Got the gear Humbel

got thE gEar

A European market leader in gear technology, family company Humbel Gear Technology has been ‘driven by customer satisfaction’ since it was founded in 1928. Emma-Jane Batey spoke to technology director Alex Humbel to find out more.

Afamily-owned Swiss company, Humbel Zahnrader AG, or Humbel Gear Technology, has long been driven by customer satisfaction. With both a respect for its proud history and a clear focus on the future, Humbel manages to bridge the gap between utilising experience and delivering the most innovative gear technology solutions.

Technology director Alex Humbel spoke to Industry Europe to explain how Humbel Technology continues to develop and create forward-thinking gear technology: “We have been driven by customer satisfaction since 1928 and we intend to make a difference in the future too. We develop precision-engineered components, perfectly aligned assemblies and innovative engineering for our national and international customers and partners.”

As a proudly traditional Swiss company, Humbel Gear Technology is committed to long-term, mutually-beneficial client and partner relationships. Mr Humbel continued, “We have successfully established ourselves as a leading name in global gear technology thanks to our ability to consistently create solutions that exceed our customers' expectations. We play a major role in our industry as a centre of expertise for everything associated with innovative gear technology.”

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BRuDeReR relies on HumBel precision engineering to achieve highest standards in quality and precision.

Family focus

While Humbel Gear Technology remains a Swiss family company, it also manages to stay at the very forefront of the global gear technology industry through strategic expansion and investment. Steady growth throughout its nearly 100-year history has seen the opening of state-of-the-art facilities in the Czech Republic and Romania, as well as representative offices in Germany, Thailand and, most recently, the UK, enabling the company to serve customers across western, central and eastern Europe as well as India, South East Asia and China.

Mr Humbel explained how the global footprint of the company serves it well. He said, “We are a member of Swissmem, an association that unites the Swiss mechanical and electrical engineering industry. We find that working with our partners in Swissmem and being an active part of the group means that we have an extra level of understanding and a clearer voice when it comes to importing our solutions around the world. Furthermore, as we have various strategic locations that allow us to truly work closely with our customers wherever they are based, we find that we can provide the best of our Swiss engineering excellence with the advantages of being globally active.”

The on-going investment programme at Humbel Gear Technology is also integral to its success. Recent years have seen the company regularly purchase new machines across the whole Humbel Group and install extensive new laboratory equipment. Mr Humbel said, “Our new laboratory for material testing and metallography in Switzerland has been open since September 2016 and this allows us to measure case hardening depths, analyse the microstructure of steels and determine the alloying elements completely in-house. This has not only extended our abilities in the field of heat treatment but has also increased our famous flexibility.”

Core strengths

The Humbel Gear Technology core competencies are engineering, production, gears and transmission, with each skill working together with the others as required. Mr Humbel explained, “The sooner customers use our engineering services the better solutions can be achieved! By working with us right from the development phase, the functionality and costs can be more decisively controlled; our teams work in cooperation with engineers and designers across a wide range of specialist areas. Synergies,

know-how and creativity are used to develop efficient and sustainable system solutions.”

In terms of production, Humbel's many decades of experience, solid industry knowledge and innovative team of specialists combine to deliver leading gear and transmission components. Mr Humbel noted, “The high degree of in-house production depth is one of our particular strengths, enabling us to control the entire manufacturing process. By doing so, we can satisfy all our customers' needs, whether that's a single or partial operation for a manufacturing process or the complete production of gears and gear components.”

The portfolio of gears offered by Humbel is 'anything but standard'. Mr Humbel said, “What is standard for us is that we create a huge range of customer-specific gear parts, from prototypes to series, with modules ranging from 0.5mm to 12mm, including spur gears, helical gears, ring gears, pump gears, bevel gears and worm gears. There's also the various extrusion screws, threaded spindles, sprocket wheels and timing wheel belts.”

Humbel is positive about its future, as Mr Humbel concluded: “We have a very strong market position, coupled with our exemplary experience and our on-going investment and development. This is a very positive recipe for success. We're already growing our presence worldwide thanks to our strategic locations and we expect to see good growth internationally in the coming years. Our strategic focus in terms of markets will see us expand in the exciting world of motorsports, which is why we have opened a new office in the UK in York, the home of motorsport. We have also identified interesting opportunities to grow and develop in the e-mobility industry, with our gear technology experience perfectly positioned to benefit partners in this future-focused industry.” n