case study

When the Condition Monitoring team at the former Hokushin owned Starwood Australia MDF panel plant in Bell Bay Tasmania introduced a new predictive maintenance system, the effects on production were remarkable. As part of a best practice maintenance programme the team replaced the old vibration analysis test equipment with the Commtest VB 2000 to accurately monitor faults and help prevent costly machine breakdowns. In just 16 months from the start of the programme uptime had increased from 65% to 82% and the plant was running more professionally. The team calculated that the savings returned by the Commtest VB Series amounted to tens of thousands of dollars and weeks of maintenance time saved in identifying faults.

Carter Holt Harvey Bell Bay, Tasmania Australia

Poor Quality, Poor Uptime Condition Monitoring Coordinator Kevern Rump joined the old Hokushin MDF panel processing plant in Tasmania in 2001. Formerly called Starwood Australia the green field site was originally designed to produce 200,000m3 of MDF panel per year and operate 24/7 all year round. But, only five years after it was built, the site had been run to the ground. Quality issues and an unreliable plant resulted in poor uptime, and reduced the site to a 24-hour 5day operation. With potential closure on the horizon the plant underwent a major reorganisation in early 2001 to bring it back up to scratch. The introduction of best practice maintenance and various departmental initiatives throughout the site saw Starwood recover from being on the brink of closure to a promising investment. And, in December 2002, Carter Holt Harvey purchased the plant. Instigating a Predictive Maintenance Programme As part of the restructuring Kevern Rump joined the company to head up a dedicated maintenance team responsible for monitoring all machine performance and reducing the cost of maintenance. He started building an initial database of all the equipment and instigated a proactive maintenance programme that would include daily monitoring of plant equipment using the Commtest VB 2000 vibration analysis product. We use a vibration analysis (VA) system to provide timely warning of impending failures, so that repairs can be planned and carried out without incurring downtime or secondary damage to the machine, explained Kevern. Previously, a DLI VA test system was used to monitor their machinery, but the data-collector was old technology that needed upgrading; it also lacked functionality and user-friendliness. The options were to either replace the equipment, or keep the software and upgrade the datacollector. Neither was particularly cost-attractive. Kevern also had experience of using other VA systems, including ENTEK, but none offered the ideal solution he was looking for. Discovering Commtest Soon after, at a VANZ conference, he spotted the Commtest VB 2000 vibration analyser product that a friend in the industry had recommended. He was immediately impressed with its easy-to-use features, robust functionality and Firmware and Software service packs free of charge, plus it was a fraction of the cost of other systems. Carter Holt Harvey purchased the VB 2000 in late 2001 and, satisfied with its performance and the helpful service received from Commtest, they upgraded the product 18 months later to the VB 3000. 1
June 2004

case study
Calculated benefits of the Commtest VB Series The maintenance team use the VB 3000 daily to monitor equipment as part of a predictive maintenance programme. It detects when specific points on the machines start to wear out and enables them to plan ahead for when repairs are to be made. Since weve been using Commtests products we have recorded all faults identified in a database with the associated cost savings. We calculated that between November 2001 and May 2004 the profit value of the estimated direct equipment savings (avoiding secondary damage) was $143,930. We also estimated that we have provided 360 hours of production time by identifying the faults and avoiding unplanned downtime, said Kevern. Today, with the equipment back on 24/7 operations, the Carter Holt Harvey Bell Bay panel plant does not have a built in redundancy for the machines, as when any one machine stops working, the whole plant comes to a standstill. Instead they set aside I day a month for a Plant shutdown and carry out repairs of any detected faults as well as predictive/preventative tasks that have been scheduled. On average about 200 jobs are completed by a pool of between 70 to 80 engineers contracted specifically for the 10-hour maintenance shutdown. The key benefit of the VB 3000 is having an alarm working well and collecting reliable data that the team can use to predict when a machine needs repair. By only working on the machines that are in alarm condition and not working on machines that are in good condition the team can save time and add more machines to the workload. While Carter Holt Harvey are still adding equipment to the maintenance system using the VB 3000, they recognise there are significant opportunities when the system is used to its best advantage. Not only can they pinpoint with greater accuracy when and where a fault is likely to occur, and time the repair into the maintenance run, they have also increased the uptime of their machinery. In our experience, the key to maximising any maintenance resource is to check on the run and maintain all planned outages. Conducting regular non-intrusive checks to process machinery frees up manpower to carry out the repairs, confirmed Kevern.

The Commtest VB Series (www.commtest.com) are intelligent maintenance solutions designed to provide precision vibration, monitoring and analysis of rotating machinery at a fraction of the cost of comparable packages. Customers can expect up to 35% costs savings when they make a full changeover from preventative maintenance to a predictive maintenance system, and achieve reduction in plant power consumption by 10% or more. Carter Holt Harvey pinepanels (www.chhpinepanels.com) is the leading supplier of added value wood products to Australasian markets and the leading supplier of panel products, such as MDF and Particleboard, to the Australian market. The pinepanels business consists of six sites including the Customwood MDF manufacturing operations at Bell Bay in northern Tasmania. Brands include Structaflor, Customwood, Colourpyne, Pinepar and Pinepanels. 2
June 2004

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