Machine tools are essential industry infrastructure, providing critical components for countless manufacturing sectors.

At the prestigious Bosch Global Supplier Awards 2023, NSK was selected as one of just 46 top suppliers from approximately 35,000 companies that provide parts to Robert Bosch GmbH (Bosch) globally.

Processes such as drilling, milling and grinding require linear and rotary motion solutions that offer impressive performance and exceptional quality.

EMO Hannover 2023 (18-23 September) will provide NSK with a platform to showcase its latest advances in this important technology area. Notably, the company’s 120 m2 booth (Booth C42, Hall 7) will shine the spotlight on several ball screws making their exhibition debut in Europe.

As part of a new product offer, global bearing specialist NSK is able to produce customised pre-assembled cartridge units for applications requiring extremely precise rotational performance. These compact bespoke units feature a pair of NSK precision deep groove ball bearings to facilitate high-speed, high-precision operation in devices that include handheld vacuum cleaners, encoders, surgical equipment and optical inspection instruments.

NSK’s assistance proved vital to a company experiencing repeat failures of bearings fitted to the roller assemblies of its steel wire drawing machinery. Thanks to the intervention of NSK, which identified the problem and recommended the optimal solution, the customer is witnessing costs savings in excess of €1.2 million a year.

A large manufacturer of automotive engines has significantly improved the reliability of its CNC machining centres by adopting NSK sealed spindle bearings that prevent the ingress of cutting fluid. The result is a sizeable reduction in costs associated with replacement bearings, maintenance labour and production downtime, saving the plant almost €191,000 per year.

Transportation ball screws are popular across industry as a cost-effective alternative to precision ground ball screws. The manufacturing process is ideal for applications that do not require the finite precision of a ground ball screw, but must still reliably transmit linear loads and provide high speed yet accurate positioning. For such applications, NSK’s transportantion ball screws – namely the PR/LPR and BS Interchangeable series – are in high demand.

When a tyre manufacturer was enduring frequent failures of the ball screw within the air drum of its tyre building machine, the company turned to the expertise of NSK and its HTF series ball screw. By adopting this high-speed, high-load solution, the tyre plant was able to reduce its replacement ball screw purchases by two-thirds, delivering annual savings of €99,128.

NSK has developed a new type of ball screw that exhibits reduced motion errors to deliver higher surface finish quality for machine tools used in mould and die machining and other surface-critical applications. By eliminating or reducing the time needed for secondary burnishing or polishing applications, the new ball screw also contributes to higher productivity, while simultaneously reducing the amount of drive torque to save energy.