Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
L&T Technology Services offers wide ranging mechanical engineering services to customers across industry verticals to assist in their product development activities. The company’s engineering design and development offers value-optimized design services that supports manufacturers in activities like new product design and development, reverse engineering, CAD modeling & analysis, value analysis, value added engineering and so forth. One of the largest European industrial products conglomerate worked with LTTS to develop a more standardized and efficient product design that also enhanced serviceability and product reliability.
Background and Challenge: Processing machines like separators find extensive application in industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food & beverage, and pulp and paper, to name a few. These are used to separate mixtures of two or more media or to remove solids. LTTS was approached by the client to design and develop a direct drive system to eliminate the need for a gear/belt-driven transmission system. The overall goal was to make the design more modular and standardized so as to minimize energy consumption, and the time required for maintenance and servicing.
The Solution: LTTS uses its advanced machine vision engineering capabilities to provide customized solutions to clients, which helps them to shorten the product development lifecycle as well as achieve energy efficiency goals. The company developed a high-speed spindle drive system with integral shaft design. The optimized design reduced the size of the separator and also improved the separation performance. A modular and smaller design also meant a smaller footprint, lower energy consumption, and a shorter downtime for maintenance and service diagnostics. LTTS also incorporated sensors into the equipment design, which helped the client to continuously monitor machine performance.
Quantifiable Benefits: With engineering support from L&T TS, the client achieved significant efficiency improvements and equipment effectiveness. The smaller number of components helped the client to control and reduce energy losses, maintenance costs, and the overall total cost of ownership (TOC). In summary, the client attained the following:
- Achieved efficiency to the extent of 93 percent and saved energy with direct drive system through the elimination of intermediate drive (gear/belt)
- Maintenance free design enhanced serviceability
- Standardized modular motor design for top and bottom feed of separator that minimized the downtime
- Higher reliability of the product with bearings designed for maintenance free operating period (MFOP) of 16000 hours
- Continuous monitoring of performance parameters such as bearing vibration (using spectral analysis), machine vibration, noise, and temperature through the introduction of sensors within the system
The sensors can be further leveraged for remote monitoring and diagnostic purposes by incorporating internet of things capabilities and advanced analytics to perform predictive maintenance.
Keywords: Direct Drive, Energy Efficiency, Machine Vision, Product Development, L&T Technology Services, ARC Advisory Group, Value Engineering.