Hardening furnaces running like clockwork

Customer Success Story

Time Savings and Enhanced Safety Thanks to Digital Lubricators

Hardening furnaces must be supplied with the right amounts of the right lubricating greases at the right times. Maintenance workers at Schaeffler’s Schweinfurt plant used to use classic lubricators. To minimize the lube rounds and to lower the risk of accidents on machines with impeded access, the maintenance team has now replaced them with digital lubricators. Thanks to the smart technology of the newly deployed OPTIME C1 lubricators, the maintenance team can now keep an eye on the lubricator status for all lubricators at all times from anywhere.

Results

Less unplanned downtime thanks to pinpoint lubrication
Easy tracking of the lubrication process
Fewer rounds – saving up to 5 hours per week
Manual checking no longer required
Greater safety – no more need for constantly checking in hard-to-reach places

“The OPTIME C1 lubrication solution can be used very flexibly, as our test runs demonstrated. We can refill the lubricant cartridges multiple times ourselves.

This is good because it allows us to contribute to greater sustainability.

On top of that is the time savings: We can save 5 working hours on inspection rounds alone. With OPTIME C1, lubrication can be tracked with a simple “click.”"

Manuel Binkowsky – operating equipment maintenance team, Schweinfurt hardening plant

Challenge
Solution & What's Special
Savings
Technical Information
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Contact

Challenge

Schweinfurt:

At the Schaeffler plant in Schweinfurt, 30,000 metric tons of steel, or, more precisely, inner and outer rings of rolling bearings as well as rolling elements, are hardened every year. Temperatures at and around the hardening furnaces are high. The maintenance workers also work in part with open flames. In addition, some machines are difficult to access. Previously, the drive pinions, racks, linear guidance systems, and bearings in the hardening furnaces were lubricated using conventional lubricators. But this method seemed outdated to the maintenance workers.

Manuel Binkowsky from the operating equipment maintenance team summed up the problem as follows:

“Our maintenance team currently spends a lot of time regularly running through and inspecting the lubricators. The lubricators do not indicate, for example, if a line is clogged or if there is some other problem. That’s why we’re looking for a lubrication monitoring solution that gives us greater planning reliability, provides more safety to personnel, and ideally saves us a significant amount of time on inspection rounds. “

A suitable in-house solution was first sought.

Solution

The Schaeffler Lifetime Solution Team recommended lubricating the hardening furnaces in the future with the OPTIME C1 lubricator.

The solution consists of the OPTIME C1 smart lubricator, a grease cartridge, a gateway, and a digital service. The data are visualized on a mobile app or a web-based dashboard. The fill level of the lubricating grease cartridge and any exist- ing problems are shown there, for example (see “Features”). The relevant data from the OPTIME C1 are transmitted directly to the Schaeffler Cloud. This gives the maintenance workers at the hardening plant convenient access to the data anytime, anywhere. Inspection rounds are no longer necessary. This saves time. Thanks to its compact design, the OPTIME C1 can be mounted anywhere – even in difficult-to-access places. This reduces the risk of accidents enormously.

The hardening plant first tested out the lubrication solution for a year and nine months at various places in the hardening furnaces, for example, on racks, bearings, and drive pinions at inlet and outlet doors, the intermediate door, the manipulator, or the salt bath elevator. The OPTIME C1 functioned perfectly at nearly all tested points. The solution is now equipped with around 70 OPTIME C1s on two lines. Rollout of the lubrication solution to additional hardening furnaces in the hardening plant is planned.

OPTIME C1 app
The OPTIME C1 app gives you the possibility to always have all your machines in view and an eye on the lubricant fill levels.
Horizontal, vertical, diagonal, or upside down – any position is possible with the OPTIME C1.
The OPTIME C1 supplies the rack at the inlet door with the required amount of grease.
Lubricating drives no problem for OPTIME C1
OPTIME C1 supplies the drive on the roller conveyor of the salt bath elevator precisely with lubricating grease.

What's Special

What makes the solution so special is the location-indepen- dent access to the data. The solution can be used across all industries. The maintenance team repeatedly mentions the elimination of visual inspections and significantly fewer inspection rounds as special highlights.

Savings

Time savings per month with OPTIME C1= 20 h
(no inspection rounds – except if the cartridge needs to be replaced or if there are problems with the machine)

Technical Information

Technical information – OPTIME C1

Drive system

electromechanical

Communication

Wirepas Mesh 2,4 GHz

NFC1356 MHz, 10 kbps

Communication range

up to 100 m

Operating temperature

-10 to +55 °C

Operating pressure

up to 10 bar

Protection class

IP68

Power supply

Battery (6 V / 2,3 Ah)

Lubricant volume

60 or 125 cm3

Visualization

smartphone, PC, laptop

Straight to product information

Features

With the OPTIME C1, part of the OPTIME Ecosystem that combines condition monitoring and lubrication, the conditions of machines and the installed lubrication systems can be monitored.
Location-independent access to the machine and condition data is provided via the mobile app and the web-based dashboard.
Unnecessary rounds are eliminated because all information can be found in the app or on the dashboard.
Remote monitoring of the lubrication systems is possible.
- The fill level is always in view thanks to the day display for cartridge replacement.
- Information on lubrication problems, for example, an impermissible temperature range or a blocked lubrication point, is provided.
- An API interface enables integration into maintenance systems.

OPTIME C1 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 professionals over the entire life cycle of a machine.

Visit our entire Lifetime Solutions portfolio here:

Schaeffler Lifetime Solutions