Six early alerts to degrading fans save up to 12 hours and €96k in unplanned downtime

SAM4 Health, installed on wood panel production line exhaust fans, detected and alerted the customer to 6 faults, preventing unplanned downtime. Maintenance actions were taken, saving up to €96k by avoiding 12 hours of disruption.

In wood-based panel production lines, exhaust fans remove the fumes released during the miling, gluing and pressing processes. If these fans fail, the production line must stop to avoid the buildup of toxic gases. Early warning of potential failure is important to ensure that enough fans are always operational.

At a wood-based panel manufacturing plant, SAM4 Health is installed on eight exhaust fans in the same production line. Over the course of fifteen months, SAM4 alerted the customer to 6 developing faults in these fans. SAM4's notifications were early enough to fully prevent unplanned downtime during this period.

In each case, SAM4 detected an increase in spectral energy at the motor's rotational frequency. The customer inspected the fan in question and performed the relevant maintenance: in four cases, replacing the clutch, impeller or bearings; in two cases, cleaning the impeller; in one case, welding holes in the fan housing. After maintenance, SAM4 confirmed a return to healthy behavior.

SAM4 data for one of the 6 fault detections. The customer was alerted at the first blue line; after they performed maintenance, SAM4 confirmed a return to healthy behavior at the second blue line.

Thanks to SAM4's consistent early alerts, the customer experienced no unexpected fan failures and was able to plan maintenance on the fans that needed it at a time when it would not disrupt production. This prevented up to 12 hours of unplanned downtime at a cost of €8,000 per hour, saving the customer up to €96k.