”Empir Industry makes it work”

SKF's D-Factory in Gothenburg manufactures ball bearings. Customers are in different sectors within steel manufacture and the paper industry. The factory plant deals with more than 1.5 million bearings a year and the process runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The hardening of the ballbearings takes place on two separate lines and is batch processed with a supervisory system which controls each stage in the process while collecting measurements and monitoring operations.  

– The system registers all measured data and is unbelievably valuable to us. The measured data shows how the roundness is after hardening which is very important to keep track of. There are also differences between different steel suppliers, says Joel Berg, Production Manager at SKF AB.

The operating data is also very valuable, it shows where there may be problems or bottlenecks. For example, in SKF's case, all the movements the robots do throughout the day are recorded.

How did operations work before Empir Industry's inputs?

– We had an existing supervisory system in operation, but it was basically unusable for monitoring operations and for measuring data. Furthermore, the system was unstable and based on an ageing software platform.

What positive effects have you seen with the new production system?

– We now have a system which works and what is more, we have a professional partner who takes us seriously and has production system skills.  With our new system we get a very valuable data that basically we use daily. What Empir Industry does works. Unfortunately, I've been through many other cases over the years that did not work, explains Joel Berg.