Industry Focus

Easier than a wardrobe

From MFI bookcases to IKEA wardrobes, self-assembly has been the big story in furniture for many years now. But whereas that’s more about cutting production, storage and delivery costs for the manufacturer or retailer, self-assembly for hydraulic hoses is all about cutting costs for you, the end-user. And it’s a great deal easier than putting together a wardrobe. ...

Industry Focus

Smarter pumps for thicker pumping

Though the prime function of a mine or quarry is to extract and process minerals, they’re not the only things that need to be handled. There are also huge amounts of process water involved, which has to be extracted even when the mine is not in production. So these applications need a pump which can handle products entrained with solids with varying viscosities – everything from mine waste water (dewatering), to tailings, calcium carbonate...

Industry Focus

Minor engineering details make bearings successful for miners

Even in the rugged environment of a coal mine, sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference. So the tough construction and high specification of Revolvo’s Split Roller Bearings are essentials to their success, but the design details are important too. ...

Industry Focus

How to clean up on maintenance

Somebody once advised to forget dusting because ‘after a year the dust doesn’t get any worse’. But he obviously wasn’t thinking about a quarry. And since proper maintenance of heavy machinery is a lot more involved than a bit of light dusting, you’d be ill-advised to abandon it. But simply by changing to a new kind of belt drive for your machinery, you could actually eliminate the need for maintenance even in the dustiest, dirtiest working...

Industry Focus

Between a lot of rock and hard place

Let’s face it; the quarrying, mining, aggregate and recycling sectors have been under pressure since the drop in market demand for building materials started in October 2008, fortunes have changed however due to investment in the road systems and the increased legislative requirement for recycling. The problem is it’s not looking any smoother in the near future with government investment in infrastructure likely to drop-off, but influences such...

Industry Focus

When the going gets tough, the tough bearings get going

There are no tougher environments for bearings to work in than quarrying and mining. Combining enormously heavy loads and shock loads with a dust- and debris-laden atmosphere, this is a real-life proving ground for innovation in bearing manufacture. Essentially, there are two approaches to overcoming the problems of the environment. Firstly, there is the development of a bearing of the quality and robustness to resist the wear and tear of the...

Industry Focus

What keeps you awake at night?

We all know about condition monitoring, vibration analysis and thermal analysis as effective ways to keep an eye on your machines and be forewarned of anything going wrong. But sometimes ‘maintenance engineer monitoring’ can be almost as effective. A maintenance engineer knows his plant. A change in the running note of a motor, a slight dip in the speed of a belt, and as often as not he will spot it. He also knows – usually at 2am on a...

Industry Focus

The most efficient route to efficiency

Energy efficiency is no longer something we can aspire to, or strive for. In more and more areas of our lives, our economy, our industries and our infrastructure, it is something we are bound by law to achieve. With the UK government requiring us to cut our emissions by 34% (to 1990 levels) by 2020, it’s not surprising they are turning the screws. But how hard does being energy-efficient have to be? Lagging your loft and buying a Toyota Prius...

Industry Focus

When energy-saving hots up

It’s easy to talk about preventative maintenance as an effective means of saving energy, but it’s harder to put it into practice. After all, identifying where maintenance is required can often be difficult or impossible until the problem has developed: by which time the damage is done, the losses have mounted and it’s no longer preventative maintenance you are undertaking, but reactive repair. However, thermography and ultrasonic air leak...

Industry Focus

Rolling up the energy savings

The need to save energy means it’s essential to look everywhere for ways to reduce consumption. Since rolling bearings are crucial to the transfer of rotational energy, are there opportunities to reduce the energy losses involved in the process? Since bearings are designed to reduce friction and resulting energy loss, you may think that they already go as far as they can in saving energy. However, research and development by NSK has led to...

Industry Focus

A permanent reduction in CO₂ emissions

The internal combustion engine has long been the villain of the piece where CO2 emissions are concerned. More recently, electricity generation – and, by implication, electricity over-consumption – has been cast as another of the bad boys. Now, particularly in the field of industry, it is electric motors which are taking on the role and taking the blame. Is there anything to be done to reclaim their reputation? The world needs industry,...

A permanent reduction in CO<sub>2</sub> emissions

Industry Focus

Tightening the belt on energy costs

Your belt drives are not the first place you might think to look when you are aiming to increase the energy efficiency of your plant. But when you consider that the right specification can deliver an efficiency gain equivalent to upgrading from an EFF2 electric motor to an EFF1, then you can see how your belt drives can drive energy savings just as effectively as they drive your fans and pumps. Around a third of applications driven by...

Industry Focus

The best ideas are often the simplest

These days, if you ask the management of almost any company about their immediate and medium-term operational priorities, the odds are high that minimising energy consumption will be at or near the top of the list. And when the list is broken down into where they can reduce that consumption, it should be sure to include fans and pumps. In this article we focus on performance and energy improvements in Fan applications although many of the...

Industry Focus

Saving energy: why, how and where?

A good place and a good way to start saving energy, reducing your energy costs and cutting your carbon footprint is to boil a kettle. Use the water to make yourself a cup of tea or coffee, then put your feet up with this issue of Know+How, and it will be a small energy cost with a quick and massive payback. As energy costs continue to rise, and at an increasing rate, energy use is no longer simply an issue for energy-intensive businesses but...

