Lance Brown spent 28 years at CGI, Inc.—a Carson City, Nevada-based manufacturer of precision drive systems founded in 1967 and best known for its work in medical robotics and aerospace, now part of The Timken Company—working his way from the shop floor into design engineering and tackling gear problems across some of the most demanding industries in the world. Now, as MPMA’s first Senior Technical Instructor, he’s channeling that experience into a growing education program at a pivotal moment for the organization. We sat down with Brown to talk about the career that got him here, what he’s seeing in the classroom, and where MPMA’s training offerings are headed next.


Water spray quenching achieves heat transfer coefficients up to 4,000 W/(m²K)—nearly double conventional oil quenching rates—enabling potential material substitution and tailored quench intensity for complex gear components.
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20NiMo9-7 alloy achieves up to 48 percent higher fatigue strength than conventional carburizing steels in the as-carburized condition, eliminating the need for shot peening and grinding in automotive gear applications.
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A method to calculate pitch cones for hypoid gears using macrogeometry parameters—similar to non-offset bevel gears—while accounting for the added complexity of hypoid offset, tooling, and cutting technology is explored in this paper.
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This study systematically evaluates how material selection, progressive wear, and grease lubrication affect the noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) performance of polymer gears, providing new insights for designing quieter, more optimized transmission systems.
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As a community, we gear engineers collaborate and share ideas to progress our collective capability. Technology progresses based on our efforts, and we have seen solid advances in the performance of our products as they become quieter, cheaper, more efficient, and more power dense. The pages of this magazine (past and present editions) are filled with examples where talented engineers have dug deeper into a subject using a more precise approach to a particular area concerning gear performance. The implied belief is always that greater precision (complexity) in the calculations brings greater accuracy (alignment with reality).


On the surface, it may not seem like the gear inspection industry has changed much over the last few years. Shops still primarily use either machines that are dedicated solely to measuring gears, or multiuse Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs). And regardless of which machine they use, software serves as the backbone that supports their many diverse sensors.

The roots of heat-treating run deep within ASM (American Society for Materials) International, as its society was founded in Detroit in 1913 as The Steel Treaters Club. The heat-treating constituency of ASM created the Heat Treating Society (HTS) to provide focused leadership, communications, and service development to its network of worldwide membership of captive and commercial heat treaters, equipment manufacturers, researchers, governments, and technicians. To discuss Heat Treat 2023, the 32nd annual HTS Conference and Exhibition, Gear
Technology took a moment to catch up with conference chair Andrew Banka, vice president of Airflow Sciences Corporation. Heat Treat 2023 is colocated with IMAT and Motion + Power Technology Expo in Detroit, October 17–19.
Deburring gears is dusty, repetitive, and hard to staff. The OB7 cobot from Productive Robotics automates it with quick setup and no programming required. Consistent finish on every part, built in the USA. See the full cobot deburring package and request a quote.
Download the whitepaper to learn how lifecycle management improves tool performance, reduces downtime, and drives measurable cost savings.
This white paper explores how the use of an automatic tool change system can boost productivity in the grinding process. When manufacturing large gears, the demands regarding surface quality of the ground tooth flanks are increasing.
Join Kevin Meister and Troy Kirby from Productive Robotics, for a practical look at moving from hand deburring to cobot-automated in their own facility and many others.
Discover four diagnostic enhancement tools that move RX® endothermic gas atmosphere generator operations from preventative to predictive maintenance. Learn how monitoring dew point by retort, comparing equal flow, tracking tube performance, and measuring outlet temperatures prevent costly failures while ensuring consistent, high-quality carrier gas production.
Gear Profile Grinding Machine ZP 10 with automatic tool changer from Kapp Niles. The machine concept stands for maximum workpiece quality, flexibility and a long service life. The basic machines are equipped with a dresser, integrated measuring device, balancing unit and comprehensive software. The machines feature generously dimensioned rotary tables with electrical direct drive and large rotary table bores.

In February, Teradyne Robotics A/S, a subsidiary of Teradyne Inc. took legal action in Germany against Elite Robots’ German subsidiary, Elite Robots Deutschland GmbH for copyright infringement of Universal Robots’ software. The Regional Court of Hamburg issued a preliminary injunction against Elite Robots Germany.

Oct 12, 2026 - Oct 14, 2026

FNA (Indianapolis) is produced by the Metal Treating Institute (MTI) with media partner Heat Treat Today. The heat treat-only trade show and technical conference includes the latest products and technologies on industrial furnaces and ovens, atmosphere generation and control, quenching systems and quenchants, induction heating equipment, vacuum furnaces and pumps, heat treat software and controls and more
Sep 22, 2026 - Sep 24, 2026
Jun 14, 2026 - Jun 18, 2026
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