Engine Manufacturer Reduces Honing Oil Costs by 70%
An automotive manufacturer was over budget due to honing oil costs, but they needed to maintain fluid purity specifications for a delicate machining process at their engine plant.
The honing oil was expensive, plant personnel needed downtime to dump and recharge the system, and frequent dumps resulted in excessive oil waste and CO2 contribution, which was outside the company’s environmental stewardship guiding principles. “Cost and waste increases brought industrial fluids to the customer’s attention. Fortunately, their approach to resolving the issue maintained focus on the fluid purity specification. So often, fluid cost reductions lead to off-spec fluids that cause costly tool life and part quality issues,” said Mark VanBocxlaer, director of sales at Trucent.
Small fines were passing through the existing media bed filtration system and accumulating in the oil. Tightening the existing filtration to satisfy the requirement of an eight-micron particle count below 50ppm would slow production and increase media disposal. Trucent engineered an in-line industrial fluid purification solution using media-free magnetic separation. The maintenance-free magnetic technology would enable the continuous flow rates necessary to meet production demands, while having the power to remove the small ferrous fines causing fluid waste issues. Because the magnetic separator with a Smart Drum Plus fluid recovery system has the capability to remove ferrous particles in the one-to-three-micron range, it can be adjusted to meet almost any change in future fluid purity specifications.
Since implementing the solution, the engine manufacturer reduced fluid-related costs on this honing operation by 70% and realized an investment payback in less than three months. The plant is more productive after eliminating the introduction of contaminants to their process, they have maintained the fluid specs needed for precision honing, and they reduced dump and recharge frequency.
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