Challenges

  • Need to increase visibility within the plant. Failures occur in overlooked and ignored parts of plant.
  • Plant has non-repeating failures that occur in a different location each time.

How SAM GUARD Helped

  • SAM GUARD created a very precise warning for raw mill fan #4, which is just one out of ten fans.
  • After inspection, broken dampers were detected. Draft repair was conducted immediately, reducing vibration. Complete repair was scheduled.

Value

  • Overlooked broken dampers were replaced thanks to SAM GUARD’s alerts. Significant damage to the raw mill fan was prevented.
  • By fixing a small problem ahead of time, a greater problem was eliminated that would have caused shutdown and lost production.
  • $103K of damage prevented
    (1-day shutdown = 600k tons of cement per year / 350 days of production x $60 per ton