It is the deep understanding of both the technology and life cycle of industrial gears and drive trains, that led DB Santasalo to choose their approach to condition monitoring for their GearWatch solution. Lubrication oil is the lifeline, the blood, that keeps the gears running. Just like with us humans, this fluid tells stories, gives signals and helps us trace origins to symptoms and faults. In their highly successful GearWatch solution, lubrication oil plays a key role in helping understand the health of an industrial gear. By measuring both oil particles and oil quality, using proprietary technology, GearWatch not only monitors and analyses industrial gears but warns and assists customers when a situation arises.
It is such a warning that helped save a Pulp Mill the cost of a new €100k gear box in addition to the €2,6 million potential production losses. GearWatch had been installed in this 15-year-old gear only some months earlier. The cloud-based service gave access 24/7 to the critical data from the gear and by using the solution together with the expertise of the ISO certified lubrication and vibration analysts from DBS, the customer was able to run the gear safely until the next scheduled shutdown.
The key value driver in this case is time. GearWatch gave an automatic early warning to the customer so they had time to react and plan and maximize the availability of the asset and thus avoid a costly interruption to production. Time is the key difference between predictive and reactive, run to failure, methods. The further the issue brews, the less time there is to plan and react and the higher the cost is. With GearWatch, DBS customers know the health of their assets and have a professional and controlled way to solve emerging issues. Another benefit is the ability to assign resources with surgical accuracy. “Maintain only when needed” saves costs, as does reduced need for redundancy.
You can learn more about the GearWatch solution at https://dbsantasalo.com/products/gearwatch-condition-monitoring/ or watch their great video at https://vimeo.com/400601132