Rotherham Food Processing: Gearbox Oil Crisis
A sudden cold snap in January 2023 caused gearbox oil to reach pour point limits, resulting in three motor burnouts in 4 hours.
Annual Saving
£280k
ROI Payback
2.8 months
Uptime Gain
98%
Incident Reduction
0 cold-start failures
The Challenge
A sudden cold snap in January 2023 caused gearbox oil to reach pour point limits, resulting in three motor burnouts in 4 hours. The facility experienced 14 unplanned shutdowns that month—all traced to cold-start bearing seizures.
Equipment Affected
Industrial gearboxes (ISO VG 220), conveyor motors, hydraulic systems
The Solution
Switched to Mobil SHC 626 (ISO VG 220 Synthetic PAO) across all gearboxes, installed SKF Lincoln low-temperature automatic lubricators on 12 critical points, and deployed wireless temperature sensors with predictive maintenance alerts.
Products Deployed
- Mobil SHC 626 Synthetic PAO
- SKF Lincoln Auto-Lubricators
- Wireless Temperature Sensors
- Thermal Motor Jackets
Key Metrics
Monthly Downtime Hours
Before
168 hours
After
2 hours
98.8% improvement
Gearbox Oil Pour Point
Before
-9°C
After
-40°C
31°C improvement improvement
Startup Torque
Before
400% above normal
After
15% above normal
96.2% reduction improvement
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