Alumina Refinery, Australia

Working with SKF Engineering Support was a real eye-opener!
For the longest time, our Boiler 3 FD Fan could not be operated above 70% of its design capacity. We suspected that excessive vibrations – caused by mechanical looseness and impeller imbalance, thanks to unequal cone/ impeller gaps – was the cause, but we had no means of addressing it.
So, we turned to SKF Application Engineers for help, first to reduce the vibrations and mechanical looseness and ultimately, to achieve 100% production capacity. To do that, SKF sent an Application Engineer to inspect our fan, upon which he found clear evidence of relative movement between the bearing, sleeve, and housing, pointing to mechanical looseness. Immediately, he requested for and supervised the mounting of replacement bearings and housing.
As a result, vertical vibrations were reduced, while horizontal vibrations were almost completely eliminated. Without the mechanical looseness, our fan was able to operate at 100% which in turn, increased efficiency and airflow capacity – by 42%!

Cement Plant, Thailand

We adapted, learned, and evolved so much faster with SKF Machine Learning.
The nature of our business requires us to keep up not only with our peers but also with the ever-changing world. SKF's ability to analyse machine behaviours and predict plant conditions has kept us ahead in both aspects.
It has provided us with greater performance, higher productivity, more reliability, and most importantly, untold possibilities in the up-skilling of our people.
We chose SKF because of their experience of over 40 years but more than that, because we believe that they'll be able to help guide us in the many years to come.

Mineral Processing Plant, Malaysia

The strategy we see for realizing the full potential of our assets lie in the reliability of the asset and its ability to perform to the extent of its intended design. Over time and as plant and machinery begin ageing, this becomes a challenge. Frequent breakdowns and unplanned maintenance intervention reduced our ability to maintain full control over the asset, hence affecting our productivity and delivery.
SKF’s reputation and the assurance they provide was a key factor when we decided on forming a partnership to optimize the total cost of ownership of our asset through proactive approach. SKF helped stabilize our equipment by assessing and re-engineering the complete setup; enabling zero downtime and identification of process related issues while ultimately increasing production throughput. Digitally connecting the asset in addition gave us further insights into its health and operating conditions – in real-time.
All in all, working with SKF on this pilot implementation of SKF Solution is seen as valuable and a positive alignment with our overall manufacturing strategy in many ways. We have taken the right path in working with SKF.