In recent years, with the growing awareness of environmental issues, hybrid cars have started to spread in earnest and are selling well. With capital investment from auto parts manufacturers, manufacturers of precision machinery and machine tools are rushing to increase production. However, this economic boom has also created fierce competition on a global scale, and companies are being asked to offer more attractive prices and quality.
Company P is a machine tool manufacturer whose main products are drill presses and milling machines. Rival machine tool manufacturers, both domestic and overseas, have released many machine tools for the automotive industry, intensifying competition. In this environment, Company P urgently needed to launch new products with improved environmental resistance, equipment life, and reliability in order to differentiate itself from its competitors.
The equipment of Company P used AC Cooling Fan inside and outside the control panel, but the equipment delivered to a certain user had frequent fan failures, which led to complaints. The complaints included cases where "the fan became clogged and stopped, causing the equipment to get too hot and an overheating alarm to sound" and "oil seeped into the fan, causing it to crack."
The company's development manager, Mr. S, said:
"Oil mist is inevitably generated during machining. When oil mist and dust floating in the work space adhere to the fan, it has a negative effect on the fan, and in the worst case scenario, it can cause it to stop working. Even if you take measures such as using filters, they quickly become clogged and more maintenance is required... We thought it was inevitable that the fan would stop working sooner than expected. For this reason, we had taken the measure of replacing the fan every time we had maintenance and inspections. We thought we had taken sufficient measures, but the factory environments of our customers vary, and this type of malfunction would occur."
Because we cannot allow the equipment to break down, we decided to take measures such as shortening the intervals between maintenance inspections and increasing the frequency of fan replacement. However, since production would be stopped during maintenance, users requested that we reduce this.
"We needed to find a fundamental solution as soon as possible. Not only would it increase maintenance workload and costs, but the damage to our credibility could have been fatal to the company," said Mr. S.
After hearing more about Mr. S's issues, the SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. representative proposed a fan that would perform adequately even in the oil mist environment that was causing problems for Company P.
The idea was to switch to Oil Proof Fan for fans outside the control panel, while using relatively inexpensive fans with excellent environmental resistance in areas with little oil mist.
"Rather than simply replacing all of our fans with Oil Proof Fan, they gave us the optimal proposal after carefully considering the balance between cost and quality." (Mr. S)
Compared to the fans of current models, we found that the expected life span is approximately three times longer, even in harsh environments such as oil mist environments.
"We conducted oil resistance tests on various fans in addition to the fans in our current machines, and SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. fans were found to be the best. Previously, maintenance had been required every 1.5 years, but with Oil Proof Fan they proposed, it looks like we'll only need to replace them every 4.5 years. When I asked why SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. 's fans were so high-performance, they told us that they had their own unique know-how in each area. Apparently, they had achieved high oil resistance through repeated trial and error, and by incorporating ingenuity into every aspect based on technology they had cultivated over many years," said Mr. S.
Having recognized Sanyo Denki's high level of technology and ability to propose new products, the company decided to officially adopt SANYO DENKI CO., LTD. 's "Oil Proof Fan" for a new model of cutting equipment. Mr. S had this to say about this adoption:
"The adoption of Oil Proof Fan has made a major contribution to improving the environmental resistance, equipment lifespan, and reliability of our machine tools. In addition, we expect that reducing the number of times fans need to be replaced will result in significant reductions in maintenance costs and labor. As market competition becomes more intense, we hope that this will be a major differentiator from our competitors."
For more information about Oil Proof Fan, please also see "Features of Splash Proof Fan, Oil Proof Fan, Wide Temperature Range Fan, and G Proof Fan."
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