FBkc Blog

We are pleased to announce that Alan Longshaw has joined FBkc as our Technical Sales Engineer. Alan is a time served engineer who started his chain career over 25 years ago originally designing and drawing chains for a UK manufacturing company before moving into a sales role after realising he could improve the flow of information between sales and technical. For the last 10 years he has been running his own technical consulting business.

The wood and paper industries have some of the most arduous applications for industrial chain. And a particular challenge is the gripper chain on log stackers.

FB chain has found a solution that is helping its customers to achieve increased chain life and reduce machine downtime.

Demanding conveyor environments, such as biomass plants, cement works, pulp and paper factories or sawmills, rely on robust machinery that can consistently and reliably transport high volumes of material, often over long distances.

Efficient handling of those materials is essential for cost-effective production - and conveyor downtime, whether it's as part of a scheduled preventative maintenance programme, or due to an unplanned outage, can have a detrimental effect on production capacity.

Industrial conveyor systems are frequently required to operate in arduous and demanding conditions.

When the performance of your conveyor chain is key, we often recommend using welded pins and bushes to provide greater strength and improve the wear characteristics of the chain.

If carried out correctly, welded pins and bushes can increase a conveyor chain's strength by more than 30%.

Biomass facilities rely on being able to consistently generate power round the clock, 24/7.  However this need for continual operation can make the cleaning, lubrication and maintenance of roller chain much more of a challenge. 

Any period of downtime - whether it's for planned maintenance or as the result of an unplanned outage - has the potential to cause major disruption and incur huge expense.

So what's the best roller chain solution to reduce planned maintenance time and avoid costly unplanned outages?

If you're finding that corrosion, reduced roller chain service life or unplanned downtime are impacting on your plant's productivity then maintenance free self-lubricating chain (often referred to as lube free chain) could provide the answer.

Conveyor chains are frequently required to operate in arduous and challenging environments, from the transport of biomass fuels to cement, steel-work, recycling, paper and pulp and food processing industries. These are demanding applications that rely on the use of industrial chain and components that have the strength and durability to withstand wear.

In this blog post we explore six conveyor chain sprocket solutions that have been proven to reduce conveyor system downtime, improve productivity and prolong chain life.

Unplanned conveyor system downtime is one of the biggest problems in manufacturing, with the potential to affect everything from levels of power consumption and waste management to labour productivity and customer satisfaction.

When we speak with our sawmill customers, for example, it's not uncommon for them to tell us that unplanned halts in their production are costing them anything from £50 to £100 per minute. In some cases, they say, it can be even more, depending on which of their lines has been affected.

If you've ever seen the kind of chaos that a failed conveyor flight (or scraper) can cause, then you’ll understand just how much time, effort and money it takes to put this kind of problem right.

Unless you can find a solution, the costs could mount up fast!

We were excited to hear the news this month that our Finnish sister company, FB Ketju, has made a significant new investment in its conveyor chain manufacturing operations with the purchase of new premises in Lappi, Rauma, Finland.