Gearbox upgrade cuts costs for Hubron

Plastics specialist Hubron has increased line productivity and reduced operation costs by a massive 30% thanks to a decision to replace its problematic gearboxes.

Plastics specialist Hubron has increased line productivity and reduced operation costs by a massive 30% thanks to a decision to replace its problematic gearboxes with Sumitomo Cyclo Europe's SEB Paramax range.

The Hubron Group, which specialises in the manufacturing of black plastic masterbatch, used in a wide range of plastics applications, was originally founded in 1934.

Throughout its history, Hubron has established itself as the second largest black plastic manufacturer in Europe, and has a sophisticated sales network that stretches across the continents.

Hubron's drive applications perform a key role in its operations, where the plastic compound is outputted in pellet form as it is fed through an underwater palletiser.

The importance of this specialist machinery used to output the black plastic product is further reinforced as the company requires continuous operation; 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

This inevitably makes breakdown costly and severely impacts on productivity.

Dave Long, Hubron's Engineering Team Leader outlines the problem: "We where spending considerable time maintaining the gearboxes due to extreme overheating".

"The existing units where proving costly to maintain, and obtaining spare parts such as bearings was both an expensive and time consuming task, thus impacting on our productivity".

Hubron approached power transmission specialist Itec Power Services, to offer a solution for their demanding application needs, and Itec in turn consulted Sumitomo Cyclo Europe, the worlds leading gear reducer manufacturer, in the extruder sector.

Hubron's objective, was to reduce maintenance, and improve overall performance.

Gary Ashworth, Managing Director for Itec explains the process: "Our initial visit confirmed the demanding requirements the applications imposed on the gearboxes, but we didn't hesitate in suggesting the Sumitomo SEB extruder range as a possible solution".

Another factor affecting the performance and all round cost, was Hubron's use of DC motors integrated with the existing old style, double helical gearboxes on the application drives.

These are notoriously expensive to maintain, with regular brush changes, proving to be time consuming and costly.

Itec Power Services, in conjunction with Sumitomo, suggested a conversion to AC vector motors with an inverter drive to offer greater efficiency.

With this combination, Sumitomo and ITEC proposed that they install SEB extruder gear reducers with AC vector motors and inverters in an ambitious refurbishment of all four lines of Hubron's manufacturing lines.

Two assemblies have now been in place since July, and in this short period of time, Hubron has already reported increases in productivity and energy efficiency - and lower noise.

Dave Long is enthusiastic about the programme: "The switch to Sumitomo gearboxes alone has led to an increase in efficiency.

Coupled with Itec's suggestion of replacing our DC motors with AC vector motors has led to overall efficiency improvement with our running cost reduced by a massive 30%".

The SEB Paramax range is a precision-engineered product, featuring a unique concept of standardised gear set design and manufacture.

The concept provides the added economy and value of direct gear set exchange between sizes.

With a pressure angle of 25 degrees and a helix angle of 14 degrees, no other speed reducer on the European market can offer the same benefits.

Customised units are available for torque in excess of 600kNm.

Standard features include: plunge ground wear sleeves; dual lip sealing; a back stop option; cooling options; AGMA quality 12 gears; a modular design; and a forced lubrication option.

In this case, the units selected required modification and customisation in order to exactly fit within specially constructed mounts and to use the existing space.

Allan Findlow, UK Sales Manager for Sumitomo Cyclo Europe is pleased with the outcome for Hubron: "Hubron approached ourselves and Itec to achieve the seemingly impossible; reduced cost, higher productivity and lower running costs.

But with the local support of Itec we delivered beyond this with the added advantages of the SEB units supplied".

Dave Long is now a strong advocate of the Sumitomo gearbox range: "Sumitomo delivered above and beyond what we asked for, on top of the increased productivity and efficiency, we also achieved significant noise reduction and self maintained gearboxes, but more importantly a reliable range of units with excellent after sales support programme".

The SEB Paramax gearboxes were purchased under Sumitomo's unique "Signature Service" programme.

Run in conjunction with oil giant Mobil, the scheme offers up to 5 years warranty on each gearbox.

This value-added service applies to each individual unit, and offers a managed predictive maintenance programme through condition monitoring and performance evaluation.

Benefits include: oil vibration analysis; comparison of analysis results; predictive maintenance; scheduling of downtime, labour and materials; promotion of improved operation condition; and improved safety and quality levels.

Each Signature Service pack contains: Mobil synthetic oil; Mobil oil sampling analysis; a gear reducer datasheet; no load vibration; and marked accelerometer points.

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