Is Downtime Costing You Money?

When a major food and beverage manufacturer in the United States got an alert from their metal detectors that something metallic had found its way into the final product, they immediately shut down the entire production line. Their team meticulously inspected every piece of their complex manufacturing line to pinpoint the source of the contamination. After four incredibly long and costly days, they finally discovered that a metal spring had broken loose from a rotary seal. The spring had broken into small fragments as it traveled through the equipment and contaminated the final product.

The line typically produces 180,000 units per hour so this one incident cost at least an estimated seventeen million units in lost production, plus thousands of dollars of product that had to be scrapped due to safety concerns. Shortly after they got their equipment operational with a replacement seal, they got another notification of metal fragments in the product. After investigation, they realized that the source was from the exact same rotary seal in their enrober equipment that had recently failed. They quickly realized that the seals they were using were not acceptable due to the substantial risk of failure and contamination. They had a strong relationship with our distributor who upon hearing the details of the issue immediately enlisted the help of our dedicated engineering team.

The Application

The seal failure occurred in their enrober machines used to coat foods or confectionery items with chocolates, yogurts, or other coatings. While it seems like a simple application, there are some specific challenges a seal must be suited for. Like any application that involves food or beverages, the seal material must meet specific sanitary conditions specified by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and EU (Reg.) 1935/2004 on specific requirements of the seals ability to handle fatty materials and chemical cleaners. Secondly, it must also be able to function at hot temperatures as for the products to be spreadable they must be heated or melted to be applied to the final product. Lastly, the seal must be exceptionally durable and capable of withstanding the exceedingly long production runs that enrober machines typically experience with only minimal planned maintenance cycles where they will replace the seals along with the equipment maintenance.

The Solution

While fixing the issue was of high importance to the manufacturer, they informed us of the price point they could budget for the seals. They had become accustomed to the lower purchase price of lower-quality seals and had little flexibility within their budget. During the review of the application, our engineers realized that our complimentary Dichtomatik brand could be custom redesigned to meet the moderate needs of the application at an affordable price point. During the redesign, our team entirely removed the metal spring, made a few small design modifications, and utilized a PTFE lip on the rotary seals. Typically, a spring is used to provide pressure on the sealing area and keep the seal tight along the shaft surface. However, the redesign was able to keep this functional while entirely preventing the chances of metal entering the product. The updated design of the custom rotary seal maintained the same performance and fit perfectly onto the equipment meaning no retrofitting was necessary to use our seal instead of our competitors. Our team then began to manufacture the custom seal with our Freudenberg Xpress® service which is ideally suited for custom solutions like this.

Once implemented they immediately saw drastic improvements as they have seen zero seal failures with the new seals allowing them to run with peace of mind to their scheduled maintenance cycles. Exceeding everyone’s expectations the new rotary seals were significantly easier to install helping to shave precious minutes off the scheduled downtime. While the volume of these custom Dichtomatik rotary seals manufactured through Freudenberg Xpress® is relatively low at about $2,500 annually, the manufacturer is saving hundreds of thousands of dollars annually when considering wasted materials, lost production due to downtime, and excessive replacement seals.

While this case was best solved due to very strict price sensitivity with a custom Dichtomatik brand solution, our premium Freudenberg brand is typically the best option for food and beverage applications. Our Freudenberg brand process industries solutions are specifically tailored to the unique needs with hygienic designs, and specialized materials unique to Freudenberg Sealing Technologies that provide exceptional performance in the specific challenges faced within the food and beverage space.

Learn more about our world-leading sealing solutions for the food and beverage market or leave your information below to request support from a sealing expert to see how we can use our vast material, service, and product portfolio to find the correct solution to your needs.