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Improving process performance with Baldor•Dodge speed reducers

ABB’s Baldor•Dodge® motorized speed reducers have boosted process uptime and reduced operating costs in a highly abrasive glass-dust environment. “This product has met all my expectations. They run trouble-free, which is an ideal situation for us,” says the customer, the world’s largest producer of glass beads for highway safety markings.

Photo ABB Group

The Baldor•Dodge Motorized Torque-Arm II speed reducers have been operating flawlessly since January 2008 at Potters Industries’ glass bead manufacturing facility at Muscatine, Iowa. Potters Industries is a leading producer of engineered glass materials. Most of the company’s production is glass beads, which are made from recycled glass and embedded into highways to provide light reflective safety markings that are visible to drivers in darkness and poor light.

In late 2007, new bucket elevators were installed in the plant’s bead-making process. This presented the plant engineers with the opportunity to replace the existing high-maintenance and downtime-prone belted shaft-mount speed reducers. In the past, belted shaft-mount reducers were used to speed-control the bucket elevators that move the glass through the initial stages of the production process. In this demanding environment of grinding and pulverizing, even minimal amounts of glass dust abrade the rubber belts, which have to be replaced every three to six months.

“It’s not just the expense of the belts,” says plant production manager Bob Schult, “It’s the expense of shutting down production for maintenance. I would say that a good 30 percent of the time we had belt issues that caused unplanned downtime. Dealing with the problem was costly and time consuming.” And, it affected production downstream. Uptime and reliability are critical to the plant, says the Muscatine plant manager, Glenn Amundson. The plant operates 24/7, 360 days a year, to meet the demand for its product, and unplanned downtime disrupts the bead-making process. In the four years since they were installed, the Baldor•Dodge Motorized Torque-Arm II speed reducers have eliminated unscheduled maintenance and improved productivity.

speed reducers

Photo ABB Group

“This product has met all my expectations,” says Amundson. “The MTAs have been running since January 2008 with absolutely no issues. All we have done is the regular maintenance. They run trouble-free, which is an ideal situation for us.” Besides increasing uptime at the plant, the Baldor•Dodge MTAs have helped save time and money in other ways as well. Operators and maintenance staff are able to focus on their core tasks instead of inspecting, tensioning or replacing belts.

“Our operators can focus on their job, which is to make quality product. And, our maintenance staff can spend their time on other critical areas in the plant, helping us become even more productive,” says Amundson.

The Baldor•Dodge MTA II is a fully enclosed shaft-mounted speed reducer designed for applications in which space is at a premium and robustness is critical, such as conveyors, mixing and milling of harsh materials and heavy-duty bulk handling.

Baldor Electric Company is a member of the ABB Group.