Safe monitoring of rapeseed processing

Customer Success Story

Fewer Unscheduled Shutdowns, Even in Atex Zones

The production facilities at Viterra Magdeburg GmbH are dedicated to the processing of rapeseed and the manufacture of biodiesel and pharmaceutical grade glycerine. To prevent unscheduled shutdowns of production machines and units, some of which are very difficult to access, the maintenance team was looking for a predictive condition monitoring solution. The company opted for the OPTIME condition monitoring solution. Through this wireless condition monitoring solution, Viterra is reducing the work- load of its maintenance team and at the same time ensuring greater safety, even in potentially explosive atmospheres.

Outcome: In just one year, two unscheduled shutdowns could be prevented.

"The overall concept of the OPTIME solutions offers an extensive range of applications, which is an excellent fit for the broad diversity of our production facilities. "

Eric Fiedler

Reliability Supervisor, Viterra Magdeburg

"We now have a constant overview of the condition of our critical machines. Our conclusion: OPTIME is brilliant"

Mathias Rothe

Head of Maintenance, Viterra Magdeburg

Benefits
Challenge
Solution & What's Special
Technical Information
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Benefits

Customer benefits

Early alerts in the event of a change in condition
Greater safety for employees – an app keeps the maintenance team informed about the condition of the machine at all times
Easy to install and use

Challenge

Rapeseed processing explained simply
Following delivery of the oilseeds they are first cleaned and stored before pressing. Press cakes and extracted oil are the intermediates. Animal feed in pellet form is produced from the press cake, while vegetable oil or biodiesel are recovered from the extracted oil depending on downstream processing and refining.

In one of the largest oil mills in Europe, 28 maintenance specialists from Viterra Magdeburg ensure the smooth running of processes in the company’s three plants. The company manufactures and produces biodiesel, rapeseed meal pellets and glycerine for the food, feed and cosmetics industries. To prevent unscheduled downtimes in the various manufacturing processes, manual measurements are carried out at regular intervals on process-critical machines.

Two maintenance specialists explain why the maintenance team in Viterra Magdeburg was also seeking an alternative, additional monitoring solution:

"We have several critical machines at our facility. If one of these machines breaks down it inevitably leads to a shutdown of the entire production line."

Mathias Rothe

Head of Maintenance, Viterra Magdeburg

"Some of the measuring points on our machines are hard to access, or make a manual measurement by a technician highly challenging due to the production-related high ambient temperature."

Eric Fiedler

Reliability Supervisor, Viterra Magdeburg

Transportation

Transport of the rapeseed and end products to and from the facility is via ships, trucks, tankers and rail vehicles. Large warehouses provide sufficient space for the rapeseed.

Viterra operates in 37 countries worldwide and has more than 30 processing and refining plants.

270+
Warehouse and handling facilities

28
Port terminals

200+
Seagoing vessels

2000+
Company-owned or leased railcars

Solution

Schaeffler’s experts recommended the OPTIME condition monitoring solution. This scalable solution consists of wireless sensors, a gateway and digital services based on proprietary Schaeffler algorithms.

At Viterra Magdeburg, machines and their units with high criticality were fitted with OPTIME sensors. There are currently 33 sensors monitoring these machines, for example motors or pumps in the oil mill.

The monitoring solution is also used in potentially explosive zones. OPTIME 5 Ex sensors are rated for potentially explosive atmospheres to Ex-Zone 1/21 as per ATEX/IECEx. At Viterra Magdeburg, these are used to monitor two separators, an Ex pump and two sensors on an “extractor”.

In the first 10 months in use, two unscheduled downtimes were avoided. The following case study shows how the maintenance team was alerted to a fault.

Case study: Alarm message motor damage
In October 2022, the maintenance team got an alarm message on the drive of the screw feeder on a final pressing machine The maintenance team took a manual measurement to confirm that the problem was motor damage, so the motor was then scheduled for replacement during the next planned shutdown. In the interim, the monitoring system provided the team with an overview of the condition of the screw feeder at all times to allow it to respond accordingly in the event of a rapid deterioration.

The status changed from “normal” to “warning”
Measuring graph of the incident

What's Special

The OPTIME condition monitoring solution was initially installed in Viterra’s Polish plant, then in Magdeburg. The solution is set to be used on other machines and units in future. This is intended to minimize unscheduled downtimes and ensure that all sustainable finished products like biodiesel, (pelleted) feed and cosmetic products are produced as energy efficiently as possible.

The sensors monitor the trend in the measured vibration and temperature values on critical pumps within and outside the ATEX zones.

Pump monitoring
Pump monitoring

Technical Information

How OPTIME CM works

The sensors monitor machinery and equipment at the customer’s site. The gateway receives the data from the sensors and transfers these to the Schaeffler cloud.

OPTIME CM detects problems, sends alarms accordingly and provides information on the possible cause of the problem.

Expert knowledge of condition monitoring is not required as this knowledge is already integrated in OPTIME CM in the form of Schaeffler know-how.

Learn more about OPTIME CM

OPTIME CM is part of the Schaeffler Lifetime Solutions portfolio, which offers a comprehensive range of products, services and solutions for industrial maintenance. It is designed to support maintenance engineers over the entire lifetime of a machine.

Visit our Lifetime Solutions portfolio here:

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