A manufacturer is benefitting from reduced plant maintenance costs and less downtime following adoption of intelligent lubrication technology from Schaeffler.
For Maintenance Manager Peter Hannappel from Westerwälder Elektro Osmose, everyday operations have become simpler. A glance at his smartphone tells him that all system-critical machines in the plant are being supplied correctly with grease.
Not only that, but if a fault does occur, in the form of an empty grease cartridge or a clogged lubrication-point, his OPTIME app will tell him which machines and lubrication-points require attention.
Just one mill failure prevented with this new Schaeffler IoT solution saves Osmose €47,000 and a lot of grief. So what exactly can the intelligent lubricator OPTIME C1 do, and what is its connection to the Schaeffler OPTIME app?
The basic concept
Sebastian Mergler, Service Solution Manager for Condition Monitoring at Schaeffler, says: “OPTIME C1 allows you to simplify, to substantial effect, the complex and time-consuming process of relubricating hundreds of lubrication-points in a plant. For the most part, our smart lubricator renders the usual manual work involved in relubrication and the time-consuming inspection rounds superfluous.
“Imminent problems with the lubricant supply are detected and reported at an early stage. We use the app associated with our IoT CM system OPTIME to display the current status of all connected lubrication-points. We have simply expanded it to incorporate the new smart lubricator functions and have thus been able to continue using the existing features and advantages of the app.”
The customer project
Westerwälder Elektro Osmose manufactures porcelain stoneware tiles as well as wastewater pipes and chimney pipes. Maintenance personnel therefore operate in environments exposed to high levels of dust, radiating heat from furnaces and with open-running drives. Until now, automatic lubricators were only used on system-critical machines.
“However, these do not show whether there is a problem with the lubricant supply,” Peter Hannappel points out. “Regular inspection rounds of our extensive facilities were necessary, which took up too much of our team’s time.”
Osmose therefore turned to its certified Schaeffler partner Wälzlager-Vertrieb, who recommended a test run with a number of OPTIME C1 lubricators to gain initial experience. The result was positive: the Osmose maintenance team can now keep a constant eye on the lubricant supply for their system-critical components and the route-based inspection rounds that were previously required are now a thing of the past.
The team saves time and maintenance costs have reduced, faults have become less frequent and system availability has increased.
The team was particularly impressed by the simple and rapid manner in which installation and commissioning was performed with the OPTIME app. The OPTIME C1 is scanned by NFC (near-field communication) and the name of the machine and the lubrication point is assigned.
The QR code on the lubricant cartridge is then read, followed by the specification of the time period and lubricant quantity for delivery to the lubrication-point. The app subsequently calculates the setting that is to be performed on the adjusting wheel of the lubricant cartridge. As a final step, this setting is stored by NFC on OPTIME C1.
The system solution
Lubrication-points on ancillary equipment can be fitted with OPTIME C1 in a minimal amount of time, allowing them to be deleted from the checklists. In addition to the communication module, OPTIME C1 is also equipped with a temperature sensor and a pump, which expands the lubricator’s area of application.
Only one gateway is required for the complete solution. The smart lubricators automatically connect to each other to form a mesh network. Relevant data, such as the number of days remaining until the next cartridge change are transmitted to the OPTIME app.
However, the customer is entirely unaware of this. Just one glance at the smartphone or, alternatively, at a web-based dashboard, is sufficient for them to see a fault in the lubricant supply, a critical fill level or an increased temperature, at any time and from anywhere.
Sebastian Mergler emphasises: “It is precisely this simplicity that is at the heart of all our developments; starting with our OPTIME system for the purpose of simplifying the machine monitoring of complete production sites, and now with OPTIME C1, the lubrication-point monitoring system for entire plants. Our aim behind these developments is to make the world of maintenance simpler and more efficient.”
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