Kotkamills is a forest products company based in Kotka, Finland. The company specializes in consumer boards, laminating paper, and sawn products – and is an innovative pioneer in introducing new technologies. Kotkamills actively accelerates the adoption of plastic-free options in convenience packaging. The Sense condition monitoring system has been employed at Kotkamills from July 2019, ever since the first stages of the solution.
The challenge
Kotkamills was one of the first customers to use Sulzer Sense in their process after it was launched in 2019. The system monitors the condition of five process pumps and one medium-consistency (MC) pump in the pulp production line.
The system consists of one gateway designed for industrial conditions, located in the process area, and six sensors installed in the bearings of the monitored equipment. The devices are battery-powered and operate in a wireless mesh network.
Sulzer Sense measures vibration and temperature every 30 minutes. The gateway is connected to the Internet / Sulzer’s cloud service via a cellular connection. The monitored devices are within a radius of about 10 meters from each other. This allows for an excellent network and the use of a single gateway.
The solution
The commissioning of the condition monitoring system was quick, easy and effortless and did not require special skills from the installer. The mobile app provided by Sulzer for the deployment of the system is unambiguous and easy to use.
The Sulzer Sense monitoring device measures machine vibrations and temperature to detect possible imbalance, misalignment, looseness, and bearing wear. It helps to identify changes in equipment condition parameters and indicates potential faults at an early stage, thus supporting predictive maintenance.
The cloud service provides the customer with easy access to device information. Through the cloud service, the customer can monitor the condition of the devices and view hardware trend information anywhere and anytime.
Customer benefit
- In addition to the advantages of continuous monitoring, one of the most significant benefits to the customer is access to detailed equipment information such as spare parts lists and product documentation through the service. For maintenance and repair work, there is no need to look in the archive for instructions and drawings.
- Sulzer Sense is suitable for all pumps, agitators, mixers and motors regardless of the type or brand in all industries.
“The system has worked reliably, and the measurement results are in line with our own reference measurements.” Harri Carling, Supervisor, Condition Monitoring and Reliability at Kotkamills.
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