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AGGRESSIVELY
PURSUING
SUCCESS,
OVERTON CHICAGO
GEAR
CORPORATION
CONTINUES
TO GRIND AWAY,
BUT AS
ARMANDO DIANA
LEARNS,
A CHANGE
IN GEARS
ALONG WITH
STRATEGIC
DIRECTION
IS THE
SECRET
TO SUCCESS
|
Two acquisitions, an
overseas strategic alliance and the final step toward 100 percent employee
ownership have highlighted the six-year tenure of the
aggressive president of Overton Chicago Gear Corporation.
The virtually non-stop pace has kept the heat on OCG's
competition in more ways than one.
With more than 30 years in the gear manufacturing industry,
Louis Ertel took over as president of Overton Gear in 2002.
He had a simple plan of action: Grow the Addison, III.-based
gear manufacturing company into one of the leaders in the
industry. By most standards, Ertel has already succeeded in
his mission, but he says he is always looking for other
growth opportunities if they make sense.
"We have positioned ourselves pretty well to ensure success,
but we need to keep the heat on and keep ourselves moving
forward at all times," Ertel says.
And by heat, Ertel not only means the pressure OCG's
competitors are feeling from the 52-year-old company, but
from literal heat. One of the biggest differentiators the
company enjoys is the heat treatment facility used for
making its gears.
In early 2008, the company completed a 10,000-square-foot
expansion of its heat treat facility. Heat treatment is a
method used to alter the physical properties of a material
and involves the use of heating or chilling to extreme
temperatures to achieve a desired result, such as hardening
or softening of a material. In the case of gear carburizing,
the heat treatment allows carbon to absorb into the steel
surface, resulting in a harder, stronger product
Additions to the heat treatment facility include two
state-of-the-art car-burizing furnaces that employ the
latest U.S. and European technologies, along with an 84-inch
quench press. The additions complement the company's
existing five pit furnaces and five integral quench
furnaces.
"The expansion gives us capabilities unrivaled in the
industry," says Ertel. "We can now heat treat gears up to BO
inches in diameter and our new quench press is believed to
be the largest in the world.'
Custom designed and manufactured, the quench press minimizes
distortion during the hardening process by varying the
pressure and quench oil Row. The new vertical pit furnaces
are state-of-the-art carburizing furnaces that accept work
pieces up to 80 inches in diameter and 100 inches long. Each
is computer-controlled to continuously monitor the entire
carburizing process. Rapid cooling systems cool both the
retort and workload.
The heat treatment facility offers annealing, normalizing
carburizing, nitriding, hardening, quench and tempering.
The company also has shot peening and shot blasting
capabilities. Each furnace is computer-controlled for
temperature and atmosphere to monitor all elements of the
process for computer-controlled auto adjustments.
HEAT = PRESSURE
In addition to the literal heat being used to manufacture
the gears, the aggressive approach Ertel has unleashed on
the industry has been paying immediate dividends. With
acquisitions and strategic alliances, the company has added
new capabilities to meet customers' gearing needs and
completed a high-tech makeover of its brand to better
reflect its state-of-the-art facilities, high-tech processes
and global capabilities.
Overton Gear recently acquired Chicago Gear D.O. James Corp.
The combination of the two companies will result in one of
the largest full-service gear and gearbox suppliers in the
world. Chicago Gear D.O. James is a combination of two gear
companies that date back over 120 years. D.O. James is known
around the world, in virtually every industry and has
produced more than 350,000 large, specially designed
gearboxes. Chicago Gear is the open
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Overton Chicago Gear's high precision spiral bevel gears are
supplied to various industries, including offshore, marine,
& mining. |
gearing branch of the company, with a product line that ranges from
gears produced at its small products division to large
gearing that exceeds 100 inches in diameter. This move
complements Overton Gear's acquisition of Illinois Gear a
few years ago.
