Concerned about the costs of urgent replacements and downtime from five bearing failures a year, the steel plant turned to NSK and its AIP Added Value Programme.
Following an assessment of the failed bearings and chocks, NSK engineers identified the cause as the fitting of incorrectly-sized spacers. It turned out that maintenance technicians responsible for the rod rolling mill did not know the correct way of calculating the size of spacers required for its bearing chocks. Instead, the team worked to a standard operating procedure (SOP) that was 20 years old.
This discovery instigated a number of proposals, including training sessions delivered on-site by NSK’s team of specialists, who demonstrated the correct bearing assembly process. The new spacer calculations now feature in an updated and reissued version of the customer’s SOP.
At the same time, genuine NSKHPS angular-contact ball bearings have replaced the previous high-cost bearings, generating a further saving.
