Specialty Chemicals Safely Monitored

Customer Success Story

More Safety, Fewer Unplanned Outages

During the development and production of polyamide-based products at the Austrian plants in Lenzing and Schörfling by Evonik Fibres GmbH, the machines are subjected to heavy use. This is why they were inspected once a month. This was not enough for the maintenance team. In order to detect unplanned down- times as early as possible, the maintenance team decided that in the future they would supplement preventive maintenance with condition-based maintenance. Schaeffler‘s service partner Messfeld GmbH implemented the OPTIME CM wireless condition monitoring solution.

Immediate success: shortly after the OPTIME sensors were installed, a warning message was issued on the dryer. Maintenance measures could be initiated immediately.

"Combining preventive and predictive maintenance is a forward-looking step for our team. Less worry, more security. With the OPTIME solution, we have a good companion. Comprehensive condition monitoring is not excluded due to the good price. "

Markus Hufnagl

Automation Technology Expert, Evonik Fibres GmbH

Benefits

Customer benefits

Long-term planning of maintenance measures
Quick and easy installation of OPTIME components
More safety for employees - wireless sensors eliminate the need to access machines in hard to reach areas
Cost-effective solution for comprehensive plant monitoring

Challenge

Looks like spaghetti, but it‘s not – membrane module for energy-efficient biogas upgrading

At the Austrian plants in Lenzing and Schörfling, more than 215 employees develop and produce polyamide-based products such as high-performance fibers, hollow fiber membranes and powders. Not only is a clean working environment important, but also continuous operation. If any of the machines, such as dryers, mixers, reactors or their peripheral equipment, such as cooling systems and agitators, break down due to gearbox damage, insufficient ventilation or inadequate flow rates, this can have far-reaching consequences. For this reason, the machines are inspected at regular intervals using offline measuring devices. However, these snapshots are no longer sufficient for Evonik. Markus Hufnagl, Automation Technology Expert at Evonik Fibres GmbH, describes what it would mean if a machine were to break down as follows:

“If production is stopped due to a machine defect, this can take several hours or, in the worst case, several days. If the dryer fails, for example, the subsequent process would be interrupted. “

Evonik was looking for a supplementary monitoring solution to provide more security and turned to Schaeffler Service Partner Messfeld GmbH.

Solution

Messfeld and Schaeffler Austria agreed that the OPTIME CM condition monitoring solution was the best option for monitoring the machines. The scalable solution consists of wireless sensors, a gateway and digital services based on proprietary Schaeffler algorithms. In the first phase of monitoring, the pressure nutsche filter and the conical dryer were monitored with OPTIME CM. Shortly after the first OPTIME sensors were installed on the conical dryer, a warning message was displayed in the OPTIME app on the motor and gearbox.

As a service provider that provides the customer with complete support in this case - from installation to continuous monitoring of the data in the app - the experts from Messfeld informed the customer about the irregularities. The technical experts on site and the experts from Messfeld evaluated the results and were able to assess the criticality very well with the help of the data. The machine can continue to be operated without increased risk until further notice. Appropriate measures were taken to narrow down the cause. Oil samples were taken. A detailed measurement is being carried out. Once the results are available, measures will be defined for the planned shutdown in the summer.

What's Special

Now that the solution has directly detected a fault, Evonik Fibres will successively install the solution on other machines. The OPTIME sensors are already monitoring several machines at the Weissenstein plant in Austria, and that‘s not all, the intelligent OPTIME C1 lubricator has also found its way into the plant. Together, the duo forms the OPTIME ecosystem, which intelligently combines condition monitoring and lubrication.

OPTIME CM monitors the compressor of the refrigeration unit
OPTIME CM monitors the motor of the agitator
OPTIME CM monitors the gearbox of the agitator

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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