To ensure the company would have the latest technologies for
bevel manufacturing, Ertel forged a strategic alliance with
Klingelnberg GmbH of Germany. The alliance is for the
manufacture and supply of high-quality large spiral bevel
gears for the worldwide market. Through this cooperation
customers can anticipate greater availability of
high-quality, large spiral bevel gears.
KIingelnberg GmbH is an internationally active mechanical
engineering company with production bases in 1-10ckeswagen
in the Bergischen region and Ettlingen near Karlsruhe. The
company also has facilities in Italy, France, Spain, Belgium
and Japan. Klingelnberg GmbH, HUckeswagen is engaged in:
spiral bevel gear cutting machines for the small and mid
series, spiral bevel gear grinding machines, worm and thread
grinding machines, tool sharpening and grinding machines,
gear measuring machines and job gearing for spiral bevel
gears.
As a result of these actions, Overton Chicago Gear now has
the ability to produce spur, helical, bevel, herringbone and
double enveloping worm gears, as well as custom designed
gearboxes that will conform to customers' every
specification and deliver the performance the application
requires. The company also has a dedication to quality. The
recent spate of activity has expanded the company's offering but the company still maintains the personal
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Overton Chicago Gear is capable of producing a full range of gearing for any
application.
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Overton Chicago Gear is capable of producing a full range of gearing for any
application.
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service and individual attention essential to meeting customers' expectations. Dedicated employee-owners and loyal suppliers
utilizing superior information technologies and integrated systems have allowed COG to streamline production scheduling and pro-vide gearing to the most demanding quality standards in the
industry's shortest lead times.
This is verified by the modern state-of-the-art
metallurgical laboratory where samples from each load are
analyzed and accurately recorded. The company is an ISO:
9001:2000 registered gear supplier using statistical process
control in the manufacturing process. The company's modern,
state-of-the-art, climate-controlled gear metrology
laboratory is capable of measuring to AGMA 2000, AGMA 2015,
ISO 1328 and DIN 3962 gear accuracy tolerances.
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Overton Chicago Gear
supplies gearboxes with torque ratings in excess of 10 million inch-lbs
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Measuring instruments are regularly checked against calibrated and certified masters to maintain accuracy and reliability. Non-destructive testing includes magnaflux and nital etch capability.
The company's 15 state-of-the-art gear tooth grinders provide the versatility to perform both generative and form grinding, including CBN Grinding. More than 100 machine
tools -most NC or CNC controlled - allow the company to control turning, milling, drilling, broaching, bobbing, shaping and grinding for improved efficiency. All of the
gears are manufactured to the customers' predetermined specifications.
Overton Chicago Gear supplies custom gears for the marine, off-shore, locomotive, mining, wind energy, transportation and construction industries. Ertel says all of the company's
products are well suited for harsh environments, but each customer segment requires different standards, which OCC seamlessly delivers. The fastest growing of those customer segments is wind energy and other renewable energy industries.
Wind Power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form, such as electricity, using wind turbines. According to industry
analysts, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 94.1 gig watts at the end of 2007. Wind produces about one percent of worldwide electricity use, based on a study by the Worldwide Wind Association. Europe is ahead of the United States in wind power with wind producing 19 percent of electricity production in Denmark; 9 percent in Spain and Portugal and 6 percent in Germany and the Republic of Ireland.
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Completing the cycle of change, the company became 100 percent employee owned in 2006, when it purchased all of the outstanding privately held shares of the corporation. The stock was purchased by a trust and shares were distributed to employ-ees as part of a transaction known as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Overton Gear had originally established an ESOP in 1985 when it purchased 49 percent of the outstanding stock of the company.
Ertel says having each employee have a stake in the
company's success has created synergies among groups and
departments that continue to pay dividends. In the past six
years, OCG has gone from a mid-tier gear provider to a
leader in the industry and continues to grind away for more
success.
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Copyright © 2009 Positive Publications for US Industry Today Volume 12 • Issue 1. All Rights reserved.
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