If you ask it, they will write

Let us help you find your industry solutions though investigative reporting and research.

A la James Earl Jones in the 1989 classic, "Field of Dreams"

OEM Off-Highway just recently ran its first article on a topic directly proposed by a reader looking for a solution. During a casual conversation with an engineer at GKN Land Systems' Power Management Division, I asked him if his team had any challenges they frequently are up against. His response was this:

Cost is the main challenge, of course. We could design to our heart's content, but it must be marketable (cost effective).

I recently designed a new universal joint size for our product lineup and cost was a top priority. I was able to share some tooling with existing product lines and therefore minimized cost to a certain extent.

Design-wise, we have challenges such as optimizing and understanding bearing geometries and their influence to performance and life. We also need to consider the environment our products are used in. Dirt, dust, operator abuse, installation issues, etc...

From this response, I decided that this was a perfect opportunity for OEM Off-Highway to do what it could to help shine some light on the problem through our investigative reporting. In the October State of the Industry issue, you will find a hardware article entitled, "Optimized bearing geometries for life cycle extension" on page 56.

Case and point, this is a service we at OEM Off-Highway can provide to our readers. Let us know of a challenge you are facing and we'll see what we can do to cover it in an informative and in-depth manner to get you a little direction on your path to a solution.

Email me at [email protected], or comment on this post. Help me help you :)

Watch the famous speech from Field of Dreams here (you know you want to) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SB16il97yw

 

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