PDM Success Story:
Amsbeck machine technology

Cut centrifugal clutch

Amsbeck Maschinentechnik: The centrifugal force specialist for clutches and brakes

Customized complete solutions – especially for high-quality centrifugal clutches and centrifugal brakes. This is Amsbeck Maschinentechnik.
For almost 40 years, about 35 employees in Everswinkel have been developing, producing and selling sophisticated solutions for drive technology. Amsbeck Maschinentechnik currently delivers between 80 and 100,000 clutches and brakes per year.
The majority of customers come from the construction machinery industry. The specialists from the heart of Münsterland are also trusted in the areas of transport cooling systems, pump systems, blowers, compressors or forestry machines.
Last but not least, centrifugal clutches provide the drive in karting. Anyone who has ever pressed the accelerator pedal of a kart while stationary knows how the centrifugal clutch engages the engine at the so-called cut-in speed. Without having to switch gears yourself. Ideal for drives requiring high starting torque. Similar to the centrifugal brake, which basically does not brake to a standstill. Rather, it only keeps the turning speed constant. Exactly what abseiling equipment, cranes, lifts or safety gates need.
Over the years, Amsbeck Maschinentechnik added further products such as slip-on and flange-mounted gearboxes and hydraulically switchable couplings to its portfolio. The company is currently investing in research and development for electromagnetic and hydraulic clutches.

Centrifugal-technique from construction kit

Ralf Winter, design manager at Amsbeck Maschinentechnik: “In principle, we offer centrifugal clutches and centrifugal brakes from a modular system. Around 24,000 documents, almost exclusively CAD data, have been created over the years. Of course, in addition to clutches and brakes with standard parameters, we also fulfil unusual customer requests. For example, pulleys with special diameters or special connection dimensions, but also inch dimensions are on the agenda at Amsbeck. In the technical office, four design engineers work with Autodesk Inventor and some still with AutoCAD.”
Ralf Winter continues: “The designs with AutoCAD are becoming fewer and fewer. You are simply faster in Inventor when changes are required. I change a component and the assembly automatically changes with it. So do the drawing derivations.”

The PSP replacement favourite already in the run-up: GAIN Collaboration

Back in October 2017, Autodesk discontinued support for its PDM solution Productstream Professional (PSP).
Until recently, Amsbeck Maschinentechnik also relied on the PDM system, which was popular for its performance. Ralf Winter: “We have worked with Productstream Professional for eight years. After Autodesk discontinued support for PSP, GAIN Collaboration was one of our favorites pretty early on. It’s just quite similar to the PSP. And also convinces with its flexibility and simplicity of operation.
To be on the safe side, we had looked at Autodesk Vault Professional, among other competitors. However, it seemed to us with too much formality. Overall, the operation is simply too complex. One factor in our decision was the significantly lower price compared to Vault Professional.
In this respect, it is GAIN Collaboration’s price-performance ratio that ultimately convinced us quite clearly.”

PDM introduction: test phase and migration

The PDM introduction and the GoLive at Amsbeck Maschinentechnik went smoothly.
Winter: “Everything is really fine. The successful test phase was quickly followed by the migration of all data by GAIN Software. Of course, including the transfer of all previous classes with their characteristics.”

After PSP: Classifications as required

The designers are pleased about the new classification possibilities with GAIN Collaboration.
Ralf Winter: “With Productstream Professional, which only provided 5 classes for classification, we always had to invest more work than would have been necessary with another classification feature. With GAIN Collaboration, we have now expanded to 6, 7, 8 features.
Even if we still have to maintain some details in the database because they were not available, we can now filter according to these characteristics. We have now created a separate class for almost all of our components and have been able to classify them accordingly.”
And so the specialists for centrifugal clutches and brakes carry well over 100 classes for clutch characteristics or individual parts. Winter continues: “Our clutches and brakes are mainly installed in connection with combustion engines. Here, the clutches are usually pushed onto shafts. This means that a profile hub always has the shaft diameter as a reference – as a classification feature. The same applies to the “groove width” feature or the indication of which ball bearing is seated on this hub. Or the “centrifugal weight used” among other characteristics. We also have a class of coupling types for our belt or flange driven couplings. With flexible or highly flexible coupling. And they all have their specific, different characteristics.”

Intuitive operation after a short introduction

A PDM system should be quick to learn and support its users as quickly and easily as possible.
The design engineers in the technical office of Amsbeck Maschinentechnik agree: “In our specific case, extensive training, as you would imagine, was not necessary. Much in GAIN Collaboration is self-explanatory. Of course we received a demonstration from GAIN Software. And finally we had a few questions. But the bottom line is that the general use of GAIN Collaboration is really surprisingly easy. We all had imagined this point to be more extensive. After only one and a half days we were able to work with the system without any problems. The performance has also improved noticeably. Some display options, such as masks or the extension of classes, we simply do ourselves. Apart from that, we usually rely on the staff at GAIN Software. They always help us very quickly.”