Cycle time reduction in crankshaft pin grinding

Crankshaft pin grinding was a bottleneck operation at an Australian automotive manufacturing company. A novel technique to reduce the cycle time and optimize the process was developed at the plant. A GCM (Grinding cycle Monitor) was used to optimize each crankshaft pin, and then the full cycle on each of the crankshaft pin grinding machines was optimized. The technique developed is suited for an Industrial environment and removes the expert skill usually required for optimizing the crankshaft pin grinding process. The optimized process resulted in a reduction in cycle time and grinding wheel consumption without any deterioration in the surface finish.