Digital Stitching to Enhance Source Qualification Inspections

NES enhances renowned SQI with digital stitching

By J.P. BUTLER

Marketing Coordinator

OLEAN, N.Y. – Napoleon Engineering Services (NES) had long ago set itself apart with its Source Qualification Inspection program.

A unique bearing reverse engineering initiative, Napoleon’s SQI provides an in-depth, analytical look at a manufacturer’s design intentions, manufacturing capabilities and overall quality of workmanship. It has been performed, with unparalleled results, for hundreds of customers, allowing them to confidently qualify the best bearing and supplier for their desired application.

It is, perhaps, the Olean, N.Y.-based bearing company’s defining triumph.

In the last 18 months, however, this program’s capabilities have only become greater. And that’s due primarily to the introduction of digital stitching ability on tapered roller bearings (TRBs) and bearing modeling.

NES’ inspection engineers work with the inspection department to develop enhanced technical information about the interaction between contacting surfaces within a TRB. Indeed, the latter provides data that’s produced by three different inspection machines – a Mitutoyo Contracer (low precision), Taylor Hobson Form Talysurf (high precision) and Zeiss Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM). NES’ inspection engineers then digitally stitch that information together to furnish an accurate image of the exact location and form of all contacting surfaces of the cone, cup and rolling element.

NES’ SQI is comprised of a series of thorough inspections.

But the purpose is largely two-fold: to determine the differences in design between two sources of product and establish the differences in the quality of workmanship. For Part 1, NES compares the supplied or industry-accepted design values of a manufacturer with the measured and calculated values obtained by the stitching of the Talysurf and CMM data. “When you have the data from those two measurement techniques, you can build the actual bearing model,” said Cooper Buckley, an NES bearing inspection engineer.

To accomplish Part 2, NES uses this program to take an advanced look at contacting surfaces.

“We want to visually show our customer the difference,” Buckley said. “What does this look like when we compare two different suppliers using a microscopic view of the contacting geometry form? This provides fantastic visuals compiled by the digital stitching. We’ve rebuilt the bearing in such a way that it shows us the deviations from true intended form and overall differences in quality regarding the effective surfaces.”

NES conceived this portion of its SQI in 2022. It built and developed the program over the course of a few months and performed an initial internal test on two sets of bearings that summer. In the aftermath of a highly successful outcome, its ownership was handed over to Buckley, who oversees the program today.

“The passing of that baton was a really risky moment for us,” Buckley noted, “to first make sure it worked as intended and then to ensure its continued success under my direction.”

THE FIRST customer for whom NES conducted its digital stitching service extensively was a major manufacturer of axles and transmissions. This company entrusts NES to measure bearings to meet a certain set of requirements; the task was to compile a data sheet that it could input into its Romax integrated driveline software for bearings and gears to better determine bearing output characteristics such as expected life. The company’s new Romax programmer wanted to improve the accuracy of the input geometry beyond that of the previous decade of work between the two companies.

This compelled NES to provide more standard numbers for attributes like effective center, theoretical sharp corners and other calculated TRB values. It organized a list of measurements that are required for our bearing software to generate those results. In the end, NES not only provided this company with the detailed information for which it was seeking but established a successful template moving forward.

“So, we put that together and said, ‘OK, we can offer that consistently to all customers,’” Buckley said.

This has allowed NES to enhance the value of its SQI, to strengthen what was already one of its most highly regarded services, one that includes visual inspection, noise testing and analysis of material chemistry, microstructure and hardness. And it’s led to a greater reliance on North America’s most experienced bearing reverse engineering organization.

“Our comparisons are more standardized and they’re more detailed,” said Buckley, when asked how the addition of the digital stitching component has made Napoleon Engineering Services better. “We’re looking further under the hypothetical microscope. We’re digging in deeper and we’re more consistent and more standardized in our evaluation.

“We’re doing it the same way over and over and over again and we are digging a little bit deeper into the finer points of the differences in quality between two suppliers and the design between two suppliers.”

TWO YEARS later, NES has continued to adapt to a more sophisticated manufacturing standard, Buckley said. As part of this world, customers expect more in terms of input values for their modeling systems. “I think we’re meeting or exceeding those expectations,” he added.

The next step for NES will be to incorporate bearing simulation in tandem with its SQI.

“(We’d) offer that in one quote,” Buckley went on, “where maybe the customer provides some basic application information. We take our newly created digital values now that we have this capability and create a bearing model.

“We can take those values and put them into the calculator and start to provide very real estimates of stress distribution and bearing life and determine at what loading a bearing will fail. And that becomes real, tangible value for somebody who doesn’t have a lot of experience using bearing calculators; to say, for sure, this bearing will survive in his or her application.”

What does this ultimately mean for NES and its customers? “I think we can attract more customers,” Buckley noted, “and give some bigger customers additional risk reduction with quantified values for life and stress, which is exactly what they need. That’s what this gives us the power to do.”