Company History
1976: Hinchliffe Precision Components Ltd. started trading, manufacturing general engineering products. The founders had spent the previous 17 years in the precision gear industry.
1979: Started gear production and produced first gear product catalogue.
1980: First standard catalogue to feature shaft couplings.
1983: First standard catalogue to include standard designed gearboxes.
1986: First CNC turning centre bought for expanding order book.
1990: In house production of catalogues using Apple Mac to produce the 10th catalogue.
1991: Engrenages HPC S.A.R.L. set up in Lyon, France.
1993: Name of company changes to HPC Gears Ltd.
1995: Rino Ltd formed to bring more diverse products to customers.
1996: HPC Gears Ltd separated into two independent companies and Rino Ltd changes its name to HPC Drives Ltd.
1997: Gearbox assembly department transferred to HPC Drives Ltd.
Introduced AutoCAD to start producing 2d CAD drawings.
ISO 9002: 1994 Accreditation achieved.
1998: Updated website to now include on-line ordering and CAD drawings available for download.
Power Mac's now used to manage web site and download information.
Rino Industries Ltd formed to offer more engineered products.
1999: New 1114 square metre (12,000sqft) building built to our specifications.
ISO 9001: 2000 Accreditation achieved
2000: Name of company changed from HPC Drives Ltd to Ondrives Ltd.
CNC production starts with purchase of high speed machining centre for gearbox casing production.
2001: Ondrives enters the world of 3D with Solidworks, allowing us to produce 3D models of our gearboxes and put 3D files on our website for customers to download.
First CD-Rom produced and issued along with paper catalogues.
2002: CNC production capacity expands with purchase of another high speed machining centre for gearbox casing production.
2003: 900 square metre (10,000sqft) building, built to extend our site to over 2000 square metres (22,000sqft) allowing us to increase our stocking and manufacturing facility.
2004: CNC turning centre purchased to reinforce our manufacturing capability.
2005: Investment in a CNC Horizontal high speed machining centre with 7 pallet feeder allowing us to make all our standard style aluminium casings on one machine and giving us a greater capacity to increase production.
A new Mitutoyo CNC CMM machine allowing us to increase our technical capability, and enabling us to measure gear teeth to known standards.
We added another Solidworks 3D seat giving us 2 seats in total, allowing even more flexibility in CAD design.
2006: Investment in CNC Turning centre Mazak 200MSY with live tooling C & Y axis, sub-spindle and multi-bar feed, adding capacity and quality to our turned parts.
2007: Launch of www.e-cad.co.uk. An online 3D CAD site, providing access to viewable and downloadable 3D models. IGES, STEP and SolidWorks® AutoCAD are all available in addition to most 2D formats. Another SolidWorks® seat is added incorporating KISSsoft®, bringing our total to 3 and enabling more product and customer support especially in terms of special projects and applications.
2008: Further investment in CNC machines, providing customers with additional benefits in quality, service and design:
The Delapena E1000 is suited for component bore finishing to precision micron sizes and tight tolerances, shape and surface (cross hatch pattern). Enabling efficient and economical honing of gearwheels, hydraulic and pneumatic components, as well as many other work pieces with machining diameters of 1.14 to 35mm and max. machining lengths of 200mm.
Leistritz Polymat 25/300 Nc - hydraulic profile key seating machine able to keyway from 8mm up to 300mm bores, with key widths from 2mm to 22mm and up to 300mm length in some cases. The standard tolerance for machining keys is DIN 6885 Js9, but other tolerances and sizes are available on request.
The Gleason-Pfauter P90 CNC precision gear hobbing machine incorporates the latest technology Swiss made AA grade solid carbide gear hobs producing DIN867 tooth shapes and is capable of manufacturing both Spur and Helical Gears up to 3.0Mod and Worms up to 5.0Mod with various parts up to 120mm diameters (approx). Standard cutting is to DIN7 and Hard (Skive) / Soft cutting to DIN5. We are able to cut to larger sizes by special arrangement.
The latest generation Mazak 200MSY CNC turning centre with new matrix control, was purchased to compliment one we bought in 2004 which was proven to be a very accurate and stable machine.
