Chiswick brewery bounces back from major motor failure

London -  Fuller Smith & Turner’s Griffin brewery in Chiswick west London managed to get back in operation within just two days after suffering a motor failure in one of its critical processes. A 200kW motor in the glycol-based cooling plant of the brewery failed at noon on the Sunday of a bank holiday weekend.

The motor was used to drive a pump that pumps cooling fluid around the plant’s brewing vessels. The failed pump motor represented 40% of the brewery's glycol pumping capacity and if the fault had occurred on another day could have had a serious impact on our production.

As soon as the motor failed, Jeff Hack-Davies, engineering team leader for the brewery, called ABB Motor Service Partner EMR Silverthorn based in Middlesex. EMR engineers went to the site and working with the brewery's engineers removed the original motor - which was not an ABB product - identified the fault and determined what type of motor they needed to obtain.

The engineers then managed to source a suitable 200kW motor with a drip proof enclosure from ABB’s distribution facility in Menden, Germany. The motor was loaded onto a lorry to start an overnight journey to London.

“We had previous excellent service from EMR, so they were our first port of call,” said Hack-Davies. “They have a broad knowledge of motor applications and are a main distributor of ABB plant.” The brewery uses 15 ABB motors, mainly on the glycol system."

Meanwhile, EMR engineers supervised the removal of the failed motor. The new motor arrived from Germany at 6am on the bank holiday Monday and by 3pm, Fuller’s engineers in conjunction with EMR engineers had it coupled up and working. Tuesday saw the motor being laser aligned to guarantee correct balanced operation.