Delivering results for a coffee manufacturer

Condition monitoring identified a machine fault and led to significant savings

With research revealing that UK manufacturers spend an average of £100,000 per week on unscheduled maintenance, it is clear that faulty machinery can have a hugely negative impact on the bottom line. Keeping assets operating efficiently and effectively is critical to productivity and business performance, and with over half of outages caused by hidden internal faults, a robust asset management strategy is essential.

Implementing machine condition monitoring as part of that strategy helps to mitigate unplanned maintenance by providing valuable insight into the health, condition and performance of assets and enabling predictive and preventative maintenance decisions based on real-time data. Identifying and addressing faults quickly reduces their impact on yield and increases the availability and lifetime of assets as well as reducing downtime and costs.

The Challenge
For more than a decade, a leading global coffee manufacturer has partnered with RS to provide preventative maintenance solutions including weekly onsite mobile condition monitoring and oil analysis services at its UK processing plant.

The fault, which had developed on a process-critical motor in the freeze dry section, was picked up using vibration analysis

As part of a routine condition monitoring check, an RS Condition Monitoring Engineer discovered a bearing fault on a fan in the evaporator system that had gone undetected by the customer. The fault, which had developed on a process-critical motor in the freeze dry section, was picked up using vibration analysis, a predictive maintenance method that can detect early issues in rotating machinery such as gearboxes, fans, shafts, motors and compressors.

The Solution
Flagged to the engineer through an elevated vibration reading on the motor, the fault was repaired and the bearings replaced. The issue was so significant that left undetected it could have resulted in up to 24 hours’ downtime.

Total costs would have exceeded £250,000

Combined with the potential for a huge amount of product wastage and the cost of a replacement motor, the total costs would have exceeded £250,000 for the customer.

The Outcome
The benefits of condition monitoring for businesses are significant and tangible, cutting downtime by 40%, reducing maintenance costs by half and extending the lifetime of assets by a third.

For this particular customer, the results have been substantial. As Rob Webster, Head of Onsite Condition Monitoring and Asset Management at RS, explains, “Condition monitoring can identify decreased performance or potential for failure in machinery and in this instance, it’s saved the customer a huge amount of money.

“To put it into context, the total saved from this single fault find is more than the site has paid for its entire condition monitoring programme to date.”

Condition monitoring, just one of the preventative maintenance solutions available from RS, has identified potential outages for the customer in other areas, for example, through vibration analysis on the specialist spinning cone column machinery that is critical to its operations.

“Using condition monitoring to analyse the health and performance of assets plays a key role in this customer’s productivity,” observes Webster, “helping them keep on top of maintenance and keeping their machinery – and business – moving.”

For more information about RS Maintenance Solutions, click here