Maintenance, Test & Measurement, Calibration


Condition monitoring leaders grow African footprint

August 2016 Maintenance, Test & Measurement, Calibration

WearCheck has cast its net further into Africa, adding a Zimbabwean laboratory to create a network of 11 excellent facilities that span the African continent and beyond.

Laboratories are typically located near key industry clusters, such as mining hotspots, and are currently in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, with international laboratories in India, Dubai, Ghana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, DRC and Zambia – with a presence in Cape Town, Rustenburg, Steelpoort, Port Elizabeth and Namibia.

With the primary goal to help customers save time and money via a comprehensive condition monitoring programme, WearCheck employs a variety of reliability solutions services, such as the scientific analysis of used oil from mechanical and electrical systems. Additional services include the analysis of fuels, transformer oils, coolants, greases and filters.

Furthermore, the company’s highly capable Reliability Solutions division ensures that WearCheck is a ‘one-stop shop’ for condition monitoring, offering vibration monitoring, laser alignment, thermal imaging and balancing.

Managing director Neil Robinson explains, “By interpreting the ‘clues’ about the health of machinery via the condition of used oil or other diagnostic services, customers can make informed decisions about the maintenance of components. Our highly-skilled team of diagnosticians analyses test results and recommends how to rectify any abnormal findings. This goes a long way towards preventing expensive, catastrophic machine failure.”

Robinson’s vision for the company is to remain at the forefront of the condition monitoring industry, which includes ongoing investment in new technology to ensure that all laboratory equipment is state-of-the-art and rivals, often surpassing, its local and international counterparts. All laboratories are largely automated and integrated with the latest information technology, while research and development plays a major part in WearCheck’s commitment to continual improvement.

The optimisation of plant performance management is the primary focus of the company’s reliability solutions, says manager Philip Schutte. “To ensure that plant operates at peak performance, thereby achieving maximum efficiency and, ultimately, boosting the bottom line, we offer a variety of monitoring techniques, such as the testing and control of the efficiency of combustion, heat transfer and milling equipment.”

WearCheck offers several other solutions to maintain plant performance at its peak, including:

• The station thermal efficiency program (STEP).

• Plant performance monitoring of boiler, turbine and auxiliary equipment.

• Routine testing and verification of raw data from the STEP system or similar programs to produce thermal performance results.

• Investigation and reporting with recommendations on plant failures or incidents.

• Advice on plant performance tests.

• During outages, assistance with: air heater shoe gaps and seals settings, pulverised fuel burner settings, mills settings, draught plant settings, zeroing of coal conveyor mass meters and others.

• Weekly plant walk-downs and liaison with the operating department for corrective action on visible deviations on the plant. The activities are performed on the whole station, including turbine, boiler, mills and outside plant.

WearCheck has ISO 9001 quality certification and ISO 14001 certification for its environmental management programme, as well as ISO 17025 accreditation for its laboratory-centric quality management programme.

For more information contact WearCheck, +27 (0)31 700 5460, support@wearcheck.co.za, www.wearcheck.co.za



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