SKF South Africa lists Mondi as a key global account and, as a result, Mondi Packaging is of intrinsic importance in ensuring that the SKF value proposition is conveyed and fully implemented on its site in Piet Retief.
Recently, and with the assistance of the authorised SKF distributor, Bearing Services Bethal, a solution was provided which addressed premature bearing failure on one of the mill’s applications. According to SKF segment key account manager, Giscard Lailvaux, environmental contamination in the form of moisture ingress adversely affected the performance of the standard Y-bearing units utilised to support the application. “Moisture ingress into the Y-bearings in the pillow blocks caused corrosion of the bearing units and, in turn, destroyed the lubricant performance leading to premature bearing failures. Consequently unavoidable stoppages occurred in the mill’s production, thus burdening its maintenance staff with frequent bearing unit replacement tasks,” he explains.
“The original Y-bearings were manufactured from mild steel. The issue with mild steel in the application’s environment is its high corrosion rate, which in turn affects the lubricant’s performance and ultimately the performance of the unit. The result was that Mondi’s maintenance team had to remove the bearings and insert new ones every two weeks. Due to the frequent nature of the replacement, it became part of the mill’s routine maintenance tasks. A solution was therefore required to increase the performance of the application and thus increase the Mean Time between Bearing Replacements. The solution: replacement of the mild steel Y-bearings with SKF stainless steel.”
In September 2010, Mondi Packaging reported that the application had been operating smoothly and without maintenance stoppages or interruption from bearing failures for the past nine months. “Although the stainless steel Y-bearings are more expensive than mild steel, the stainless steel units delivered immediate and significant benefits in the form of increased operational uptime of the application,” says Lailvaux.
He concludes: “SKF is a knowledge engineering company and we use our combined skills and expertise, drawn from SKF’s core technologies – bearings and units, seals, power transmission, mechatronics, lubrication and services – to provide the best possible solution for all our customers. The SKF stainless steel Y-bearing solution is just another example of being able to leverage off a vast array of products for our valuable customers.”
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