Driving a bargain

Over the last year, the power transmission industry has been innovating right across the sector. From power chain technology to minimising the number of components within a system and creating methods of managing power quality, companies have been improving their existing technologies.

'The major trend at the moment is integration,' said Glen Phillips, customer services manager at

. 'By integrating several items to create a drive system it reduces the number of components needed.

'Whereas once you would have a motor, a feedback or measurement system a controller and a driver, now these are being integrated into one or two products — such as having the drives, controllers and motors as a single unit. As well as the simplicity, this also saves both money and space.'

Contamination of some products by oils and lubricants may cost manufacturers thousands of pounds, meaning that finding ways to dispense with them is also vital.

'There are some applications where lubricants are difficult or unwanted — for example, managing with a heavily lubricated chain in a hygiene sensitive environment such as the food industry is not good,' said David Turner, marketing communications manager for