“Wherever something is in motion, balls are at work.” Michael Weißhaupt knows this from experience. The trained car mechanic has a passion for balls and for motion – the ideal person to speak to therefore about KGM’s high precision products. Michael Weißhaupt can already look back on 25 years of working for the company. Today he holds the positions of Head of Production Planning and Logistics, and Head of IT.

Michael Weißhaupt’s favourite ball is the ball as a drawing part. This is a ball that in addition to the usual requirements of the standard also meets additional requirements. The structural part is mainly used in the engines of BMW motorcycles. “Our drawing ball is a wear-resistant precision object,” says the native of Großenlüder. “It is used in regulating the valve clearance. For this you need balls of different sizes “As an avid motorcyclist, Michael Weißhaupt is big into the technical details that keep him safe when put together properly. What is involved is a ball of eight millimetres in diameter, which is sanded at intervals of an almost imperceptible 25 microns at the lower end.

The starting size of the ball is always the same, only the sanding changes, thereby regulating the size.

To distinguish, the balls of chrome steel are laser marked. Overall, the company specialises in small diameters – even if the largest balls made by KGM, used in diggers in lignite mining, are at least 320 mm. The biggest part – between 60 and 70 percent – of the production of over three billion pieces annually is used in automobile manufacturing. There are in fact hundreds of balls of various materials in different sizes up to about two centimetres in diameter in one single vehicle.