Technical Papers
Special Relationships and License Agreements
1964-1992: Alliance with the Glacier Metal Company, Ltd.
In 1964, Pioneer, as an independent company, became allied with the Glacier Metal Company Ltd. of the UK. At that time Glacier was Europe’s largest plain bearing manufacturer with a world-renowned staff of bearing research engineers, five plants in England and Scotland and 4,500 employees. During the first ten years of our relationship, Glacier owned more than 50% of all the patents in the world that had been issued pertaining to plain bearing materials. With Glacier as our mentor, Pioneer moved up to the next level of knowledge and expertise in our industry in the U.S.
The scope of our alliance included all non-automotive Glacier bearings: industrial general products; Rotating Plant Bearings (tilt pad radial and thrust bearings); diesel engine bearings; marine propulsion bearings; and even bridge bearings. Our solid relationship continued into the 1990s by which time Glacier began to operate on a separate division basis and sold off segments of its business to American, Japanese and South African interests among others. This special relationship literally began on a handshake and lasted almost 30 years until Glacier’s demise.
Pioneer’s relationship with Glacier, apart from providing Pioneer with a world-class mentor in the bearing business, created increased value to customers.
Working with Glacier
The combination of Glacier’s wide spectrum of materials and Glacier and Pioneer’s manufacturing resources enabled the Glacier-Pioneer alliance to bring added value to Solar Turbines in San Diego, California.
From copper-lead, “tri-metal” mechanically pivoted tilting pad journal bearings manufactured in Glacier plants in the UK, to babbitted Fluid Pivot® and other journal bearings and seals produced by Pioneer, the alliance offered Solar “one-stop shopping” for all its bearing needs.
In addition, Pioneer’s proximity to Solar Turbines and its repair and service experience, provided excellent support for Glacier products.
1989: Exclusive Supply Agreement with Westinghouse Electric Corp.
In March, 1989, Pioneer became the exclusive supplier to the Power Generation Business Unit (PGBU) of Westinghouse Electric to manufacture and deliver 100% of the OEM’s requirements for new babbitt radial and thrust bearings designed by Westinghouse for all new large turbines and generators for land-based power generation and for existing machines as replacement parts. The duration of the agreement was for five years during which Westinghouse transferred the bulk of its operations from Pennsylvania to the Southeast.
1989: Exclusive License of IP Granted by Westinghouse for Service and Support
Coincident to the Exclusive Supply Agreement, in 1989 Pioneer entered into an exclusive license agreement with Westinghouse’s PGBU that gave Pioneer the right to possess and use all Westinghouse intellectual property (IP) related to radial and thrust bearings designed by Westinghouse for power generation for the purpose of repair and service to be performed directly by Pioneer for end-users in the electric utility market. The duration of the license was 5 years. In 1994, it was expanded to include repair services for Westinghouse bearings located anywhere in the world, and was put on an “evergreen” basis. The license survives to this day, with Siemens Energy as the successor-in-interest and now includes IP covering the bearings in Siemens’ steam and combustion power turbines and generators.
With this license, Pioneer became the first-ever North American bearing company independent of an OEM to be granted a license by an OEM in the power generation industry to use all its bearing intellectual property (drawings, specifications, etc.) to market and perform repair services directly to end-users.
1993: Exclusive License Granted by ABB for Service and Support
In 1990, Pioneer began supplying new Alstom-designed steam and gas turbine bearings to Alstom Power Service (Midlothian, Virginia, U.S.), often on short lead times to meet requirements of power plant outage schedules. Having earned ABB’s trust and confidence, in 1993 ABB followed the Westinghouse example and entered into an exclusive license agreement with Pioneer that gave Pioneer rights to ABB bearing IP that essentially were similar to those granted by Westinghouse. The license pertained to bearings in ABB large utility steam turbines and generators operating in the U.S. It included the IP of Brown-Boveri, Inc. (BBI).
2000: Alstom Acquires ABB Power Turbine Business and Adopts & Expands License
After a 16-month attempt to collaborate in a joint venture (ABB ALSTOM POWER), Alstom Power acquired ABB’s 50% share and became the owner of all of ABB’s power generation technology. After close examination, Alstom approved of, expanded and adopted as its own the ABB License, thus appointing Pioneer as its exclusive licensee of intellectual property related to ABB, BBI and Alstom power turbines and generators to render rapid-response repair services to end-users with the advantage of OEM drawings and specifications. At the same time, Pioneer became a key supplier of new steam and gas turbine bearings to Alstom.
2005-2017: Alliance with Rolls-Royce Power Engineering
In 1998, Michell Bearings, at that time a subsidiary of Vickers Limited, approached Pioneer seeking discussions to acquire the company. Though having no interest in selling the firm, Pioneer proposed a collaboration with Michell, a globally renowned and respected fluid film bearing engineering and manufacturing business. During more than five years of Pioneer and Michell becoming well acquainted and collaborating on an informal basis, the Rolls-Royce Group acquired Michell by virtue of its acquisition of Vickers’s marine business.
