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The philosophy of this specialist in flat glass and insulating glass processing machinery centres on understanding specific customer requirements to develop increasingly highperformance solutions that process the ‘glass of tomorrow’. This ethos requires continuous and important investments in R&D, and the identification of technologies that can provide notable advantages to its customers.

A case in point involved the company’s vertical drilling and milling machine, which had several demands for linear guides during the development process, not least high loads, high precision, easy assembly and error-free mounting. Furthermore, the quality of glass pane processing depends mostly on system stability when using the various drilling or milling tools, while corrosion problems can result for horizontal rail guides from the mix of cooling water and glass particles.

Following technical and commercial discussions, as well as testing on small prototypes, NSK successfully proposed its NH30 (stainless steel version) horizontal linear rails with parallel axes to withstand severe corrosion. This robust design configuration and a successful testing phase secured the contract for NSK.

The stainless steel version of the NSK NH series has a special quality to ensure the same load as standard NH versions: the material can be hardened, making it a proposition unique to NSK. This factor was highly attractive to the customer, which knew that using a standard coating was unrealistic as it would quickly erode from the scratching effect of glass dust.

A final consideration in selecting the optimal supplier of linear guides was NSK’s official Italian distributor, Veneta Bearings. By using Veneta, the customer can benefit from the parallel supply of ancillary items such as chains, belts, racks and pinions, which are not part of NSK’s product portfolio. Today, the customer is profiting from a combination of NSK’s technical experience and a robust commercial collaboration through its official distribution channel.