Gears are an important part of a ma-chine. Defined as toothed wheels or discs designed to mesh with another or with a thread of a worm, and often such that the two gears help the motion of one gear to be passed on to the other, gears are indeed indispensable. They are also highly critical. To understand the art of making gears is in itself an achievement, which very few companies have managed to specialise in. One of these is the versatile Italian group, Carraro SpA. With a consolidated turnover of around Euro 1-billion in the year 2008, Carraro is structured into the respective business units - drivelines, vehicles, power controls, gears and components. 

The gears and components business, grouped under GearWorld, is into the manufacture of gears and related systems. A vertical that was established in July 2007 to promote the autonomous growth of the component business worldwide and which recorded a turnover of Euro 223 million at the end of that year, GearWorld has under its wings SIAP, TGL, SAG, Mini Gears and STM. These units have eight manufacturing facilities spread across the globe and situated in countries like Italy, the United States, Argentina, India and China. Of these, TGL, or Turbo Gears India Pvt Limited, is based at Ranjangaon near Pune and is one of three Carraro Group companies in India, the other two being Carraro India, a drivelines business unit (now called as Drive Tech), and Carraro Technologies. 

Seated in a office at Turbo Gears overlooking the manufacturing area, Luigino Ricetto, Country Head, Carraro Group India, announces: "We have the know-how in gear manufacture and we have gathered the confidence to provide systems and system components. As an Indian entity there's a large potential for operations like Carraro." According to Venkatesh Subramanyam, senior manager (Sales and Business Development) at Turbo Gears, the company employs updated technologies and supplies state-of-the-art gears, which find applications in transmissions, wind mill drives and engine gear drives. While the client list at GearWorld includes impressive names like Black & Decker, Bosch-Rexroth, BT, Caterpillar, Claas, Comesa, Comau, Ferrari, Gamesa, General Electric, GKN, Hilti, Husqvarna, John Deere, Liebherr, Magna, Makita, Man, Moto Guzzi, Naf, Scania, SKF, Valtra, Voith and Volvo, that of Turbo Gears boasts names like MAN Force, Cummins India, Kirloskar Pneumatics, Ingersoll Rand, Turner, Caterpillar, Waukesha among others. 

While Mini Gears, which Carraro acquired in 2007, specialises in power tool gears and gears used in lawn movers and grass cutters, SIAP, which is again a GearWorld entity, is the centre of excellence in driveline system components and specialises in the production of spur and helical gears, ring gears, straight and spiral bevel gears, shafts and pinions up to module 28. The products made by SIAP cater to a variety of different fields of application, ranging from the automotive industry to lift trucks, not to mention farm tractors, earthmoving machinery, cranes, products for the railway sector and wind energy generation systems. 

Like SIAP and Mini Gears, Turbo Gears specialises in the manufacture of satellite gears, ring gears and gear shafts. Sharing the plot with Carraro India at Ranjangaon, Turbo Gears commenced operations in 2005. Built on a plot of 80,000 sq. mtrs. The company caters to sectors like automotive, off-highway, and windmills. Explains Venkatesh as he points at the Turbo Gears product range: "There is an interesting co-ordination between the GearWorld companies. Each company specialises in certain types of gears and is thus a centre of excellence in itself." Interestingly, such centres of excellence under the wings of GearWorld help the group to express their know-how across the globe. 

Adds Ricetto, "We at Turbo Gears need to express our know-how and capabilities. We have to transfer this to the chain. We offer high quality products as perceived in Europe. The point is that railways, wind mills and tractor applications may be different but require high quality gears all the more. In applications like railways the stakes are high." 

Expressing the ambition to be the top manufacturer of gears in India, Luigino Ricetto states that Turbo Gears wants to be in the higher side of the range in gear production. Presenting enough insight into this philosophy of the company are sophisticated machines and production systems from Liebherr and Mitsubishi. The manufacturing area is divided into two sections - pre-heat treated and heat-treated. 

In the pre-heat treated section, machines are arranged to execute shabing and chamfering operations on 'soft' turned blanks sourced from vendors. These are usually sourced in rough machined state or in finish machined state. With a product spread amounting to 150 parts, the company is currently running at 25 per cent to 30 per cent of its capacity. The capacity of the plant is 1,35,000 units per month. Rather than cutting down the workforce, multi-tasking and multi-skilling are being encouraged to further improve the efficiency. 

Says Balaji Gopalan, Asia Pacific HR Director (India & China Operations) at Carraro, "We are stressing on multi-skilling and value engineering." Venkatesh strikes a similar note, "Volumes have reduced, but new products are being introduced. We are planning to start manufacture of new products for Case New Holland. We are planning to make five new products that are expected to generate Euro 5 million." 

In India, the company has developed hubs that find application in Mercedes Benz cars, according to S Venkatesh. Turbo Gears has also developed shafts and gears, which it supplies to Force MAN Trucks, and is approved by ZF (Germany). The company is in discussion with various Indian automotive manufacturers and tier suppliers for the development of new products currently. The emphasis at Turbo Gears is on employing sophisticated machines and technologies. New additions include a high-tech broaching machine that has a cycle time of a few minutes compared to an hour taken by a conventional shaping machine to perform the same job. Pre-heat treated jobs are transported to an adjoining facility equipped with propane heating, induction heating and gas nitriding systems, which is also the highlight of Turbo Gears. One of the first of its kind in India, according to Sudam Shinde, head of manufacturing at Turbo Gears, the same is also the latest technology for manufacturing gears. 

Heat treated jobs are hardened (quenched in oil), tempered and shifted to the post heat-treated section to counter distortion that would have resulted from heat treatment. Shot blasted and shot peened as per the need, sophisticated grinding machines from Samputensili and Reishauer execute the final machining of the gears, after which the gears are transported to the packaging section. A lab in one corner of the plant helps to check accuracy and tolerances. It is equipped with sophisticated machines like the Gelason M&M, Hoffler & Klingenberg gear testing machines and optical measurement machine, critical deep hole endoscope and Mitutoyo co-ordinate measuring machine. 

Pointing at the new high-tech broach machine and explaining the high investments involved, Luigino Ricetto avers, "We study the needs and decide to invest. India is less exposed to global cues and we are therefore seeking long-term investments. We are looking at new developments and leveraging our global relations into India." While 50 per cent of the produce at Turbo Gears goes towards catering to the customer needs, the rest is consumed by the group companies. 

An interesting product made at Turbo Gears is the crawler gear, which finds application in off-highway (crawler) equipment. Satellite gears and rings gears made at the facility find application in tractor transmissions and drives. If gears made at GearWorld find application in cam phasers in automobile engines as sophisticated as Ferrari, the ones made at Turbo Gears find application in windmill gearboxes that regulate the angle of fins and transmit motion to the turbines. 

Carraro's investment in Turbo Gears stands at an estimated Rs 125 crore. With the slow down the company hopes to achieve a turnover of Rs 75 crore, the same turnover as in the year 2007. The exciting part is the new orders that continue to pour in from local clients. Exports, which amount to 75 per cent of the produce at Turbo Gears, are down as of now but once the demand picks up, the company along with its local business spread would be in a position to satisfy the same and without any delay. "We are planning to make bevel gears by end of 2009, starting with the satisfaction of in-house requirements," signs off Luigino Ricetto.