By 2004, all business plans for a formal alliance had been worked out and approved by Rolls-Royce. The formal contracts constituting the alliance between Rolls-Royce Power Engineering and Pioneer were signed in February, 2005. Pursuant to the agreements, Michell granted an exclusive license to Pioneer to have and use Michell intellectual property (IP) for the purpose of providing end-users with authorized and competent repair and service of Michell babbitt (whitemetal) bearings, and an exclusive license to use Michell IP (know-how and work methods) to manufacture and repair new polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) faced thrust bearings for the U.S. market and to provide PTFE bearing repair services to Canadian end-users. The two companies also entered into a Teaming Agreement with respect to service and repairs to be rendered to Rolls Royce Naval Marine, Inc. (Walpole, Massachusetts). Pioneer granted Michell Bearings a license to manufacture and sell Pioneer’s Fluid Pivot® tilting pad radial bearings.
Twelve years later, in November, 2015, British Engines Ltd, acquired Michell. The Michell-Pioneer alliance was narrowed down to service and support for Michell industrial and naval products in the U.S. as Michell established its own sales presence for Michell in the U.S. Thereafter, in June, 2022, with Michell having established an office in the U.S. as part of an expansion strategy, Pioneer and Michell agreed to terminate the remainder of the alliance as a result of the change of ownership and strategy of Michell Bearings.
2017: General Electric Acquires Alstom Power and Maintains the Pioneer License
In late 2017, as part of its acquisition of Alstom Power, GE endorsed the Alstom Power license granted to Pioneer and sought to maintain its existence. Thus, Pioneer became the exclusive licensee of General Electric Technologies GmbH (Switzerland) with respect to ABB, Alstom and BBI IP, as GE succeeded Alstom as the successor-of-interest to the agreement.
2017: Zollern Appoints Pioneer its Exclusive Licensee in North America for Technical Support
After becoming acquainted over a long period of time since December 2009, and then working together informally to serve aftermarket requirements of Zollern customers, in 2017 the Zollern Group’s Plain Bearing Technology division entered into an exclusive technology license agreement with Pioneer to strengthen its after-sale customer support. The agreement empowered Pioneer to use Zollern IP and proprietary information to provide a range of technical support services to end-users of Zollern hydrodynamic plain bearings in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Zollern’s Plain Bearing Technology division operated four bearing manufacturing plants in Germany, France and Brazil.
The alliance with Zollern assured Zollern OEM and end-user customers in North America of regional product support and a degree of stand-by emergency U.S manufacturing capability. In addition, Pioneer provided some engineering services (rotordynamics and bearing designs) to Zollern’s operation in Brazil.
On April 1, 2020, Pioneer terminated the alliance with Zollern on the basis of a change of ownership or control arising from the joint venture The Zollern Group entered into with MIBA (Austria), subsidiaries of which in the U.S. are competitors of Pioneer’s.
Pioneer – Yamato Collaboration
Yamato Metal (Kashiwa, Japan) traces its roots back to 1900, when it initially focused on special metal alloys, which grew to today’s impressive spectrum of products, such as those with high strength and resistance to corrosion, and others with low-melting point alloys (with dissolution temperatures from 50° up to 200°C). From this solid background in metallurgy and smelting, Yamato developed its tin-based, non-ferrous alloys used for plain bearings in industrial machinery. This became Yamato’s path to and long history of manufacturing high-quality bearings with consistent in-house production systems. The company is particularly proficient at handling many different types and styles of bearings in small lots, including high-precision tilting pad bearings which require technical expertise.
In 2014, Yamato Metal approached Pioneer to assist in its effort to develop the babbitt bearing aftermarket in Japan as well as to provide engineering support to Yamato and custom-engineered solutions to their customer base including in larger sizes easily accommodated by Pioneer.
After several years of becoming acquainted with each other’s facilities and capabilitiesas well as making visits to Japanese power plants and understanding their historic reliance on OEMs that steer customers to replace rather than repair worn or damaged bearings, Pioneer and Yamato agreed to collaborate as alliance partners. The structure of our collaboration is rooted in the deep trust and respect we hold for each other and allows the partnership to be as flexible as possible to serve our Japanese customers.
Though Pioneer has a long history of serving Japanese companies in the U.S., such as Mitsubishi’s gas turbine’s business and Toshiba’s hydroelectric operations, Yamato was instrumental in arranging the first visit to Pioneer’s facility in North Carolina by a team of engineers from a global Japanese industrial OEM seeking technical assistance.
Yamato also gained the respect and trust of a major Japanese end-user that led to the customer’s experiment conducted by Pioneer in North Carolina to determine if one of its worn or damaged bearings from a GE 7F gas turbine to be repaired by Pioneer could equal the quality of a new identical OEM part.
Pioneer performed its standard complete bearing repair regimen, including recasting. Pioneer went head-to-head with the new OEM bearing in a multitude of non-destructive and destructive tests, including a Chalmer’s test, and post-destructive microscopic investigations. In a sweeping report produced and financed by the Japanese end-user, Pioneer’s aftermarket repairs resulted in the repaired bearing showing better results in some critical criteria. And based on objective findings, the evidence demonstrated that the overall quality of the repaired bearing exceeded that of the OEM new part. To quote the report:
“The manufacturer’s product [OEM] tended to partially peel off at the interface between the white metal and the steel material, but with the repaired product, no peeling was observed at the interface, and no problem in use was confirmed.
Even if the influence of interfacial peeling is excluded, the strength of the repaired product is greater than that of the manufacturer’s product.”
Our goal is to enlighten end-users on the benefits of after-market bearing repairs such as faster turnaround times, more competitive prices, and even an equal or superior product.
If you are in Japan and interested in after-market bearing repair services or need a custom-engineered solution for a new product or a problematic existing, please contact our friends at Yamato Metal or us at Pioneer directly.