Schaeffler Australia Industrial Sector manager Martin Grosvenor, right, accepts the highly commended award from Patrick Roberts, National Sales Manager of Bulk Handling Review, left Schaeffler received a highly commended award at the 2016 Bulk Handling Awards ceremony for two of its maintenance solutions. The awards recognise innovative, efficient and safe technologies in the bulk handling industry and Schaeffler received the accolade in the Excellence in Transport and/or Conveying category for its innovative maintenance solutions for KCGM and Pilbara Iron. Schaeffler provided KCGM a package of custom fabricated sliding sleeve housings and FAG spherical roller bearings for tube mill output processing at its Super Pit and Mt Charlotte gold mines in Kalgoorlie, to help reduce downtime and maintenance costs. The package of sliding sleeve housings and spherical roller bearings means floating bearing displacement no longer takes place between the housing and sliding plate but between sliding sleeve and housing bore. Lubricant is constantly fed between sliding sleeve and housing bore, ensuring a low coefficient of friction when thermal expansions take place inside the 7000mm long, 3000 kW tube mill. Schaeffler was also recognised for its solution that reduced the cost of replacing the bearings on bucket wheel excavator drives at Pilbara Iron’s Dampier Port operations. The standard unsplit FAG SGC Pillow Block housing on the grease-lubricated drive shaft of the machines were difficult to access, and the spherical roller bearings would have taken 72 hours to replace. Schaeffler, however recommended changing the conventional FAG spherical roller bearings to FAG split spherical roller bearings, designed to simplify maintenance by eliminating complicated bearing replacement procedures. The split bearings were fitted into the existing housing without modification or the need to remove the drive shaft, decreasing the installation time as well as downtime and overall cost. “To have two of our major maintenance projects receive the honour of highly commended is a great achievement and a testament to the hard work put in by the whole Schaeffler team here in Australia,” Andre Kluge, Managing Director, Schaeffler Australia, said.