Schaeffler Group Industrial keeps a close eye on plant costs: Reducing Life Cycle Costs

Schaeffler Group Industrial keeps a close eye on plant costs:

Reducing Life Cycle Costs

Schweinfurt/Hanover, April 16, 2007. Buying cheap can often prove expensive in the long run. This also applies to machine and plant components. Therefore the entire life cycle costs of these components ought to be taken into consideration, rather than just the initial purchase expenses. Often the purchase price accounts for merely ten percent of the overall costs. So when it comes to buying rolling bearings, for example, what's the point in saving a couple of euros if that means higher energy costs due to higher friction? Or higher maintenance overheads resulting from shorter service life of the machine element? Or even unplanned downtime - in other words, failure, delayed supplies and dissatisfied customers?

For these reasons, Schaeffler Group Industrial supports customers in all aspects of "Total Cost of Ownership". Here the overall costs of machines, plants and their components are examined closely and reliably - from purchase, energy consumption and maintenance all the way through to repairs, dismantling and disposal. Well-known cost drivers and hidden expenses can thus be identified, optimized and eliminated. At Schaeffler, reflection on "Total Cost of Ownership" starts with intensive research and development efforts that are aimed at continuous improvements in quality standards and thus the running properties of rolling bearings, through optimized design and materials. On the other hand, the Group also offers its customers a well-aimed, comprehensive technical advisory service and training, in order to find the best suitable solution for each application. In this context, the Group's sales and field service engineers, who are thoroughly familiar with their customers' respective industrial segments, are supported by electronic tools for bearing selection, calculation and simulation. Moreover, factors such as efficient instructions and suitable tools for bearing mounting all the way through to condition-based maintenance, lubrication, dismounting and reconditioning are all taken into consideration.

One example from the paper industry: Rolling bearings in CD-profile control rolls of calenders are usually subjected to low loads. The loads are only higher when the gap between the rolls is open. Originally the machine manufacturers chose spherical roller bearings with adequate load carrying capacity for the high-load phase for this application. However, in the low-load phase this led to slippage, resulting in premature bearing failure. Coated rolling elements and optimized lubrication made it possible to reduce these slippage effects but slippage itself could not be entirely avoided. For this reason, Schaeffler Group Industrial developed the so-called ASSR bearing (Anti-Slippage Spherical Rolling Bearing). The bearing comprises rings of standard spherical roller bearings, but barrel rollers alternate with balls in each of the two rows of rolling elements. In the low-load phase, the balls ensure slippage-free operation, while the barrel rollers take up the loads in the high load phase. So this bearing too can be called an "intelligent" bearing.

The benefits for the customer are plain to see: While the bearings reached a service life of about one year in the past, the new ASSR bearings are expected to last for up to ten years. In concrete terms this means less rolling bearing consumption, lower maintenance requirements and savings of an almost 6-digit euro amount over the entire life cycle. All this was achieved by taking only one single machine position into consideration. Further optimization and thus additional significant savings can be achieved by supplementary measures, such as online condition monitoring with the help of vibration diagnosis or temperature monitoring offered by Schaeffler subsidiary F'IS as well as dynamic and static balancing.

With approx. 63,000 employees at more than 180 locations worldwide and consolidated sales of 8.3bn Euro (2006), the Schaeffler Group is a leading global bearing manufacturer and automotive component supplier. Group members are Schaeffler KG with its two brands INA and FAG, headquartered in Herzogenaurach, and the LuK Group which is based in Bühl/Baden. The Industrial Division provides bearing solutions to some 60 different industrial segments via its Production Machinery, Heavy Industries, Power Transmission & Railway and Consumer Products business sectors.

Contact person

Dr. Matthias Schweizer

Schaeffler KG

Manager Technical Communications Schaeffler Group Industrial

Georg-Schäfer-Str. 30

D-97421 Schweinfurt

Tel.:      +49 9721 91-6223

Fax:      +49 9721 91-3375

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