The Timken Company has added PT Essar, the largest private steel producer in Indonesia and part of the Essar Group, to its customer base.
Timken is supplying the replacement bearings for one of Essar's mills through an authorized Timken distributor, PT Sumitech.
The business came as a result of not only providing product, but also assembling a technical team to assess and improve the mill's performance.
Essar was not happy with the bearing performance at one of its mills since it entered service. Essar replaced the original equipment bearings with Timken four-row tapered roller bearings. Then, to solve the pre-existing downtime problem, Timken assembled an international team of technicians, engineers and metallurgists. The team conducted in-depth analyses of the original bearings and their environment and recommended efficient solutions for installation, lubrication and sealing systems.
"At Timken, our goal is to use our expertise in friction management to improve our customers' performance," said Kiong Boon Teo, Timken's manager of technical services in the region.
"Our work with PT Essar didn't stop with the sale of bearings," Teo said. "We continued to work with the operation to analyze their equipment function and developed a series of installation and maintenance practices that has improved their uptime and reduced their total costs."