Forms & Gears joins hands with Sandvik Coromant to provide complete tooling and fixture solutions

Chennai: Forms and Gears has tied up with metal-cutting and digital manufacturing solutions giant Sandvik Coromant to provide technical solutions in their South Asian and South East Asian as well as Australian markets.

"Sandvik too have an IoT system but it is mostly on tooling. Without the fixturing side, it does not become a complete solution," Forms & Gears Managing Director, Reji Varghese said. "So together we are giving clients a complete package. We are also offering turnkey solutions to give complete solutions to clients. Sandvik gives the tooling and we give the fixtures and we both work on the digitisation and give clients a fully digitised solution."

From Sandvik, the partnership is being driven by Vinay Deshpande - VP Strategic Relations. Sandvik Coromant India and Peter Rollauer - VP, Strategic Relations, Sandvik Coromant (South and East Asia), Varghese said.


Forms & Gears, provides complete fixture solutions from concept to run off on Turnkey solutions. The fixture builder has been providing the complete fixture solutions across the globe for the last 45 years.

He added that Forms & Gears has ventured into designing and manufacturing special purpose machines for lasers. High powered lasers are now being used for welding, cutting and so on and the company has partnered with a German company for the same.

Talking about the recently launched 'SmartFix4.0,' which has been jointly developed in collaboration with Bengaluru-based ASM Technologies, he said it is a precision workholding device with the ability to collect, transmit and analyse data in a useful format for the end-user.

"Developed for the first time in the world, it takes workholding devices and fixtures into the digital and cyber space," he said. "As the fixture is in continuous contact with the component, it is the ideal device to collect and analyse data at the component level. Sensors to monitor vibration, pressure, and component sensing are mounted on the fixture. Sensors to monitor oil levels and temperature are mounted on the powerpack."

He explained that the high volume of data collected from these sensors are continuously transmitted wirelessly to the cloud where it is parsed and stored for analysis.

"The raw data is then analysed using Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence tools and sent back to a custom-built dashboard of the end user, which resembles their factory floor, showing all the machines in action as well as a quick summary on the health of each machine, fixture and powerpack," he said.