CASE STUDY

Client:  Cement Importers

Cement importers in Kent operate a new plant with a low engineering maintenance budget and minimal manning levels. Breakdowns and unplanned downtime causes their profitability to be reduced and causes major inconvenience to customers and haulage schedules alike. They rely on the predicitve maintenance technology and expertise from Vibration Monitoring Services Ltd to reduce equipment failures and prevent costly downtime.

Background

After several maintenance problems Vibration Monitoring Services were asked to carry out a survey of the plant and a bi-monthly schedule of vibration monitoring and thermal imaging was initiated.  Because of the nature of the product, cement dust can be a major factor in causing machine failure and the motors/drives are in locations not regularly accessed by staff.

Findings

On the first inspection several items of plant were highlighted as having defects, such as imbalance, alignment problems, bearing wear and lubrication problems.

Results

By carrying out condition monitoring Vibration Monitoring Services have decreased the scheduled engineering input of the operations staff by a significant amount. Vibration Monitoring Services continues to work closely with the operations team locating problems and defects and allowing the Site Manager to plan his repairs into his busy operations schedule. Therefore vibration monitoring and thermal imaging now play an important role in their maintenance procedures.