Tag Archives: MRO

Criteria for Selecting Heavy Industry Brakes and Clutches

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Marland Clutch

Marland Clutch

Often you find yourself in a challenging MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) quagmire with regard to repairing or replacing your heavy industry (i.e. crane) brakes or clutches.

I am the first to admit there are many, many brake and clutch manufacturers out there. And there are numerous options to choose from within those manufacturers.

You might say to yourself “Where do I start?” when looking for a solution to your brake and clutch challenge.

At face value you might consider a brake is a brake. But please don’t. When considering the best safety factor in selecting the correct brake for your application, you must remember brakes are not an interchangeable commodity.

There are in fact several variables to consider in the proper selection. These include:

Function: stopping, tensioning, emergency, cyclical, redundancy, wind protection, parking-static…

Requirements: torque and speed, safety factor, actuation, duty cycle, minimum and maximum friction, impact mitigation…

Control: automatic and over speed, open vs. closed look, response time, manual override…

Features: mounting, DIN, AISE, materials…

Environment: ambient conditions, seasonal variations, corrosive, dusty or abrasive, hazardous, etc…

Different Types of Heavy Industry Brakes and Clutches

In addition, there are so many different types of brakes: thruster drum or disc brakes, magnet drum or disc brakes, water-cooled brakes, tensioning brakes, air brakes, storm and parking brakes, hydraulic brakes, etc.

There are also numerous different types of friction materials with different formulations and coefficients: woven friction materials, flexible friction materials, rigid friction materials, phenolic wear materials, etc. Coefficients can range from less than 0.1 upwards of .72 and greater.

Brakes take on various forms in terms of their mechanical functionality. Of course, actuation is a major component of this.

Often times, applications do require fail-safe brakes so the brakes apply in the event of a power loss. These brakes are typically spring-set and released by a magnetic coil, AC or DC 3-phase thruster, hydraulic, air, or manual.

Brakes can also be hydraulic or air applied and thus non fail-safe.

There are several different options to choose from in terms of brake styles, mounting, controls, actuation, and accessories (i.e. discs, drums, power units, etc).

Selecting The Right Brake For Your System

How does one make an educated decision in both a timely and cost-effective manner with all these different features and options to choose from?

As with other significant capital business expenditures, the least expensive option is not necessarily the best one. Taking a few more hours, days or even weeks to make an informed decision about your investment may prove to save a great deal of time and money in the long-run.

The best way to approach this is by working with application engineers who possess brake, clutch and friction expertise. Of course, everyone has their own inherent bias.

However a good application engineer and technical salesperson will put safety and quality first. They do so because helping their client obtain a high-quality and long-lasting product is their ultimate motivation.

Considering competition is not a bad thing. In fact, it is extremely important to obtain a second or third opinion in most cases.

Hearing differing perspectives often times compels one to think about the questions at hand as well as other questions you might not have even considered. Ultimately, doing your homework and analysis will lead you to a better, more informed decision.

At Kor-Pak we try to educate our prospects and customers. Our engineers and consultants are motivated to provide exceptional customer service. You are never merely a sale to us, you are a partner in a hopefully long lasting relationship.

Learn more about our Industrial Brake and Clutch Services  as well as our Industrial Brake and Clutch Accessories and Spare Parts.

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Finding The Missing Link In The Heavy Industry OEM Process

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Heavy Industry Construction Crane

Heavy Industry Construction Crane

An OEM (original equipment manufacturer) manufactures a large piece of equipment for you, the end user. This may be an overhead crane or a gantry crane, a conveyor, stacker/reclaimer or “any equipment used for (non-automotive) heavy industry.

The OEM sells this piece of equipment to an end user. These could be a steel mill, mine, food processing plant, airport, container port, or literally any type of manufacturing entity within an industrial application.

This piece of equipment must do its job regularly and reliably for the end to profit. For example, a steel mill needs an overhead crane to help move material and process in the manufacturing of steel. Without this crane, the process comes to a halt and the job can not be done due to downtime.

An efficiently operating crane is part of the life blood surging through the veins of a successful steel making plant. So it’s only natural for end user companies to want to ensure their equipment runs at optimal capacity ensuring maximum uptime. They also want to keep costs minimal to reduce operating expense and add to their profit margin.

Therefore you might ask: “Does the OEM provide parts and service for this equipment in the long run?”

Not the Core Competency of an OEM

The answer is simply yes. The OEM does provide parts and service. However, it is NOT their core competency.

There are several variables that come into play in this scenario which create the opportunity for a MRO distributor to enter into the scene.

OEMs primarily specialize in making the equipment. They are typically very expensive products that include multiple components such as electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, etc. Some of these OEM’s do not provide the individual components. They neither service nor repair them.

Retrofit and Modernize Good Heavy Industry Equipment

Furthermore, as the heavy industry’s capital equipment ages and depreciates, there comes a definite need to retrofit and/or modernize it. For instance, a crane might be 30-40 years old.

Although it is still fundamentally a good piece of equipment, technology has improved dramatically since it was first put into production throttling efficiency.

Their also might be issues trying to keep the crane in service. The original parts may be obsolete or the OEM no longer provides maintenance manuals or instructions.

At the other extreme replacing the crane is costly and time consuming. The capital investment for a new crane might be close to $2 million alone. Plus there’s the downtime of replacement.

MRO Companies Fill the OEM Void by:

  1. repairing or providing service to an existing piece of equipment at a more affordable price versus replacing it with new equipment.
  2. troubleshooting, providing replacement parts or even reverse engineering a new part (both the latter combined with educating the customer).
  3. analyzing the situation and modernizing the operation. Finding suitable replacements for existing parts and thus making the process more efficient while saving the end user time and money versus buying new.

That is precisely where Kor-Pak Corporation excels if and when you find yourself in one of these situations. Kor-Pak is a service company that fills the void. We can furnish parts no longer available in standard catalogs or provide assistance with technical solutions and problem solving.

If you are looking for solutions, not merely line-card parts (what we call commodities), Kor-Pak is available. We:

  • bring product expertise, project management and problem solving capabilities to the table.
  • will spend the time and invest the resources to solve your problem.
  • simply get the job done for you.

Call us today at (847) 680-0999 or toll-free (888) 2KORPAK (888-256-7725) and find out how easy it is to partner with Kor-Pak.