Industry Focus

Facing the challenges in food and pharma

Staying ahead in the food and pharmaceuticals industries is tougher than ever. In this section of know+how, we look at some of the issues facing manufacturers and discuss recent developments which will help to address them. Achieving and maintaining competitive advantage in the manufacturing industry isn’t easy. It never has been. Today though, it’s harder than ever. As consumers become more sophisticated, driving the need for constant...

Industry Focus

Mechanical decisions

It’s old-fashioned, it’s almost always inefficient, it can be dangerous and it’s unnecessary. What are we talking about? It’s gland packing – the original technique for sealing a pump shaft. Despite its many disadvantages, this antiquated process is still being used today. Here we look at how you can gain major benefit from saying goodbye to gland packing in favour of newer technology. Gland packing may be dated, but it remains very common –...

Industry Focus

Breaking the mould

When it comes to hygienic processing environments, traditional lubrication technology may be a thing of the past. The problems of supplying and maintaining equipment for food and beverage processing applications are well known. And among the most often quoted of these problems is the effects of the frequent wash-downs machines are given, to ensure high levels of hygiene. These effects include a tendency to progressively flush the lubricant...

Industry Focus

Don’t worry, be HACCPY

Using a non-approved lubricant in the food processing sector is a risky business – the cost of product contamination can be extremely high. But what is an approved lubricant, and how can you make sure yours comply with the standards? Prevention, as they say, is better than cure. It may be an old and over-used proverb, but that doesn’t make it not true. Because it’s true in any walk of life – and nowhere more so than in the manufacture of...

Industry Focus

Sealing technology for clean environments

On January 28 1986, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of its seven crew members. The disaster was ultimately traced to the failure of a simple component – an O-ring seal in the vehicle’s right solid rocket booster. Never was there more graphic – and on this occasion, tragic – proof that small doesn’t mean unimportant. In fact, today, sealing technology plays a critical role in many...

Industry Focus

Enhancing a stainless reputation

At ERIKS, we have a reputation for technical know-how and engineering skill. Our ability to design, build and install custom plant solutions, or to improve existing plant, is second to none, and we have major clients across all sectors of industry. Partly this is due to our in-house expertise and advanced resources such as our Technical Centres. But it’s also because we work closely with carefully chosen partners – acknowledged experts in their...

Industry Focus

Filter maintenance – don’t get steamed up

If you use steam in your hygienic cleaning processes, you’ll be using sintered steel filters. Now, though, there’s a much more cost-effective alternative. In the food industry, as in several other sectors, plant managers like to – quite literally - let off steam very frequently. That’s because steam is used for a variety of key functions throughout a typical plant. It’s an efficient and economical method of sterilisation, for example, due to...

Industry Focus

There’s something in the air

Although essentially straightforward, the BRC’s code of practice on air purity in the food industry has caused some misunderstandings. We look briefly at the most common of them. In today’s advanced food manufacturing environment, keeping processes free of contaminants is a critical issue. It can also be a complex one, because impurities can work their way into the system by many different routes. Machine lubrication, which we discuss on page...

Industry Focus

VALVES: your supplier can make a real difference

Sourcing valves and filters might seem straightforward, but there are times when choice of supplier can make a big difference to the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the supply line. As most people know, oil reserves are becoming hard to find, and even harder to recover. That’s why fields like Peregrino, 85km off the coast of Brazil are such important and valuable discoveries. Peregrino, which is being developed by StatoilHydro AS, has a...

Industry Focus

First in filtration

ERIKS has long been recognised as a leading supplier of filtration solutions, covering a wide range of industries and applications. In fact, our involvement with the technology began in our Wyko days, as an established supplier of oil and air filters, and as ERIKS has built upon this know-how to include process filtration. Today, ERIKS competes nationally with other globally-recognised filter brands, and offers a complete product portfolio to...

Industry Focus

Good news with Airpel and ERIKS

Industry: Potash Mining Application: Clay removal from Brine sea water being pumped out of the mine into a storage tank. Problem: The pump was clogging up with clay as it pumped the water from the mine and ultimately stopping and requiring full strip down/cleaning/rebuild. This caused loss in production. Result required: Full pump protection so down time is reduced and intervals between pump maintenance is extended. Removal of 18mm...

Industry Focus

Partnering your way to improved productivity

Minimising the unit cost of production has always been a key issue for plant managers. Today, it’s more important than ever. It’s also harder than ever. Energy efficiency is just one element of the equation – others such as inventory reduction and preventative maintenance can also play a major role. Here, we look briefly at how the right choice of support partner can help you make significant savings. Within the typical plant, there will be a...

Industry Focus

Pumps: keeping it clean

In today’s process industries, the demand for efficient, reliable and customised pump solutions is high. Here we look at some of the factors that are of particular significance when choosing a pump for one of the most demanding areas – hygienic applications. Pump applications in the process industry are many and various, ranging from cleaning and dosing to heating, fire protection and hygienic processing. And many of these applications demand...

Industry Focus

RX – the next generation of hygienic hose

All process environments are demanding, but sectors such as pharmaceuticals and food and beverage ask particularly tough questions of systems and equipment. The new RX range of hygienic hose assemblies has been designed with such environments in mind. Delivering hose assemblies that not only meet and exceed the hygiene requirements of today’s process industries, but which offer real cost of ownership benefits is a considerable challenge. But...