According Gosselin, small- and even some medium-sized manufacturers are left with only a few options. You can pick niche software that might only work for one or two types of gears, or just bearings, or whatever you’re looking for. And if you get an order for something outside of that software suite, you have to make do and hope you have a technician with the experience to set up machines manually. Or you can go for a more comprehensive software suite that can cross those lines, but it doesn’t come cheap.
For smaller manufacturing outlets in particular, that’s a tough call. On the one hand, smaller parts manufacturers, especially gear manufacturers, have to deal with differing sizes of lots and types of parts on a frequent basis. On paper, larger outfits can churn out large lots of one gear all day, while smaller manufacturers that don’t have that economy of scale instead have to take on many different, smaller orders, which means they’re the ones that need that flexibility most. But they’re also the ones without a massive operating budget, meaning the high price tag of an all-inclusive software suite that would offer that flexibility would be more onerous for them. Purchasing multiple pieces of software is equally financially prohibitive, reaching the same levels of costliness where you might as well just buy the single, comprehensive suite.
“For a number of companies, it is dramatic,” Gosselin said. “If you even, at 38 to 40 grand, which is the typical selling price for HyGEARS, some manufacturers just decide not to go ahead because they can’t afford that amount of money… In some cases, I’ll lose the sale because even my price is too high, so if you compare this with other software, it’s totally out of reach. I think this makes quite a significant difference into what people can afford to do or get to do.”
Now, this all is a burden that’s largely placed on small manufacturers, not necessarily the part buyers they cater to. But it does create an environment where specialization in a certain field is gently encouraged, and the effect of that can theoretically extend down the line. Software is a vital part of the manufacturing chain, so if manufacturers can’t afford software that can manufacture parts in multiple fields, that means fewer multi-specialist manufacturers you can buy from, and having to shop around for more individual parts cobbled together from multiple shops.
Now, none of this is to suggest that we’re entering an apocalyptic scenario where we’re going to wake up tomorrow and notice small manufacturers have been squeezed to death by software prices. Far from it! But as with any other system, the industry can always be improved, and this highlights an underserviced area that software developers have an opportunity to grow into.
It’s also an area that Gosselin is trying to explore. He’s working to make HyGEARS an affordable software suite that can break some of those barriers. The software can’t handle every gear under the sun, but it can work with a wide range of bevel and helical gears, as well as involute splines, face gears, and spiral face clutches. But that’s only for now. The most recent step HyGEARS has made is a leap into couplings, expanding support to cover Hirth coupling and cogged teeth couplings. And much like KISSsoft, HyGEARS is working to keep with the times, adding support for Skiving, for example.
Gosselin has also found success with HyGEARS helping parts buyers start manufacturing their own parts instead of shopping around for them.
“Some HyGEARS customers [small companies] used to buy from outside vendors,” Gosselin said. “After purchasing the correct software (HyGEARS in this case), combined to in-house 5-axis CNC machines, they became self sufficient: they now control the design and manufacturing and their products offer consistency.”
HyGEARS, of course, isn’t the only affordable option on the block. MESYS is similarly trying to offer an affordable alternative to massive, all-encompassing software suites. Unlike HyGEARS, however, MESYS’ primary domain is shaft system and bearing calculations, and they’re sticking to what they specialize in. As a younger program compared to other options on the market, originally released in 2010, MESYS still has plenty of room to potentially expand, but the focus currently is on improving their already existing features.
“There are companies that don’t need the whole range. There are customers who are just bearing manufacturers,” Markus Raabe, director and owner of MESYS, said. “They want bearing calculations and they need shaft calculation because the bearing is not alone. They don’t need gear strength calculations… If it were just standard gear ratings according to ISO 6336 or AGMA 2001, there are many programs on the market. Better deliver something that is not available in other programs.”
It’s an opposite view from Gosselin’s, but here again, seeking out a niche where there isn’t as much competition makes perfect sense from a business perspective.
MESYS software specializes in the simulation of elastic deformation, as shown in this carrier body example.
So what has MESYS been doing to improve in their field? Like other software companies, MESYS’ main focus recently has been on expanding the software’s ability to do integrated finite element calculations.
“For several years now, it was possible to import a housing step file that is both meshed and reduced within the software and then it could be considered as a housing stiffness,” Raabe said. “Now this is extended so that not only reduction is done to one node for a bearing ring, but elastic deformations of the bearing ring can be considered, and also that elastic deformation of gears can be considered.”
But while MESYS might be taking an opposite approach from HyGEARS, they do still make concessions towards interconnectivity with other software. Namely, it doesn’t feature gear strength calculations of its own, but is designed to be able to connect with gear calculation suites. Namely, MESYS integrates with eAssistant and TBK software from GWJ Technology, as well as the Gear Production Suite produced by Dontyne Systems. MESYS may be focusing on specializing, but they’re also not siloing their software away.
Camnetics follows many of the same patterns that other companies do. They produce gear design software that’s intended to be used for manufacturing. Their GearTrax and GearTeq software is used to create solid models of gear components for easy inclusion into CAD programs.
Gregory Hottman, president of Camnetics, highlighted several parts such as worm wheels and spiral bevel gears that they’re working to improve the accuracy of their models for. Currently, Hottman recommends the software only be used to model these more complicated gears.
“When they’re cutting the tooth on a machine, there’s overcutting and undercutting going on that the machine can compensate for,” Hottman said. “We really can’t compensate for that in the CAD world yet.”
But Hottman wants to change that. It’s still an ongoing process, but Camnetics has already made some efforts towards tackling the issue. Most notably, Camnetics has added a cavity cut method that extracts cutter parts to the gear model.
Meanwhile, they’re also looking to expand into simulating full gear sets for cycloidal gears. Currently, Camnetics can do a cycloidal gear with a pin, but they’re working to expand that.
While not quite on the same level as simulating an entire drivetrain, it’s still a move in the same direction other software developers are going: expanding to include more moving parts, which is the current frontier for the bleeding edge of software development.
But more interestingly, once you look under the gloss of the big software companies pushing the boundaries of the field, you see other gaps like what Gosselin is trying to fill with HyGEARS, areas where the limitations aren’t technology, but economics. It’s a different beast to wrestle with, but it’s no less of an important one. 
Camnetics
Phone: (608) 835-2378
www.camnetics.com
HyGEARS
www.hygears.com
KISSsoft AG (A Gleason Company)
Phone: +41 55 254-2050
www.kisssoft.com
MESYS
Phone: +41 44 455-6800
www.MESYS.ag