The Doosan NM510 Machining centre was purchased specifically for the modification of parts and small quantity production.
2009: Ondrives and Rino Industries merged. The latest catalogue featured a new range of precision gears. Our power transmission range was further enhanced with pulleys, belts and commercial gear products.
New online ordering site launched, offering a faster and more secure online service.
Doosan HC400 twin pallet horizontal machining centre, to compliment the high precision high speed 7 pallet version we already had giving more flexibility and capacity. A linear scale high precision machine with probing.
TESA-Scan 50 CE Plus optical non-contact scanner purchased to enhance Ondrives measuring capabilities.
Precision gears made and designed by Ondrives on site in the UK, to DIN quality grade 5-7 DIN3961 (Agma10-12) in high quality steels and stainless steels as well as specials available to order.
To complement our existing Gleason-Pfauter P90 Gear Hobber we introduced a twin to maintain our trend towards precision engineering. We were, even on these new models, able to thread grind with CBN wheels making ground worms for extreme precision even after the hardening process.
2010: New extensions to our existing buildings will be complete, giving us a total floor space of over 32,000sq/ft (+3000sq/m). The first of the new extensions will provide a clean room for gearbox assembly and gear assemblies and the second extension will facilitate additional production capacity.
Update: Recent extensions to the Ondrives site are now complete expanding our total floor area to over 3250m² (35,000 sq/ft).
Part of this is a purpose built climate controlled area, designed to be used for precision gear assemblies and gear inspection in a clean stable environment with the recent purchase of a state-of-the-art gear inspection machine (details below).
The other area is an extension to our CNC machine shop which will be used for storage and allow for further expansion of our capacities.
We are now entering our 34th year and to date we have distributed more than 600,000 product catalogues and more than 80,000 parts. During our time we have continually met the growing demands of our customers in an ever changing market for engineered mechanical components. With our head office in Chesterfield, Derbyshire and our sister company Engrenages HPC in Lyon, we now supply and distribute worldwide through a network of agents.
New Machine Purchased: Class 1 accuracy (VDI/VDE 2612/13) INOVA gear inspection machine purchased, due for delivery late April 2010. This will be housed in our newly built climate controlled extension enabling all aspects of gear teeth to be measured with the latest technology.
This latest investment shows Ondrives' continued commitment to the gear market and will take Ondrives to the next level in terms of reliability, customer service and reputation for being the best at what we do, states Managing Director, Ben Hinchliffe. We hope this shows the level of dedication we have to our customers with regards to supplying the very best quality gears and gear products, he continues.
Two Mazak Smart turning centres purchased in September 2010 to expand Ondrives' production facilities, specifically for the precision gear range. These machines also compliment the bar feed Mazak machines already being used for the higher volume work. Both of these machines are the latest design from Mazak which enable Ondrives to handle more business producing accurate turned gear blanks.
2011: February
Ondrives take receipt of a new state of the art S21 grinding machine designed for the grinding of workpieces in individual as well as small and large series production operations. It is particularly suitable for high precision work, as required by the aerospace, precision mechanics and hydraulic/pneumatic sectors ensuring customers are assured of the top quality finish they have come to expect of Ondrives.
There is a turret wheelhead that swivels automatically, a frequency controlled motor grinding spindle for external and internal grinding from 42,000 to 60,000 rpm and it is able to sense when about to touch on for grinding. As well as an automatic dressing of the grinding wheel using studiers latest software that brings a high level of functions to grinding operations which are not available on older machines. This makes it a multi-functional machine for Ondrives’ grinding operations on so many different levels that it was absolutely necessary to add this to their extensive, up-to-date range of CNC machines states Sales Director, Andy Higgs.
The workhead for universal use in live grinding operations and grinding between centres is of particular use and Ondrives decided to have the option of having a workhead specially designed for grinding chuck components also fitted, so that every eventuality is covered where necessary. There is a full enclosure with 2 sliding doors and the machine base is made of Granitan making this a truly exceptional piece of kit that feels right at home at Ondrives’ impressive manufacturing plant.
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