With unplanned downtime as a core concern of Finnish cement producer Finnsementti, part of the CRH Group, they chose to use the wireless condition monitoring solution from Schaeffler, OPTIME. This allowed them to monitor practically every rotating machine at the plant on a largely automated and permanent basis, thus reducing their risk.
The Challenge
Finnsementti has been producing cement, concrete, lime and other raw materials at its plants in Parainen and Lappeenranta for over 100 years. The company‘s primary concern is plant downtime. With around 90 machine failures occurring on average each year, the majority of which are caused by auxiliary units, you can see why.
In such cases, production is suspended completely for up to 2 hours. The most critical units are motors, gearboxes, pumps and fans. Finnsementti were also looking for a solution that would provide greater security for personnel as auxiliary units are generally difficult to access, meaning accidents are inevitable.
Finnsementti had not previously installed CM solutions for the purpose of monitoring auxiliary units, as these were too expensive and for the most part, did not work wirelessly. For this reason, they decided to seek assistance from Schaeffler.
The Solution
Schaeffler OPTIME was recommended as a comprehensive CM solution. OPTIME can be installed and initial operation carried out without any prior CM expertise. With several hundred measuring points being easily set up in the space of a single day.
OPTIME comprises of wireless sensors, a gateway, and digital service. The sensors are responsible for monitoring machines and devices. The gateway receives the data from the sensors and transfers this to the Schaeffler Cloud. The data is analysed using the digital service and an error diagnosis is created on the basis of algorithms. The customer receives clear statements about the condition of their machines via a mobile app.
The installation work, which involved fitting around 150 sensors to motors, fan pumps and gearboxes, as well as mounting the gateway, was completed in just a few hours. The mobile app allowed hundreds of machines to be monitored directly.
The OPTIME sensors are fitted to a variety of equipment, including fixed speed electric motors, gearboxes and a combination of support bearings; variable speed electric motors and fans and a combination of support bearings; and fixed speed electric motor/fan combinations.
How does it work?
OPTIME is an easily scalable system. The data captured by the sensors is analysed using specially developed algorithms that draw on Schaeffler’s technical expertise, its extensive storehouse of physical models developed and refined over many decades, as well as the experience in condition monitoring that it has built up over the course of its bearing servicing operations.
OPTIME provides several weeks’ early warning of damage to machine components. It also provides early warning of imbalances, misalignments and knocking. The app presents trends in graph form and visualises the severity of incidents using traffic light colours, alarm states and other information.
Transparency of machine condition
Tony Virtanen, Maintenance Engineer at Finnsementti Oy comments: “With OPTIME, our maintenance staff have the transparency over the condition of most of our machines without the need to watch them closely all the time.”
Tommy Ranta, Plant Director at Finnsementti Oy states: “OPTIME is reasonably priced and easy to install, which enables the monitoring to be scaled up to cover a large number of machines in a cement mill. Schaeffler also has a broad knowledge of condition monitoring and specifically of the machine motion. We appreciate that very much.”
Red Dot Design Awards
OPTIME was a winner of this year’s Red Dot Design Award in two categories, “Smart Product” and “Industrial Design” thus confirming the outstanding product design, functional configuration and high level of innovation demonstrated by the digital service solution from Schaeffler.
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