Tarmac reduces costs at Greenwich facility

London – Tarmac has recently engaged Brammer, a UK distributor of industrial maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) products and services, to help it reduce costs and downtime at Europe’s largest facility processing marine dredged sand and gravel.

Tarmac Quarrying Materials’ facility at Greenwich Wharf receives between 15 and 20 ships per month, bringing in a combined total of 60-70,000 tonnes of marine dredged ballast for processing.

The ballast has to pass along a main inlet conveyor to the ’virtual quarry’ location where it is processed - meaning any conveyor downtime effectively halts production completely.

The company was concerned about the life expectancy of the motors and gearboxes driving the conveyor, which were several years old and beginning to show signs of heavy wear.

A long-standing supplier of MRO products to the Greenwich facility, Brammer found that the existing drive products were now obsolete. It proposed a complete new drive assembly package that could be commissioned with minimum downtime.

The package consisted of Flender FZG helical bevel gearboxes fitted with a 160kw Siemens motor, and Siemens Fludex fluid couplings with Siemens output gear couplings.

Brammer also arranged the design and manufacture of new base plates, complete with a ceramic lagged head drum, as well as the complete removal of the old products, and fitting and commissioning of the new equipment.

The line is now fully operational, with Tarmac estimating an overall cost saving of up to £10,000 per annum.

“The performance and condition of the existing drive assembly was a matter of increasing concern to us but recommissioning was not possible due to the downtime involved,” Steve Wallis, Tarmac Quarrying Materials’ zone manager, London east, said in a Brammer press release.

“Brammer were able to deliver a solution which not only minimised downtime during installation but has reduced that risk in the long term,” Wallis concluded.