SKF has expanded its expertise from manufacturing to maintenance of bearings and lubrication. Image: SKF
SKF has expanded its expertise from manufacturing to maintenance of bearings and lubrication with its Bearing Maintenance Assessment.
When time is money on a busy quarry, operators can hardly afford to stop and wait for maintenance duties to be carried out. However, experienced staff will understand that the more care taken during maintenance, the greater productivity will be as a result.
SKF quarry and cement segment manager, Johan van der Westhuizen, highlighted the significant productivity gains enabled by the assessment.
“Maintenance must be seen through a lens of pros and cons,” he said. “Of course, machines must be shut down to perform maintenance, but our assessment offers valuable insights to optimise maintenance practices, ultimately maximising up-time, and performance.”
These troubling times of high inflation and logistical bottlenecks have only exacerbated the need for responsible maintenance.
Through SKF’s Bearing Maintenance Assessment program, its application engineers evaluate customers’ maintenance processes.
The program covers four main pillars of maintenance: basic condition monitoring; machinery alignment; mounting and dismounting of rolling bearings; and lubrication.
Application engineers will conduct a thorough inspection of production lines and the maintenance workshop to assess current practices and available tools.
Based on the findings, SKF’s assessor team will build up a report using its expertise in rotating equipment performance. This report will reveal the status of the customer’s methods, tools, and processes as an unbiased overview of the facility’s maintenance performance, by means of a tailored maintenance maturity radar chart.
The report will also include a comprehensive set of recommendations on how to improve, so that unplanned downtime caused by poor bearing fitting practices can be reduced.
It never surprises van der Westhuizen how a simple fix can benefit an operation so greatly.
“Approximately 16 per cent of all premature bearing failures are caused by poor mounting methods,” he said. “Right from the start, these machines are destined to breakdown and operators may never realise without our assessment.”
When it comes to dismounting, maintenance teams must pay careful consideration to the potential reuse of bearings and related components. If they’re to be reused, extra care must be taken to avoid damaging them or applying unfavourable loads.
Similarly, the program can detect if incorrect types or volumes of lubricant are used and whether contaminants are present. An engineer may recommend the use of grease meters alongside single- and multi-point automatic lubrication systems to optimise lubrication efficacy and reduce the risk of bearing failures.
Shaft and belt alignment is another important pillar for assessment. Accurately aligning shafts and belts can prevent many machinery breakdowns and reduce unplanned downtime that results in a loss of production, according to van der Westhuizen.
“Shaft and belt misalignment account for up to 36 per cent of all costs related to rotating machinery breakdowns,” he said.
Employing predictive maintenance strategies are essential to any functional quarry or cement plant. The Bearing Maintenance Assessment is just another tool at an operator’s disposal as they monitor factors such as temperature, vibration, speed, sound and visual anomalies.
The first step is self-assessment
So, how should quarry and cement plant managers initiate SKF’s Bearing Maintenance Assessment? Before an SKF engineer visits the site, a customer’s maintenance and reliability team should complete the Quick Maintenance Review self-assessment.
This initial step will serve to clarify intended maintenance practices and establish a baseline against actual practices. Identified discrepancies become pivotal in prioritising problem areas, laying the groundwork for subsequent actions.
Upon completion of the self-assessment, SKF can be engaged further to delve deeper into identified discrepancies and facilitate the process of closing the gap between current bearing maintenance practices and optimal maintenance standards.
Whether a business is only committed to regular maintenance intervals or wants to keep in constant touch with their facility’s performance, SKF has the tools required.
The Bearing Maintenance Assessment is becoming the standard in quarry and cement maintenance evaluation, but a Quick Maintenance Review is the first step to success – one that should not be missed.
For more information on the self-assessment tool, visit the Quick Maintenance Review tool.
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