We’re in the midst of a new industrial era. Unlike previous industrial revolutions, this one doesn’t revolve around steam-powered machines or electric motors. Instead, it’s happening digitally, powered by microprocessors and the increasingly ubiquitous Internet of Things.

Dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution by the World Economic Forum, this era has accelerated the pace of change to a level the world has never seen.

“Things have never changed so fast in world history and, conversely, will likely never be this slow again,” says Vishal Sikka CEO of global giant Infosys Corporation.

Oddly enough, however, the fourth revolution bears some striking resemblances to the second, in which the industrial gearbox played a key role in powering factories and enabling mass production. Much like today’s personal computers and mobile devices help us harness the flood of information generated by the internet, the speed reducer gearbox enabled industrial engineers convert the raw speed generated by electrical motors into torque powerful enough to crush ore.

It all started, of course, with gears.

“In the 1800s gears, not microprocessors ran the world,” says business and economics writer Eric Gardner. “Today, corporations invest billions of dollars on migrating to the cloud; 200 years ago that money went towards systems that mass produced precision gears.”

Gears: The industrial microchip

Think of gears as the silicon chip of the industrial era. Even before the invention of the speed reducer, gears were essential to the inner workings of just about every innovation of the mechanical age—and they kept the industrial wheels turning for the next 150 years of production.

“Steam engines needed gears,” Gardner says. “Guns needed gears. Clocks needed gears. Nearly everything in the mechanical age was powered by toothed wheels, working together to power inanimate objects. Almost every investor wanted to be in the gear business.”

With its early focus on creating custom precision gears, Falk Corporation became a global leader in perfecting the toothed wheels that made the industrial world go ’round. Falk manufactured heavy-duty gears of all shapes and sizes for a broad range of applications, from conveyor belts and trains to dams and even the Panama Canal.

“Any industry that needed to transfer power probably used Falk gears,” Gardner says

Thanks to industrial giants like Falk, the United States became the world’s foremost industrial nation between 1870 and 1900, undergoing massive growth in steel production and driving the rapidly increasing scale and pace of industrial production. With its global reputation for precision gear cutting, the corporation helped make its hometown of Milwaukee, Wis., a center of modern manufacturing—much the way Silicon Valley has become the innovation hub of the digital age. Over the span of 20 years, around a dozen other metal fabrication companies cropped up within a few miles of each other, and together they dominated industrial production in the mid-1900s.

The rise of industrial gearboxes

When factories started switching from steam to electric power in the 1890s, Falk gears played a crucial role in paving the way for mass production. Since the new motors operated most efficiently at speeds too high for conveyor belts and machine tools, factories needed a way to convert the high-speed capabilities of electric motors into torque.

That’s when the speed reducer gearbox became a fixture in manufacturing operations across the globe. Much they way computer processors convert raw data into useful applications, industrial gearboxes served as a mediator between electrical motors and the tools they powered. Falk’s heavy-duty gears were able to transmit enough power to “roll red-hot steel, grind raw rubber, tilt blast furnaces, generate electricity, and pump water to cities,” says Gear Technology magazine.

Many industrial gearboxes from that time contained Falk gearbox parts, and Falk drives became a staple in the marine industry, powering naval and other seafaring vessels. Since its inception, the company has manufactured more than 1,200 reverse reduction drives for tugboats and towboats and more than 1,800 special reduction gears for aircraft carriers, ore carriers and other marine vessels.

Today, Falk drives, shaft and fluid couplings, and low-speed backstops make up 75 percent of the company’s products. The remaining quarter includes custom-engineered drives, open gears, castings and other specialty units.

Now that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has officially begun, gears and gearboxes are no longer the focus of innovation and production. But it’s safe to say we wouldn’t have gotten here without companies like Falk and the precision gears that have driven industrial production for more than a century.

Posted under Falk Gearboxes on Tuesday, August 8th, 2017