Gearmaking Network Expands, Adds Engineering Expertise

March 1, 2012
Gear Motions in joint venture with KBE+

The Syracuse-based gear-grinding network Gear Motions Inc. is forming a joint venture with an engineering consultancy, aiming to employ their respective specialties for their ongoing businesses. KBE+ Inc., the consulting firm, specializes in design and development of gear trains and power transmission devices.

The Gear Motions group includes Nixon Gear in Syracuse and Oliver Gear in Buffalo, N.Y. It designs and manufactures cut or precision-ground gears, including precision spur, helical, bevel and worm gears, as well as multiple types of belt sprockets, timing pulleys and splines. Recently, Gear Motions acquired Pro-Gear Co. Inc., in Buffalo, a gear manufacturer for OEMs, including Mack Truck, and a provider of gear-grinding services for other manufacturers.

“This is the perfect merger of more than 50 years of collective KBE+ experience and more than 100 years of Gear Motions’ application experience,” stated Gear Motions president and CEO Sam Haines.

Along with gear design capability, KBE+ offers full simulation and analysis, and its on-site laboratories will verify and test any design or system. On-site test engineering liaison services and independent results validation are available, for customers that prefer to use their own test facilities.

KBE+ founder and president Dr. William Mark McVea, has experience in power transmission technologies, including work as a design engineer of off-highway drivetrains and a design and research engineer with New Venture Gear. He also was responsible for program development production at the Torsen Drives division of the Gleason Works.

“The addition of Dr. McVea to our precision gear-manufacturing program helps broaden the services that Gear Motions offers its customers,” explained Dean Burrows, president of Nixon Gear. “By offering the capability to design, we can provide to our customers a full-service platform from design, through testing, into prototypes, full-scale production, and service. More important, his vast experience will allow us to review and develop new designs on the front end of the process, when there is greater opportunity for maximizing the cost/performance equation.”

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