CBC received advice from the customer that the main drive gearbox on the Number one Primary Conveyor had catastrophically failed. The failure of this industrial gearbox had completely stopped production at this particular facility. CBC was asked by the client to find a replacement industrial gearbox.

The failed gearbox was an outdated David Brown Radicon Worm Wheel type industrial gearbox. This particular model of David Brown industrial gearbox was not popular in modern drive designs due to its high cost and poor efficiency. The supply of this same David Brown gearbox was not possible on a short lead time. The following is a breakdown of the status of delivery and cost.

Item	Delivery Time	Cost
New David Brown industrial gearbox	15 weeks	AUD $85,000
Overhaul existing David Brown industrial gearbox	15 weeks	AUD $65,000

CBC Power Transmission technical specialists undertook a full analysis of the drive and found that the industrial gearbox was rated to a maximum of 37.1KW, despite it having a power input of 55KW. While the gearbox had been in place for many years, in recent times a larger motor had been installed to increase output. This had lead to the failure of the drive, which included Worm Wheel gear destruction. Hence, should CBC have been able to supply an identical replacement David Brown industrial gearbox, failure would have reoccurred.

Solution for Industrial Gearbox Upgrade

CBC was able to redesign the drive to accept a Rossi Bevel Helical gearbox. This particular industrial gearbox was lower in cost, and greater in efficiency. More importantly, this particular gearbox had the rated capacity to suit the drive motor. To adapt this drive to the conveyor and expedite installation, CBC also fabricated a drive base plate. The following is a summary of delivery and costs. Summary of delivery and costs is as follows;

Item	Delivery Time	Cost
New industrial gearbox	3 weeks	AUD $45,600
Adapter base plate	3 weeks	AUD $5,813
	TOTAL	AUD $51,413

This selection offered twice the mechanical capacity of the previous industrial gearbox, 77KW versus 37.1KW, greater power efficiency, and improved features, such as Air Sentry desiccant breathers.

Summary of Cost of Industrial Gearbox Upgrade

In order to quantify production cost savings, a cost of downtime was required. The only official production cost analysis available for this site was undertaken in 1990. The following therefore, in today’s terms, is considered to be conservative.

The 1990 production at this facility was costed at $6 per tonne. It operates 24 hours a day, five days per week, producing 2000 tonnes per 24 hour day. Therefore:

At $6 per tonne x 2000 tonnes per day = AUD $12,000 per day The customer was able to mitigate some of the downtime loss by having employees take holidays during the period of lost production. In addition, some planned electrical maintenance work, 10 days in total, was able to be brought forward.

Via CBC providing a delivery improvement, this industrial gearbox redesign provided a lead time of three weeks over the best possible alternative option of 15 weeks to rebuild. The saving was: 50 days ( 10 weeks) x $12,000 per day = AUD $600,000.

 Note: Calculations are based upon 10 weeks due to the fact that two weeks of electrical planned work was undertaken during this period as mentioned above.

 In addition, CBC was able to supply the upgraded solution at a lower cost of $51,400 versus the lowest cost alternative option of $65,000. Therefore the purchase cost saving was $65,000 - $51,400 = AUD $13,600