gates is a full-service provider. “We like to consider ourselves an end-to-end, or port-to-port provider,” he said. “That was just the next step down the line.”

Customer requests were a big reason for the development. He said Gates already supplies them with rubber hose assemblies, most of which invariably connect to some other port or tubing connection. “This makes it easier for customers to supply the entire assembly. It consolidates their supply chain.”

It's much the way Gates' automotive business branched out, Lehnerz said. It started by supplying belts and hoses, and now has branched out into tensioners, pulleys and a whole host of other products.

“Instead of just being a belt and hose manufacturer, we're more like a whole system manufacturer,” he said.

Besides the new products offered in conjunction with the Glade Spring facility, Gates also provides its OEMs with extensive technical support through its Customer Solution Service facility at its headquarters in Denver. There, the firm's R&D staff offers a variety of services in both value engineering and value analysis.

With the former, “Our engineers work alongside an equipment manufacturer's engineers on development of a new piece of equipment from the ground up,” Lehnerz said. “They help make it as efficient and leak free as it can be.”

Under value analysis, Gates' engineers will conduct a thorough examination of an existing product and refine it, for example, if a customer is having warranty issues caused by leaks. “They will look at it and come up with a solution to solve the problem the manufacturer is having,” he said.

From Rubber & Plastics News (A Crain publication)