Downtime and Parts Replacement Reduction Timber Industry Lubricants

GoalReduce kiln cart bearing failures, downtime, and lubrication costs while improving reliability in harsh operating conditions.

<h6>Customer Challenge</h6> <p>Highland Pine Products produces dressed timber and treated timber for house frames and trusses. The customer deploys kiln carts which represent a critical area in the plant. Each cart operates 12 hours a day, 365 days a year. Each cart makes more than 100 trips in and out, transporting on average 22 tons of timber each trip. The temperature inside the kilns remains approximately 60&deg;C, while outside it can be as low as -5&deg;C in winter and as high as 40&deg;C in summer.</p> <p>Due to high usage, the bearings in kiln cars needed frequent replacement and expected failures were 2.5 failures every week. The customer wanted NCH Asia Pacific to provide a superior performance grease to reduce downtime and parts replacements in the kiln carts while minimizing the impact of a labor-intensive and stressful operation due to harsh operating and environmental conditions.</p> <h6>Recommended Solution</h6> <p>We applied NCH Premalube Xtreme on kiln carts.</p> <h6>Results Achieved</h6> <ul> <li><strong>Annual labor cost savings:</strong> <strong>$43,520.00</strong> due to 2 failures from an expected 2.5 failures.</li> <li><strong>Annual parts savings:</strong> <strong>$29,440.00</strong> due to reduction in bearing replacement from 130 to 3.</li> <li><strong>Annual lubricant savings:</strong> <strong>$644.00</strong> due to the reduction of grease tubes from 17 to 2 per month (88% reduction).</li> <li><strong>Total annual savings:</strong> <strong>$73,604.00</strong>.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p>