In recent months NSK Japan has been working in close conjunction with the Kanagawa Rehabilitation Centre, performing trials of the company’s innovative LIGHBOT autonomous guide robot which features indoor navigation and obstacle avoidance. The product already offers a number of advanced guidance, safety and usability functions, and NSK Japan will now continue its development efforts in readiness for LIGHBOT’s European launch in the autumn of 2016.

NSK has expanded its series of high load capacity ball screws. The company’s new Super Large Ball Screw makes it possible to injection-mould even bigger plastic components in line with growing demand from sectors such as automotive. The Super Large Ball Screw, which features 800 mm long nuts to help increase axial load and operating life, is designed for electrically operated plastic injection moulding machines requiring a clamping force of 3000 tons or more.

In 2016, NSK (Nippon Seiko Kabushiki-gaisha) will celebrate 100 years of providing the engineering market with optimised motion technologies. When Takehiko Yamaguchi founded NSK Ltd in 1916 with capital of ¥350,000 (€2655), the company became the first bearing manufacturer to be established in Japan. Today, the company has the biggest share of the bearings market in Japan and is one of the largest bearing suppliers in the world. NSK has also diversified successfully into markets such as automotive products, precision machinery and parts, and mechatronics products, all helping to generate net annual sales (for the year ended 31 March 2015) of ¥974.9 billion (€7.4 billion).

High availability is one of the primary criteria for stacker cranes deployed in automated storage and retrieval systems. Downtime due to breakdowns is unacceptable as material flow becomes interrupted, which in turn means production lines or customers (in the case of finished good warehouses) are left waiting for items.

NSK has developed a new series of standard ball screws that fully conform to the DIN international standard. This range of ball screws will be available from stock when they are officially launched into the European market in February 2016, which will minimise lead-times for many OEM customers. In addition to offering made-to-order ball screws to meet various customer demands, NSK was one of the first companies to introduce standard, off-the-shelf stock ball screws to the market.

Michael Preinerstorfer, the Managing Director of NSK’s European Industrial Business Unit – EIBU, who is also a qualified Engineer, outlines his plans to make NSK the European market leader in 15 to 20 niche markets. In this frank interview he also states what changes lay ahead for customers, employees and products.

"Leonardo da Vinci" National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan, (Hall of Columns) from 1 to 7 October 2015

NSK has successfully replaced one-piece spherical roller bearings with specially-manufactured split bearings in the converter of a European stainless steel plant. Demonstrating utmost precision and care, this challenging service task was completed in just three days.

The replacement of ball bearings is part of typical maintenance schedules when it comes to electric motors. However, when a German MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) provider was tasked recently with performing regular overhauls of electric drives for a prominent customer, a frequently recurring problem was noted: newly installed standard bearings would fail after three or four months.

Visitors to Agritechnica 2015 (Hanover, 10-14 November) will witness the debut appearance of NSK rolling bearings designed purposely for the agriculture industry. Central to the NSK exhibit will be ‘Agri Disc Hubs’ – ready-to-install units deployed in soil tillage machinery such as compact disc harrows, seed drills and strip-till equipment.