Krossekonomi cuts maintenance time by 50% thanks to new rotor in the Barmac crusher

AB Krossekonomi is one of Sweden’s largest privately owned companies within construction crushing. The company operates five stationary and several mobile plants, producing top-quality products for asphalt, concrete and railroad macadam. Gladökrossen, owned by Swedrock, is one of the stationary plants. Close to 700,000 metric tons are crushed annually there, which means that 4,000 metric tons go through the crushers every day.

Gladökrossen has a well-functioning crushing process. Two separate lines are used to ensure and maximize production. Krossekonomi’s experienced crusher operators perform maintenance in the evening when production has stopped.

“Production time is top priority for us. We work 10 hours a day Monday to Thursday, and everything has to function during that time. We do service work in the evenings, and therefore we want to be particularly efficient,” says Christer Bodell, a crusher operator at Krossekonomi.

The key to a good end result

Krossekonomi has a Barmac® VSI crusher from Metso at the end of the crushing process in each line. This machine makes cubical material for asphalt and concrete ballast. The rotor is the very core of the Barmac. Krossekonomi has been using Metso’s Orange Series RC Rotor in the Barmac crusher in the top-capacity line since 2012, and the other line’s Barmac crusher still uses an older rotor model from Metso.

“There is a big difference between the rotors. The plan is to switch to the Orange Series RC Rotor in all of the Barmac crushers as the existing rotors wear out. The risk of complications is much lower with this rotor. All maintenance can be done through the service door, and I can replace almost all wear parts right through the door. I also don’t need any special or power tools, so that makes maintenance much simpler and faster. When my colleague and I each take a Barmac to do the same type of maintenance on, the one who works on the Orange Series RC Rotor is always finished twice as fast as the one who worked on the other rotor,” says Christer.

One reason is that the Orange Series RC Rotor was designed to use almost no screws. The port access has also been made more spacious, allowing more parts to be changed through the service door— aspects that both improve efficiency and simplify maintenance.

Mobile crushing sets additional demands 

Since Gladökrossen is a stationary plant, there are plenty of tools and support available if problems arise. This is not always the case, however, in an industry where many operations are conducted with mobile units.

“With the old rotor, there is a risk of a part getting stuck, which means a tool needs to be used. This can be time consuming, especially if you don’t have immediate access to the right tools. The process can also get extremely complicated if the part is in an inconvenient location and is hard to reach with the tools. Time can easily slip away in a situation like this and cause a production stoppage,” explains Christer.

Improvements have resulted in better working conditions

Every day, Christer opens the Barmac crusher’s service door to determine whether or not maintenance is needed. He is pleased with the lifetime of the wear parts in the Orange Series RC Rotor and that the collaboration between Krossekonomi and Metso has worked well.

“Our cooperation with Metso is good — they listen to us and act on our feedback, which means we have been able to make constant improvements. These improvements can also be seemingly minor details, but they can make a huge difference for us. We used to take the rotor apart more often and had to weld some parts. At the same rate that the design has improved, my job has become easier and my work environment has improved,” concludes Christer.