Cleared for Take Off

The airport’s Energy Centre contains – like most Plant Rooms – assets incorporating bearings of all sizes and types. These were being manually lubricated on a monthly basis, which is where the maintenance engineers hit turbulence. 

Some of the bearings – especially in the chip feeder and cooling ducts – are too far off the ground for safe access without a hoist. So every month costly access equipment was hired-in, and labour costs rose for the time-consuming manual lubrication regime. 

The customer approached ERIKS for new ideas which would fly. 

Engineers in the ejector seat

The obvious solution was to remove the manual element of the process – eliminating any health and safety concerns. And that meant fitting Simalube automatic lubricators. 

Available in five different sizes, Simalube lubricators will automate any single-point lubrication task, with a wide variety of greases and oils. 

Once installed – a quick and simple job – the lubricators use an integrated dry cell to produce gas. The gas builds up behind the lubricator’s piston, gradually pushing it down to dispense the lubricant, evenly and in the required quantity.

Because the lubrication is continuous, the bearing is optimally lubricated at all times, with no chance of running dry and no wastage. The amount of lubricant dispensed can be set  precisely and accurately using just an Allen key. 

Feet on the ground

With the installation of the Simalube automatic lubricators, the customer has massively reduced the cost of hiring access equipment. Now maintenance engineers don’t just keep their feet firmly and safely on the ground, but have also reduced their involvement in the lubrication regime. 

Instead, the bearings are continually kept optimally lubricated with no manual intervention – ensuring the assets achieve their designed service life, and reducing their Total Cost of Ownership. 

Reducing hoist hire charges and labour alone has allowed the customer to take off £6,000 from their annual maintenance costs. Longer service life and lower TCO will help them save even more. So as every plane flies off into the blue, lubrication costs go further into the black.