Tailor-made: Rollon Customizes Cutting-edge Linear Motion Solutions

The digital age has spawned a new era in consumer patterns, and an online market ecosystem that revolves around a potent allure: Immediate satisfaction. See a product, click a link, and it’s delivered to your doorstep in two days or less.

Similar dynamics characterize the business-to-business marketplace. Today’s engineers expect quick responses from manufacturers, and, increasingly, customization of products and services for highly specialized applications in both traditional and emerging markets.

“I like to think of Rollon as a high-tech tailor shop that can model the perfect-fitting component to the peculiarities of the application that needs it.”

Fabrizio Gallone
Senior Application Department Manager, Rollon

When Timken acquired Rollon in 2018, it not only added to its broad portfolio of power transmission and motion control solutions, it also enhanced its capacity to adapt, thrive, and stand out in this supply and “on-demand” universe.

Rollon specializes in the design and manufacture of linear actuators and linear and telescopic guides. Its products are widespread — in hospitals, retail establishments, factories, eco-friendly e-buses and aircraft, to name a few. Rollon is an industry leader, renowned for customizing solutions for some of the world’s most complex linear motion applications.

“I like to think of Rollon as a high-tech tailor shop that can model the perfect-fitting component to the peculiarities of the application that needs it,” says Fabrizio Gallone, a senior application department manager for Rollon.

Tailored Technical Expertise

Gallone estimates that more than 75 percent of the company’s business is driven by its ability to generate complex, customized solutions.

Ideal for many industrial purposes, telescopic rails feature linear and curved guides with ball and roller bearings, hardened raceways, high load capacities, low bending, and shock- and vibration-resistance. Actuator systems are responsible for movement and control of a mechanism. They likewise serve many industrial functions, from machinery servo systems to high-precision assembly, packaging and production applications.

But these are not simple, out-of-the-box, one-size-fits-all products.

“When you have so many different components in a system, mechanics and physics are a constant consideration,” says Gallone. “Because these are self-supporting systems, you have to calculate deflection and torsion, speed, acceleration, accuracy, thrust force, and so on. You need to be a little bit of an inventor when you build a system to meet the customer’s needs.”

New Frontiers
In addition to traditional markets, Rollon serves the growing field of intralogistics, the operation and management of automated warehouses. This aligns with Timken’s larger trajectory, as automation now represents its second largest individual end-market.

Similarly, Gallone says he sees opportunity in the frontier field of “cobots,” or collaborative robots, which have articulated arms and can be programmed to perform various tasks alongside humans, most commonly in warehouse or factory settings. With the expansion of cobots in areas such as agriculture and automated food production, where more motion will be required, he believes that Rollon is well-positioned to provide its expertise.

According to Gallone, Rollon’s advanced customization capacities distinguish the company from its competitors. “Our edge is that we don’t sell products. We sell solutions.”

Learn more about my Rollon, a new configuration platform that enables users to customize their own linear motion solutions.

Last Updated: 2023/11/27

Published: 2022/06/17