Food Shredder

"9 months in service without a single failure!"

the challenge

The food processing company, which shreds zucchini for distribution to other food manufacturers, restaurants, and schools, has a zucchini shredder under heavy washdown. The 2 bearings within the shredder are protected by a universal dual lip seal. The bearings would fail every 6 weeks due to ingress of cleaning solution. They each cost $1,000 to replace. The customer was searching for remedies to prolong the life of their bearings.

the solution

There are 6 shredders, each shredder requires a set of bearings every 6-8 weeks, totalling over $100,000 annual cost in extra bearing spend. On top of that, other incurred costs include downtime and associated maintenance to replace the bearings. Due to the fact that the customer is in operation 365 days a year, they have no way to make up for the downtime costs.

the result

2 bespoke GUARDIAN™ bearing isolators were designed and produced for the customer. They have now been performing without any failure for 9 months. The customer is considering the conversion of the other 5 shredders. Once changeout is complete, they will be saving $100,000 annually, in addition to downtime and maintenance savings.