FOR GEAR MAKERS
A gear goes through turning, hobbing or shaping, heat treatment and often grinding, and each step has its own machine, rate and risk. Kojo prices every operation from your own cycle times and rates, helps you plan the hobbers and grinders, and keeps work in progress and payments in view.
HOW THE WORK IS PRICED
Most of a gear's cost is machine time. The blank, a forging, bar or casting in a case-hardening steel such as EN353 or 20MnCr5, or a through-hardening grade such as EN19 or EN24, is turned first. Hobbing time then depends on module, number of teeth, face width, helix angle, hob starts and the number of cuts. Shaping is slower and is used for internal gears and teeth close to a shoulder. Grinding after heat treatment is the slowest and costliest step, and it is what a tighter DIN or ISO quality class usually calls for. Many buyers supply forgings as free-issue material and pay for conversion only.
Heat treatment is usually priced per kg or per batch: carburising and hardening to a specified case depth, induction hardening or nitriding, done in-house or at a vendor. Distortion in the furnace decides how much grinding stock to leave and how many gears end up as rejects. Setup is heavy, with fixtures, hob mounting and, on older mechanical hobbers, change gears, so small batches cost far more per piece than volume work, which often uses shaving before heat treatment instead of grinding after. Special hobs and cutters for non-standard modules or profiles are quoted as tooling, and checking on a gear tester for profile, lead and runout adds time to every lot.
THE HEADACHES
Two estimators give two hobbing times for the same gear, so the price depends on who picked up the enquiry. The real knowledge sits in one senior person's head.
Carburised gears move in the furnace. If grinding stock and rejections aren't allowed for in the price, the profit is lost in the grinding room.
Gear grinders are few and costly. When the plan lives on a whiteboard, urgent jobs jump the queue and promised dates slip for everyone else.
Mixed modules and face widths mean frequent hob and fixture changes. Short runs priced like long ones lose money.
THE WORKFLOW
The buyer sends a drawing with module, number of teeth, pressure angle, helix angle, quality class, heat treatment and case depth. Some send a worn gear to copy.
Plan the route: blank turning, hobbing or shaping, deburring, heat treatment, bore and face grinding, gear grinding and inspection. Cost each step with its cycle time and hour rate, then add tooling and heat treatment.
Arrange forgings or bar, or receive the customer's free-issue blanks. Order special hobs or cutters for non-standard specifications.
Turn, hob or shape, chamfer and deburr, planned so that each heat treatment batch goes out full.
Carburise and harden in-house or at a vendor, then grind bore, faces and teeth. Check each lot on the gear tester and keep the reports.
Pack with inspection reports, dispatch with the invoice and follow up on payment.
WHERE KOJO FITS
COMMERCIAL
LIVECaptures how your senior estimator prices a gear: cycle times for turning, hobbing, shaping and grinding, machine hour rates and setup allowances. Kojo applies them the same way on every job, whoever quotes.
Explore module →COMMERCIAL
LIVEPick the customer and part, and Kojo fills in material, machining, setup, overhead and margin. Heat treatment and other outside work are priced from your own rates and costing rules, set up during onboarding, and the PDF quote is ready in minutes.
Explore module →OPERATIONS
ROLLING OUTDrag orders onto hobbers, shapers and grinders on a visual plan. Clashes on the grinder are spotted before they happen, not when the customer calls.
Explore module →OPERATIONS
ROLLING OUTOperators log production, rejects, downtime and raw material for each shift on a tablet with big buttons, so rejects after heat treatment are recorded, not forgotten. It works offline and syncs.
Explore module →INTELLIGENCE
ROLLING OUTLive work in progress, machine utilisation and order status on one screen, plus a daily report to the owner's phone showing where each order stands.
Explore module →COMMERCIAL
ROLLING OUTReminds customers before and after each due date on WhatsApp, email and SMS, and shows who owes what and for how long.
Explore module →STARTER TO ENTERPRISE
Start with quoting, add production, inventory and payments, then scale across plants with integrations and a dedicated support team.
STARTER
Start with quoting. Your estimator's cycle times, hour rates and heat treatment rates go into Kojo, so every gear is priced the same way and the method no longer sits with one person.
GROWTH
Add shop-floor logging, inventory and BOM costing to record output and rejects after heat treatment and see what each gear really costs.
ENTERPRISE
For groups with more than one plant, or a separate heat treatment shop, Enterprise adds multi-plant roll-up reporting, an open API and integrations for accounting and ERP systems, a dedicated support team and an uptime SLA.
NUMBERS TO WATCH
GRINDER UTILISATION
The gear grinder is usually the costliest hour in the shop and the one that sets delivery dates.ACTUAL AGAINST QUOTED CYCLE TIME
If hobbing and grinding take longer than the quote assumed, every repeat order loses money.REJECTION AFTER HEAT TREATMENT
A gear rejected after hardening has already absorbed all its soft machining and furnace cost.ON-TIME DELIVERY
Gearbox and machine builders plan their own assembly around your dates.QUESTIONS
Kojo uses your own figures rather than a generic formula. During onboarding, Kiviro captures your senior estimator's cycle times per operation, machine hour rates and setup allowances, and Kojo applies them the same way on every gear.
Heat treatment, like other processes beyond machining, is quoted from your own rates and costing rules, set up during onboarding. That way the vendor's charges are part of every quote instead of being added from memory.
Yes. The scheduler lets you drag orders onto each machine on a visual plan, so the grinder's queue is visible on its own. Clashes are spotted before they happen.
Book a free 30-minute visit. We'll run one of your real jobs through Kojo on the spot. Outside India? We'll do it on a video call.
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