When ferocious winds swell waves on the North Sea, the offshore drilling rigs that dot the water need to adjust. Platforms that were set for a calm sea need to be raised quickly so the unrelenting sea doesn't swamp the deck. As many as 125 people live on a rig at one time and their livelihoods depend on the rig operating efficiently and reliably.

Thankfully, the rigs come equipped with radial piston pumps attached to each leg. Those pumps, manufactured by The Oilgear Company, are a dependable lifesaver when the rig needs a fast jackup due to lashing winds and rising seas. And Nachi America plays a vital part in that reliability. Nachi manufactures the bearings that are such an integral part of the reliable radial piston design. Rig operators want that level of comfort when they need to raise a platform in a hurry, up to 100-feet off the surface of the water.

"Those platforms, if you've never seen them up close, can be the size of a city block. Some of them are huge, and almost unbelievable," says Dale Boyke, Oilgear's vice-president of marketing and sales.

Boyke knows that the bearing's performance is critical to the performance of Oilgear's pumps.

"If we have a lousy bearing, you've got a lousy product," admits Boyke. "Like a wheel turning on a car, the bearing has to run smoothly and reliably," Boyke says. "If you have a lousy bearing, you're not going to get a smooth ride. This is the same thing but this is so much more precise and accurate that it's got to turn smoothly and in balance."

Nachi's bearings are used in Oilgear's large pumps. Besides Oilgear's radial piston pumps, the bearings can also be found in large axial piston pumps. Typical Oilgear customers are large press builders and the automotive industry.

"For us, quality is the number one issue," says Tom Lajsic, Oilgear's supervisor of purchasing. "It always is. If the quality wasn't there, we would not be using those bearings."

Nachi manufactures custom bearings for Oilgear pumps such as the large D pump bearings. The D pump is a radial piston pump. Applications for these pumps include extrusion presses, forging presses, and large industrial equipment. Yet, despite the special nature of the bearings, Nachi keeps them in their inventory, ready to ship out at a moment's notice.

"They're very expensive bearings," Lajsic says of the D pump bearings, "so it's very nice to have someone that stocks them for us and eliminates our need to carry a lot of them on the shelf.

"The majority of what we purchase from Nachi is custom bearings. That's why it is so nice that they put them on the shelf for us. They make them in advance and they inventory them for us. There was no one else that gave us that kind of vendor support."

"Lead times on bearings can run a very long time," says Michael S. Hunt, national sales manager for Nachi America's bearing division. "Somebody has to be willing to commit to that inventory level. It's rare that we get a customer able to forecast and give us good information that far out. So we recognize that there's a need for somebody to maintain the inventory levels."

Oilgear's partnership with Nachi America is four years old and since the outset, Nachi's willingness to carry bearings for Oilgear in inventory, thus reducing Oilgear's carrying costs, has been important.

"That's been a staple since we started," Lajisic said. "It was one of the key points - the fact that they were very price competitive, they had a good, quality product, and they're willing to put stock on the shelves for us. That's a very big plus."

Nachi realized how important stocking inventory was to Oilgear. "We realized going into our relationship with Oilgear that there was going to be a need for maintaining a stock level here (Indianapolis)," Nachi's Hunt says. "What we try to do with them as well as a lot of our other OEM customers is maintain a two to three month inventory here and basically have that pipeline filled with product coming in on a regular basis to replenish the product that's being taken away."

Lajisic has been pleased with Nachi's customer service, too.

"Their sales staff is very technically-oriented and very service-oriented," Lajisic said. "Whenever we have a problem, they're here to look at it. We've never had any major quality problems but every once in a while you get something that might have been damaged in shipment or maybe a question with a noisy bearing that may or may not be the bearing's fault. It may be something else but they're right here to take a look and help you determine what the problem is."

"If there's an issue there that they feel strong enough about to call us and say there's an issue, we need to take it upon ourselves to react to that," Hunt says. "And quicker is always better than later."

Oilgear, founded in 1921, now has 1,000 employees. The largest location is the headquarters in Milwaukee, which has 300,000 square feet. Other Oilgear facilities are in Longview, TX., Fremont, NE., Leeds, England, Hernani, Spain, Hattersheim, Germany, Paris, France and Belgaum, India.

The company has enjoyed four successive positive quarters. Boyke believes a new line of pumps and a new focus on electro-hydraulic systems has keyed Oilgear's resurgence.

Nachi has played a part in the rally, too. Boyke says, "Tom (Lajisic) is very, very pleased with the relationship with Nachi. I don't deal with them directly - Tom and the engineering and manufacturing groups do that. But they seem to be very pleased and if they're pleased, then as a vice-president of sales, I'm pleased."



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