Rotherham Food Processing: Gearbox Oil Crisis
Annual Savings
£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
Annual Cost Impact
£340k
Annual Downtime
168h
Failure Rate
14 incidents per month
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.
Implementation Timeline: 3 weeks across facility
Products & Components Deployed
Key Metrics
Monthly Downtime Hours
Before
168 hours
After
2 hours
98.8%
Gearbox Oil Pour Point
Before
-9°C
After
-40°C
31°C improvement
Startup Torque
Before
400% above normal
After
15% above normal
96.2% reduction
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