MechChem Africa talks to Burak Ozyurt, managing director for SKF in Southern Africa, about a new approach to delivering maintenance services in the region. Using remote diagnostics and several new onsite innovations, SKF is currently able to deliver long-term maintenance solutions that require no upfront investment from plant operators.
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Burak Ozyurt believes that the maintenance maturity level of many industries in the Southern African region is not yet where it ought to be. This is due to a set of complex factors such as skills gaps, restrained business environments, remote locations and often harsh operating environments, this in spite of the many, multinational OEMs operating in the region. “This often leads to short-term maintenance decisions on the ground, which is never ideal for the long-term health or financial viability of industrial plants in Southern Africa,” he says.
“Localisation is also seen as making it harder to raise maintenance maturity levels,” he continues, “but all multinational service providers trade by the same rules, making competition fair. This is particularly true when considering the use of advanced connected technologies for monitoring the health of plant equipment, establishing maintenance needs and intervening early to avoid unscheduled shutdowns,” he says.
“Remote monitoring equipment tends to be from overseas and expensive, but it pleases me to see that, in Southern Africa as a whole, SKF is among a few companies capable of delivering these new technologies in this tough and competitive environment. We are receiving increasing numbers of enquiries for vibration analysis, oil analysis and thermography services,” he adds.
Having established a remote diagnostic centre (RDC) in its new Marlin Road premises in Johannesburg, SKF has started doing conformity checks to establish the viability of doing remote condition monitoring for plants across the region. “Our findings are very exciting. By installing condition monitoring and lubrication equipment that connects to our RDC, there becomes much less need for our staff to travel to remote sites. This is excellent for clients, particularly in the current climate, for health and safety reasons as well as for cost efficiency, travel and labour cost reductions and for governance of the control of data. It gives clients the opportunity to outsource these often complex and costly tasks to experts, who are able to shave costs by working remotely and collectively,” Ozyurt explains.
With the newly established Remote Diagnostic Centre, SKF now has a number of data analysts who are able to provide state-of-the art diagnostics about the condition of the assets being remotely monitored. “We have also invested further in technologies such a lubrication, which is very important for heavy equipment such as the mills and crushers typically used on remote mines in Africa. In 2015, we acquired the specialist services of Lincoln Lubrication Systems and Management Services, which we have merged into the broader remote maintenance offering. This is a major step forward in terms of raising the maintenance and asset management maturity in the region,” he continues.
In addition to Lincoln Lubrication, Ozyurt says that SKF has also recently acquired Recond Oil, a company that specialises in the manufacture of oil cleaning and recirculation. “In keeping with the modern concept of the circular economy, Recond Oil has developed its business around overcoming the environmental harm of having to dispose of used oil. The company manufactures mobile machines that clean and recirculate the millions of litres of oil used on large sites, which not only results in better environmental compliance, but huge savings in operational costs accrue for operators,” he explains.
To these systems, SKF adds fully automated Lincoln lubrication systems, which enables large remote sites to overcome the ongoing need for maintenance personnel to manually lubricate their rotating equipment. “With our remote diagnostic capability, we are now able to combine all of these modern offerings to offer routine, customised and remote care of plant equipment,” says Ozyurt.
Describing how SKF is making these options affordable, he says that COVID-19 has demanded a new approach. “We are now on the edge of a massive economic crisis, with budget freezes on capex and opex. We at SKF have, therefore, developed a performance-based financial model that does not require any upfront investment from clients,” he assures.
“What we say to clients is let SKF develop and install customised remote monitoring, oil reconditioning and lubrication systems, systems based on most critical needs and which we all feel will have the most positive reliability and cost benefits for the plant. We then test the system out and, by monitoring the benefits and their cost implications, we finance the investment through shared savings,” he explains.
“We call this a performance-based model, because, while SKF will fund the initial investment, there are no fixed repayments. Instead, the monthly premium is calculated directly from the savings achieved. This means clients cannot lose by adopting one of our solutions. Performance-based financing offers them the opportunity to save huge amount of money for many years, without having to invest anything upfront.
“Also, of course, this completely removes the investment risk. SKF takes direct responsibility for making the system worthwhile. If no savings accrue, then no payments are due,” he adds.
To deliver this service, SKF has invested in its Remote Diagnostic Centre and the associated advanced and connected vibration, thermography, oil analysis and other condition monitoring technologies; the lubrication business unit, which includes Lincoln Lubrication Systems and Recond Oil; its bearing remanufacturing and refurbishment centres; and its multi-million rand new South African facility in Marlin Road. “More importantly, we have employed over 50 diagnostic and applications engineers throughout Southern Africa and established a world-class Merseta- and BINDT-accredited training facility for skills development.
“These investments make us 100% confident that we can deliver on the promise of better efficiencies and lower costs, so that performance-based financing can immediately reduce maintenance costs and substantially reduce long-term operational costs for our clients,” says Ozyurt.
While bearings are SKF’s core products, Burak Ozyurt explains that they can never be treated as stand-alone products. Incorrect lubrication, too little or too much; poor sealing that allows dust to contaminate the lubricant; or connected equipment such as gearboxes or power transmission components being mis-aligned, all cause bearing damage. “You can’t look after a bearing on a rotating machine without also looking after everything else connected on the same shaft,” he points out.
“If a vibration is detected, it might come from a neighbouring power transmission unit, or from the ground or from under/over lubrication or from misalignment and it may mean that the bearing is nearing the end of its life. Remote diagnostics specialists can identify the exact cause quickly, while also recommending a maintenance response,” he explains.
“We are now combining all our value propositions to enable us to deliver a totally new business model to the African market, a performance-based model that is customised to every operator’s unique needs and costed according to the improved performance we can deliver for them,” Ozyurt concludes.
