Success Story
Industry: Food and Beverage
Application: Potato Washer
Cost Savings: $23,725
Introduction
A premium snack processing company was experiencing frequent bearing failures on a potato wash application. Failures were causing significant downtime and reduced production. NSK carried out a bearing failure analysis revealing ingress of contamination leading to significant bearing life reduciton. NSK was asked for a solution to improve service life. A test with new beairngs resulted in an increase of bearing life by 2 times.
Key Facts
- High volume potato cleaning line
- Frequent bearing failure caused significant production downtime and high maintenance costs
- Water and soil particle ingress
- Application indoor and outdoor (climatic influences)
- NSK’s solution: replacing standard ball bearing with NSK’s Molded-Oil ball bearing
- No bearing failures for more than 8 months
- Productivity improvement
- Potato washing application
- Molded Oil Bearing
Value Proposals
- NSK engineering conducted a Bearing Failure Analysis showing ingress of contermination into the bearing (water / Soil)
- Replacing the standard ball bearings with Molded-Oil ball bearings
- A test was conducted resulting in an increase of bearing life from 4 months to over 8 months
- The customer increased productivity and reduced maintenance costs
- No re-lubrication necessary
Product Features
- Molded-Oil provides continuous supply of lubrication oil
- Stainless steel for corrosive environments
- Grease-free property with no oil refilling keeps operating environments clean
- Operating life more than twice as long as grease lubrication, in water or dust contaminated environments
- Contact-seal type available in standard inventory for ball bearings
- Achieves extended maintenance-free performance as Molded-Oil provides a continuous supply of lubricant
- Available for high speed applications
- Available in ball bearing, spherical roller bearing and tapered roller bearings types
Cost Saving Breakdown
| Before | Cost p.a. | NSK Solution | Cost p.a. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engineering costs | $2,666 | Engineering costs | $267 | |
| Lost production | $21,326 | Lost production: none | $0 | |
| Total Costs | $23,992 | $267 | ||
Reference:SS-E-1016
