The Situation
The customer, a European malting company and supplier to large UK breweries, was experiencing frequent bearing failures. The problematic bearings were working within twenty-two onsite grain stirrer units, across four germination vessels. Bearings were needing to be replaced regularly, driving up maintenance costs and resulting in production losses.
The Solution
Hayley Group worked closely with their strategic supply partner, NSK, who had already been on-site to perform a review and failure analysis. A finding of the analysis was that the self-aligning ball bearings being used were not durable enough for the application conditions. The NSK SWR series Spherical Roller Bearing was supplied by Hayley Group as the remedy for the problem.
The superior wear resistance and material strength of the new bearings would extend product life, and prevent failure.
The Result
The characteristics and capabilities of the NSK Spherical Roller Bearing are more suited to the application, as they are able to cope with a larger load capacity. By installing the solution within their grain stirrers, the customer has increased the life of their bearings by 3x or even 4x, in some instances. This has reduced maintenance, component replacement, and costs as a result of downtime, by around £50,000 per year.
