Metals

Machine health strategies to protect your high-value mining assets

Combustion fans + -

Combustion fans are critical for many processes in the metal production industry. Continuous monitoring can prevent failures of fan wheels, belt/sheave/alignment, and bearings.

$6,000/hour downtime cost
12 hours/month downtime
$70,000 replacement

Piston pumps + -

In metal production, piston pumps supply pressure for a variety of vital operations. Equipment failure can result in safety hazards and expensive downtime.

$10,000/hour downtime cost
50 hours/month downtime
$120,000 replacement

Tension reels + -

If a failure occurs at a tension reel—where steel is rolled into a coil at the end of the line—production will grind to a halt. Costly downtime can be minimized with predictive analysis.

$30,000/hour downtime cost
18-22 hours/month downtime
$600,000 replacement

Dust collectors + -

Proper control of excess contaminants through dust collection systems is vital to a clean, safe, and efficient manufacturing process. Failures on these dust collection systems can lead to lengthy downtime and incur unnecessary costs.

$10K/hour downtime cost
8-10 hours downtime
$80K cost per incident

Data aggregation + -

In metal production, having up-to-date information is critical for decision-making and planning processes, but that information does not generally move to decision-makers quickly enough to leverage its full value.

Availability: $10K /hour
Performance: $2k /hour
Quality: $25 /ton
Maintenance: 200-400% of optimal spend

Gearboxes + -

Unexpected gearbox failures can halt production, cause costly downtime, and pose safety hazards. Maintaining optimal gearbox health through proper monitoring and targeted maintenance maximizes their availability and ensures operational efficiency.

$5,000/hour downtime cost
50 hours/month downtime
$80,000 replacement

Cooling tower fans + -

Many mills rely on steam turbines for power, making cooling tower fans crucial assets. Continuous monitoring of these large cooling fans enhances plant efficiency, reduces downtime, and supports effective maintenance practices.

Although cooling towers are a simple asset, their downtime can be detrimental to production efficiency. Loss of a cooling tower results in hours of unnecessary unplanned downtime.

Looper cars + -

Looper cars are essential for maintaining a continuous process, operating consistently unlike the tension and payoff reels. They play a critical role in a continuous finishing line by ensuring uninterrupted operation. A failure in a looper car can result in a downtime of up to 22 hours.

18-22 hours downtime
Safety, injuries, quality

"I was able to get $150,000 to expand it into another area of the plant. We recovered that money in less than two months."

Alex Puentes, Asset Management Reliability Director
Carpenter Technology Corporation

Customer Success Story

"We've worked on 85 abnormalities together. KCF and CMC we've worked on 18 defects and… we've had the one failure."

Gareth Taylor, Plant Engineering Manager
CMC

Customer Success Story

"When you avoid that downtime you're actually increasing the productivity of the organization because you have a steady process."

Alex Puentes, Asset Management Reliability Director
Carpenter Technology Corporation

Customer Success Story

"We embrace proactive and predictive maintenance, so the alignment between KCF and CMC was very apparent, very quickly."

Gareth Taylor, Plant Engineering Manager
CMC

Customer Success Story

Case Study Spotlight

Exclusive solutions: Overhead cranes

Overhead cranes are the lifeblood of several industries in manufacturing and are of extreme criticality. For many facilities, unplanned downtime on a crane could mean a complete halt of all production, resulting in massive expense.

At first glance, cranes can be intimidating, but as with everything, they can be broken down into simple components to effectively monitor their health. A crane is just a collection of motors, gearboxes, and bearings. The challenge is that these components operate intermittently and almost never make the exact same motion repeatedly. From a monitoring perspective, this has made cranes nearly impossible to extract valuable machine health data.

Read Case Study

Optimize metals machine health with SMARTdiagnostics

Monitor critical assets like fans, gearboxes, and belts in real time with wireless sensors and SMARTdiagnostics—turning machine data into clear alerts and actionable insights for your team.

Improve safety and reduce production equipment downtime

Quickly identify risks, prevent failures, and optimize performance with continuous machine health monitoring, expert guidance, and data-driven maintenance strategies

Related case studies

Vacuum Pump

Vacuum Pumps

Vacuum pumps are critical in many manufacturing processes. KCF's comprehensive machine health monitoring empowers you with the data and insights needed to minimizing unplanned downtime.

View Case Study

Stamping Press Crown

Explore how KCF implemented vibration monitoring to provide early detection stamping press crown failure, preventing unplanned downtime.

View Case Study

Overhead Cranes

Mastering the giants: Innovations in monitoring the health of overhead cranes

View Case Study

$ 4 Billion+

in customer savings

85,000

hours of downtime prevented

1.2 Billion

data points per month

Request a demo

Want to eliminate unplanned downtime and extend the lifespan of your critical assets?
Contact us to see how our comprehensive, AI-driven machine health platform can optimize your operations.

Book Demo

Reliability solutions trusted across the metal industry

Machine health strategies to protect your high-value mining assets

Gain a competitive edge with KCF

CMC Keynote

Exclusive solutions: Overhead cranes

Optimize metals machine health with SMARTdiagnostics

Improve safety and reduce production equipment downtime

Related case studies

Why KCF

Request a demo