The precision tooling company founded by Heinz Kaiser in Rümlang, Switzerland, celebrates its 70th anniversary this year.
In 1948, the 25-year-old Heinz Kaiser decided to give up his permanent job and start his own business near Zurich, Switzerland. His vision was to advance the development of high-quality tools needed to keep pace with the increasing productivity of machine tool technology at that time.
Heinz Kaiser had clear goals in mind: modern tools, manufactured in his own workshop, meeting high requirements. That meant designing tools which were strong, well-balanced and capable of boring precise holes with high accuracy and surface quality. Over time, this commitment to ongoing research and development was enriched by decades of experience in the design, manufacture and application of efficient cutting solutions. The result was a complete range of CKB (KAB) tool and clamping systems for boring, milling, drilling, and external turning which are still widely used in industries around the world today.
Now a member of the BIG Daishowa Group of companies, BIG KAISER Precision Tooling, Hoffman Estates, IL, continues to have an integral role in the company’s worldwide R & D and manufacturing strategy. The next generation of products developed in Switzerland delivers connectivity essential to today’s smart manufacturing environments. For example, the EWE Digital Boring Heads enable repeatable and highly precise cutting parameters (.0001" and finer) and connect to a smartphone or tablet app to configure, monitor and track historical adjustments for multiple tools.
It has been 70 years since Heinz Kaiser started his success story with strong will, much faith and a little bit of luck. Many things have changed in the world of manufacturing and technology, but the quality standards of BIG KAISER Precision Tooling are unchanged. We want to say thank you to our customers, friends and supporters over these 70 years.
Related Glossary Terms
- boring
boring
Enlarging a hole that already has been drilled or cored. Generally, it is an operation of truing the previously drilled hole with a single-point, lathe-type tool. Boring is essentially internal turning, in that usually a single-point cutting tool forms the internal shape. Some tools are available with two cutting edges to balance cutting forces.
- gang cutting ( milling)
gang cutting ( milling)
Machining with several cutters mounted on a single arbor, generally for simultaneous cutting.
- milling
milling
Machining operation in which metal or other material is removed by applying power to a rotating cutter. In vertical milling, the cutting tool is mounted vertically on the spindle. In horizontal milling, the cutting tool is mounted horizontally, either directly on the spindle or on an arbor. Horizontal milling is further broken down into conventional milling, where the cutter rotates opposite the direction of feed, or “up” into the workpiece; and climb milling, where the cutter rotates in the direction of feed, or “down” into the workpiece. Milling operations include plane or surface milling, endmilling, facemilling, angle milling, form milling and profiling.
- turning
turning
Workpiece is held in a chuck, mounted on a face plate or secured between centers and rotated while a cutting tool, normally a single-point tool, is fed into it along its periphery or across its end or face. Takes the form of straight turning (cutting along the periphery of the workpiece); taper turning (creating a taper); step turning (turning different-size diameters on the same work); chamfering (beveling an edge or shoulder); facing (cutting on an end); turning threads (usually external but can be internal); roughing (high-volume metal removal); and finishing (final light cuts). Performed on lathes, turning centers, chucking machines, automatic screw machines and similar machines.
