Both speed and precision are desirable attributes for the bearings used in spindles for machine tooling applications. High-speed capability and accuracy are significant factors also for woodworking and other ‘soft material’ industries. Add the increasing pressures of a globalised market – productivity, efficiency, competition – and the buyers of bearings for electrospindles are eager for ways to improve quality without increasing costs.
SKF is a major supplier of bearings for HSD, one of the world’s leading producers of electrospindles for woodworking applications. As such, SKF decided to work with its long-time customer to develop a new series of bearings that would meet the needs of its client and the industry as a whole. HSD (the name stands for “high speed development”), located in Pesaro, Italy, represents 60 per cent of the world market for electrospindles for light applications, and, as such, is the industry’s point of reference.
HSD and SKF have been collaborating since 1992, when the former was founded. SKF provides a bearing not only for HSD’s spindles but across the customer’s product range, including boring heads, 5-axis heads, and aggregates. From the outset, the Italian company was drawn by SKF’s reputation for quality and its technical support, as well as the breadth and depth of SKF’s assortment of super-precision bearings.
