A large mining and minerals operation based in South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province required an easy-to-operate-and-understand instrument for the detection of possible conveyor roller breakdowns. Conveyor idlers which support the length of the conveyor belt are a common cause of belt damage and production downtime. “Early detection of faulty idlers helps avoid costly belt repairs, lost production and risk to workers,” explains Steve Gething, Manager - Reliability Systems Business Development, SKF South Africa.

“Through our local authorised distributor, Bearing Services Middleburg, SKF South Africa offered the mining operation the ideal solution in the form of an SKF Idler Sound Monitoring kit. The CMXA ISM, a rugged, easy to use, handheld monitoring device for early detection of faults in conveyor belt idlers, is equipped with acoustic enveloping technology and distinguishes between the sounds of a good idler and a faulty one even in high ambient noise environments.” First SKF Idler Sound Monitor kit on African continent

Jamie Cantin from Bearing Services Middelburg, who sold the Idler Sound Monitor kit to the mining operation, says it is the first ISM kit to be supplied on the African continent. “Along with uncovering idler faults quickly and reliably, the ISM kit is a safe to use tool that provides maintenance workers with a safer and objective alternative to traditional ‘walk around’ that normally depend on the skill of the worker to listen and recognise the faulty idler. “The customer is now able to reliably predict possible conveyor roller failures before they become catastrophic, thereby saving millions of Rands in conveyor standing time which translated to approximately R200 000 per hour,” adds Cantin. 

Gething points out that, due to the success of the ISM kit and the customer’s reported satisfaction with the unit, it will be internally promoted at the Middelburg operation where breakdown predictions can avoid unplanned downtime and save valuable time and costs. Discussing SKF’s valuable distributor partnership, Gething says, “We share a close relationship with our country-wide network of authorised independent industrial distributors. They are an extension of our product and service delivery capability, giving us the best route to market and placing SKF appropriate resources and skills where they are required enabling us to equip our customers with SKF knowledge. We understand the importance of plant availability and our distributors, who are situated closer to our customer base, are able to provide quick turnaround times not only in terms of product delivery but also in terms of service, maintenance and repairs to keep downtime to a minimum so that our customers can realise lower total cost of ownership,” concludes Gething.