The Situation
Engineers at a quarry had expressed concerns to their local Hayley branch that machinery, including vibrating screens and crushers, were failing regularly and this was causing downtime and affecting production. The cause of this was improper lubrication, and Hayley arranged a site visit with perma to propose some possible solutions to improve the reliability of the machinery.
The Solution
During the site visit it was discovered that the premature failures affecting the vibrating screens was due to poor lubrication practices across the site. Records showed that weekly completed lubrication was often as low as 35%, with engineers too busy with other tasks. The importance of lubrication was being overlooked.
A site survey was carried-out, documenting all applications, accessibility to lubrication points and current lubrication schedules. A trial of several perma automatic lubrication products was arranged.
With the trial being a huge success, perma STAR VARIO, perma STAR CONTROL and perma ULTRA products were ordered and soon installed on-site. These were all connected to the perma CONNECT app to provide engineers with a live overview of grease levels and hardware performance at all times.
The Result
Since the perma hardware has been installed, the weekly greasing schedule is now 95% completed on average, a huge increase on the 35% average that was previously reported.
Site failures where perma automatic grease dispensers have been fitted, have been reduced by a significant 65%.
It has been calculated that the site would need to employee two or three additional maintenance engineers to uphold the new quality standards if the customer was to return to manual lubrication. This means that the customer has made a cost-saving of around £60-£80,000 a year.
