The manufacturer screening process consists of two parts:
1) Commercial

a. Identification of all manufacturers

b. US market qualification

c. Obtaining price and delivery information

2) Product performance testing of the four (4) most price competitive US qualified manufacturers

Commercial

The commercial portion of the process started with the creation of a list of those companies marketing themselves as ball screw manufacturers, by means of searching multiple industrial supplier web sites.The web site of each manufacturer was reviewed and each was sent an e-mail to confirm that they produced a catalog line of industrial ball screws. This created a Ball Screw Manufacturer List. This list was then qualified by means of objective filtering criteria to create a US Qualified Ball Screw Manufacturer List. In order to obtain price and delivery information, a request for quote for a representative product (16mm diameter, 5mm lead, DIN standard nut, C10 accuracy, clearance preload level) was sent to each qualified ball screw manufacturer.

The outcome of commercial portion of the supplier screening process is the identification of all manufacturers, qualification per operating criteria (legal US sales representation, standard minimum warrantee,and operation in accordance with ISO 9001), and price and delivery information from the qualified manufacturers.

Product Performance Testing

Based upon the commercial data, the four (4) most cost competitive qualified manufacturers were selected for product performance testing. Product testing was performed on common equipment, utilizing common protocols and procedures, in order to allow for side-by-side comparison to each other and, where applicable, comparison with their catalog specifications.

Six (6) performance attributes were tested for a population of six (6) of each manufacturers’ ball screw:

·        Load-Life

·        Accuracy

·        Efficiency

·        Smoothness

·        Stiffness

·        Reversing Band

Results from the above, including all details of the processes and test protocols used,as well as individual product test results are provided.