Sensors & Transducers


Online monitoring solution optimises asset performance across

July 2025 Sensors & Transducers

SKF’s sales, service and management teams has joined forces to deliver an advanced, integrated online monitoring solution for a key customer in Tunisia, operating nine mines, five plants and eleven production lines. The solution combines robust products with cutting-edge technology, bolstered by expert-led training. This ensures reliable implementation and long-term value through predictive maintenance, improved machine uptime and optimised asset performance through data-driven decision making.

The customer faced several challenges and with no visibility into machine operating status, equipment was frequently run until premature failure occurred. These costly unplanned breakdowns, combined with long mean time to repair (MTTR), were further exacerbated by the complexity of the process and the considerable distances between production lines and machinery. Seeking expert support and a tailored solution the customer reached out to SKF.

“Our standard practice is to bring together expertise from across our sales, service and management teams to assess, detect and analyse the customer’s challenges, ultimately presenting a SKF Industry 4.0 ecosystem,” says Marwen Chebbi, SKF sales manager for Tunisia. This collaborative approach led the team to identify the vibrating screen as the key component to monitor. This is the most critical process and the most challenging for anomaly detection.

Building on this, the team developed a fully integrated solution incorporating the SKF Multilog IMx16 condition monitoring system and cloud-based @ptitude, along with setup, configuration and training. “Our solution is also focused on helping the customer better understand the key role of vibration monitoring in early failure detection, centralising the machine’s status output or data and delivering it in real time together with all the associated benefits,” explains Chebbi.

SKF’s compact and versatile Multilog IMx-16 delivers critical, real-time insights into machine and equipment health, translating into significant time and cost savings for the user. Installed on the vibrating screen, its 16-channel setup continuously captures data from multiple sensors,which is automatically stored and shared via the SKF Cloud. This information is monitored and analysed by specialists based at SKF Remote Diagnostic Services in South Africa, which serves as a central hub where proactive reports and alerts are generated.

“Armed with these insights, along with expert recommendations, our customer can swiftly address existing or emerging issues and efficiently schedule maintenance before failures occur,” highlights Chebbi. “The customer can look forward to significant savings through reduced downtime and minimised parts replacement. Additionally, the Multilog system seamlessly integrates with the customer’s historian data store, enabling advanced machine learning algorithms and analytics, ultimately supporting more sustainable operations across the manufacturing lines.”

Chebbi further notes that, beyond cost and efficiency gains, the solution delivers meaningful sustainability benefits, including reduced emissions through more efficient operation, decreased material consumption from fewer replacement parts and extended service life of machines and components. “This supports SKF’s commitment to environmental responsibility and strengthens our broader sustainability narrative, creating shared value for both the customer and the environment.”


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