SKF has expanded its primary offering of bearings, seals, and lubricants with a comprehensive range of power transmission solutions. As a leader in the parts that make industry tick, why not put them all together?
The number of moving parts in a quarry can be overwhelming for some while presenting a fitting challenge for others. SKF sits with the latter and solves the issue with 114 years of expertise and a focus on customers’ specific needs.
The manufacturer understands that with intricate systems in power transmission, there is often more than meets the eye with malfunctions or sub-par performance.
For this reason, SKF works with its partners to not simply replace components and call it a day, but to understand the causes and repercussions of any issues a system might be having.
Lloyd Brown, SKF’s contract manufacturing and quality manager for power transmission, gave an example of when there might be underlying issues.
“A customer may come to SKF with a concern on a bearing, and when investigated sometimes it is as obvious as alignment, or a seal arrangement, or a lubrication issue,” Brown told Quarry.
“However, it is not at all uncommon that when investigated we find the transmission surrounding the bearing is at least contributing to or completely causing the problem.
“Sometimes conditions of the processes or the equipment have changed (such as speed, loads, temperatures, humidity), but the corresponding transmission components remain with the original and now inadequate design.”
These pain points can cause premature wear, vibration and failure of components in a domino effect throughout the plant.
This encompasses many areas of a quarry’s operations, such as a high speed, low torque pump and fan drives, as well as higher demand drives on cone crushers, ball mills, hoists, elevators, conveyors and blowers.
To address the various needs of quarrying plant and equipment, SKF power transmission solutions are extensive.
A new range of XP2 V-belts caters to high power belt drives, while heavy duty roller, mill and conveyor chains and sprocket drives provide highly abrasive assurance.
“We also offer a number of flexible shaft couplings that are perfect for quarries and mining such as our grid couplings, gear couplings, disc couplings, or our elastomeric SKF Flex tyre couplings, FRC couplings and even jaw couplings,” Brown said.
“Additionally, we have an excellent range of standard shaft bushings including taper bushes, QD bushes, and our FX keyless locking devices commonly used in conveyor drum pulleys.”
To understand which of its various solutions SKF customers require, the manufacturer prides itself on its Rotating Equipment Performance (REP) program.
The SKF Rotating Equipment Performance program is a long-term, performance-based contract with a monthly fee combining SKF technologies, failure detectability and reliability services into an integrated package.
The program enables customers to evolve from a capital expenditure model to an operational model (CAPEX to OPEX), and involves a monthly fee instead of purchasing power transmission products based on unit prices. This can be scalable from a single piece of rotating equipment to a full industrial plan.
Key Performance Indicators are defined according to the real situation of critical assets and linked with agreed savings and rotating equipment performance indicators.
The overall goal is to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) of rotating equipment over an agreed period, part of the savings result from increased machine availability, and part from the reduction of capital outlay by optimising spare parts inventory and minimising waste.
“With SKF’s strong product offering of bearings, seals, lubrication and power transmission, combined with our portfolio of condition monitoring capabilities and our vast experience around rotating equipment, we are able to offer improved service life and predictive maintenance to increase efficiencies and reduce running costs,” Brown said.
This offering comes in line with one of SKF’s core values to reduce maintenance costs, equipment failures and unnecessary downtime.
To ensure the quality of its products can live up to these core values, Brown said SKF power transmission products meet a range of recognised compliance standards.
“SKF power transmission products are designed and manufactured to meet international standards including ISO/DIN and ANSI/BS/AGMA. Our PT products are also fully RoHS and REACH compliant,” Brown said.
“SKF power transmission components are fully compatible with other manufacturers’ components on the market that meet these same rigorous standards.”
Of course, it’s in the interest of all – both SKF’s and the industry’s – that SKF’s power transmission offerings are reliable, ensuring its wider range of bearings, seals and lubricants remain part of a dependable system.
“Granted that our SKF main core product is the bearing, the full transmission system has a direct influence and impact on the performance and service life of the rotating shafts and bearings,” Brown said.
“With our SKF PT offering you are guaranteed that the products you use meet the same strict quality standards that the SKF brand name stands for.”
And there’s even more in the works at SKF, he teased, as technology continues to enable greater uptime, less maintenance and higher performance in the quarrying space.
“SKF didn’t create power transmission solutions,” he said. “Almost every piece of factory equipment on the planet that rotates has some form or another of these basic components to transfer the work from the power source to the equipment.”
“But that does not mean there isn’t developments and innovations in the realm at SKF.
“As with all other SKF products and services, we are working to develop innovative ideas to improve our power transmission offering.”