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- Case Study -

Avoiding a Sticky Situation

How data extracted by RS Industria saved Histon Preserves time and money.

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The Benefits

Magnifying-Glass

Visibility of Asset Performance

Enabled detection of abnormal vibration levels in critical asset

Danger

Early Warning Prevented Failure

Alerts triggered immediate investigation before catastrophic damage occurred.

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Data Insight Enabled Planned Response

Engineers able to prepare maintenance schedules accordingly.

money

Avoided Costly
Downtime

Downtime on the filler is costly at £1,000 per hour. Combined with the associated product wastage costs and indirect impact of unplanned stoppages, HDG can save up to £20,000 per hour.

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Potential downtime costs per hour on unplanned stoppages

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The Problem

Machine downtime costs businesses in the region of £180 billion per year, yet more than two thirds of companies lack awareness of when assets are due for maintenance or upgrade. With hidden internal faults often to blame, leveraging technology to provide detailed insight into underperforming or failing machinery is key to keeping lines up and running.

At the heart of the Histon site are the filling machines. Capable of producing hundreds of jars per minute, the fillers are critical to productivity. When one of these lines goes down, it can significantly impact the business and halt operations for weeks at a time.

With a brand new gearbox installed, the site’s Line 2 filler should have been working at optimum performance yet, worryingly, the asset was displaying unusual levels of vibration. 

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The Solution

RS Industria was first installed on Line 2 in October 2021. Within weeks, the industrial insight platform had already proved its worth by flagging a near catastrophic fault on an ailing power transfer box.

Now, vibration anomalies on the filler’s gearboxes had begun to trigger alerts, which were sent by text and email to both the customer and RS Industria solutions engineers.

The line had recently benefited from the installation of a new motor gearbox, yet data gleaned from RS Industria sensors revealed vibration levels remained higher than their usual baseline. Though not serious enough to be indicative of imminent and line-stopping failure, the issue flagged demanded further attention.

The customer acted immediately and sent the affected motor gearbox off for repair. This revealed internal bearing stress, indicating the component was in early failure mode. While the machine was still in running condition, had the issue been left undetected for much longer, it would have led to machine failure within months.

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The Outcome

The worn part underwent significant repairs. Such early insight into degradation proved invaluable to the customer, who was able to put in place maintenance measures before substantial damage was caused to the machine.

Insight from RS Industria can flag immediate causes for concern as well as slow degradation of assets and parts over time. This allows customers to make informed maintenance decisions based on sound,
real-time data, saving both time and money. It also enables the rollout of a predictive strategy that ultimately benefits the bottom line. 

"RS Industria is helping us to drive efficiencies, reliability and cost savings through our business. We want our engineers to undertake the right maintenance at the right time rather than wasting time and money changing parts or lubrication for the sake of it. By embedding this approach we can determine the reliability of  our assets and use the data to inform our future maintenance strategy.

Justin Jones, Engineering Reliability Manager

The Lessons

Prior to the installation of RS Industria, the Histon team had little insight into the condition of critical assets and the components within them. By implementing its use, the engineering team now have access to data that enables them to  make informed and timely decisions on both of their key lines, saving the business from the catastrophic and costly impact of lengthy and unplanned downtime.

Next Steps

RS Industria has proved an essential tool at the Histon site. The value of the insight it generates and its ability to optimise assets is being further explored for use on the customer’s High Speed and Ready to Eat lines, as well as other  critical assets at further HDG sites.