Equipment Focus: Balers

Good maintenance is the best prescription for preventing or curing baler headaches.

By Robert L. Reid

Walter Massey doesn’t normally give much thought to the big two-ram baler under his charge at Macon Iron & Paper Stock Co. Inc. (Macon, Ga.), and that’s fine by him. When the baler is working well, turning the firm’s nonferrous and nonmetallic scrap into nice dense packages, Massey, the operations manager, hardly has to think about the baler or talk about it. “It just runs,” he says.
   Likewise, Chris Charlebois, manager of OmniSource Corp.’s Chicago division, says his operation’s two ferrous balers and one nonferrous machine are much less trouble than other scrap processing equipment. “A baler is a nice, concise piece of equipment, with uptime in the 85-to-90-percent range,” he says. 
   At the same time, scrap processors like these and others can easily cite a long list of potential baler headaches.
   Why the seeming contradiction? Because the only way to keep your baler humming along like the proverbial well-oiled machine is, well, to keep oiling it—and to perform whatever other routine, periodic, or unplanned maintenance will help keep things running smoothly, according to both users and manufacturers of scrap balers. Here’s an overview of how good maintenance can be the best preventive medicine or cure for baler headaches.

Trouble Spots
Maintenance requirements for balers are pretty much the same regardless of what type of material is being baled, various sources note. There are some differences—such as a greater chance of glass getting into the system if you bale single-stream paper or greater wear-and-tear on the liner plates and shear blades for balers that process metallics, especially when baling ferrous material. But for many scrap processors, their baler maintenance demands and schedules are not commodity-specific.
   One baler component that can cause trouble for scrap processors is the hydraulic oil, which various users and manufacturers describe as the “lifeblood” of modern balers. The oil should be tested regularly—such as every six months or every 500 hours of operation—for contaminants ranging from dirt to fiber to metallics. The presence of such contaminants can point to potential problems with anything from housekeeping to the packing in the hydraulic cylinders to metal parts grinding against each other. At some firms, such as OmniSource, hydraulic oil is recycled through a reclamation filtration system. “This brings the oil back to ISO standards,” says Chris Charlebois, adding that this practice yields “a huge cost savings.”
   Hoses are another concern, especially given the high pressures under which modern balers operate. Regularly check the hose fittings for tightness and change any hoses that show wear, suggests one manufacturer. “If your hoses start leaking,” he says, “they could burst, and then you have a lot of fluid coming out at very high flow and pressure, and the hose whipping around. Somebody near it could possibly get struck and killed.”
   Another critical maintenance job is watching the tolerances on the shear beam and hold-downs. Close, tight tolerances will prevent material from wedging beneath the ram, notes Massey.
   Maintaining pressure switches and proximity switches at their correct adjustments is also important, notes a manufacturer, otherwise the cylinders might not build up enough pressure to properly compress the material, which can throw today’s computer-controlled machines out of their proper sequence.

If It’s Broke, Fix It!
Though the timing of nonemergency maintenance can be determined by many factors, ranging from your production goals to your customers’ schedules, the people who use and manufacture balers agree that if the machine is actually having a problem now, fix it now. 
   “If there’s something wrong, we try to fix it right away and not let it drag on and say, ‘We’ve got to get this order out,’” notes Mitch Davis, vice president of operations for Midland Davis Corp. (Moline, Ill.). “Sure, everybody does [put production first] once in a while, but you learn eventually that it’s better if there’s something wrong to shut it down and try to get the problem fixed properly—otherwise, small problems become big problems.”
   Davis tells his baler operators, “If you even think there’s something wrong with it, stop, tell the supervisor, and we’ll get the maintenance guys to look at it—don’t just keep running it.” Being cautious pays off, he adds, because it heads off problems “rather than just running [the baler] and suddenly blowing out a $2,000 or $3,000 pump or valve.”
   Indeed, one of the biggest mistakes baler users make is to “try to cut costs by not doing repairs right away or by simply ‘patching up’ a job rather than making the necessary repair,” notes one equipment manufacturer. A patch job might get the machine running again for a while, the manufacturer says, “but when that patch breaks, now they have to spend two to three times as much to correct it properly.” 
   Delaying the initial repair might also contribute to damage in other parts of the machine that might otherwise have been avoided, the manufacturer adds.

Setting Schedules
Beyond breakdown maintenance, processors also need to consider when and what kinds of nonemergency maintenance to perform on their balers at key intervals, whether daily, monthly, quarterly, or after reaching specific production levels. Smart processors also learn as much as they can about their balers and the various components in the equipment to help predict when a particular part might need to be serviced or replaced, thus preventing problems later on.
   To help track and schedule these various types of maintenance, some processors use daily checklists or a simple logbook with handwritten notations. Others employ sophisticated computer programs and devices that record the hours of operation or pounds of production from their balers, then do everything from notifying operators of what work needs to be done to generating a request for ordering more spare parts.
   At Macon Iron, for instance, the baler operator begins each morning with a walk-around inspection that covers six key areas:
• Checking the level of hydraulic oil to be sure it’s within the clearly marked parameters;
• Checking the hydraulic oil filter pressure, via a pressure gauge, to be sure the filters aren’t clogged and that the oil is flowing easily;
• Checking for loose bolts. This is especially important on Macon Iron’s baler because it features an intensifier cylinder for greater shearing power, which tends to make the whole machine shake enough to loosen bolts;
• Filling the strapper track oil reservoir, which lubricates the baler’s wire-tie system;
• Walking around the machine to look for anything out of the ordinary, such as an oil leak; and
• Checking the fire extinguishers around the machine (in case some recovered fiber catches fire during processing).
   “Everybody’s going to have unexpected downtime,” Massey says, “but we’ve found that the time we’ve put into these checklists, taking time each morning to look each machine over, has come back tenfold in productivity.” 
In addition, the operator can expand the daily checklist to include items such as temporary problems to monitor until they get resolved, Massey notes.
   For instance, at presstime, the liners on Macon Iron’s baler were nearing the end of their useful life. The next scheduled shutdown of the machine was still a month away. So even though liners aren’t typically a component that needs to be checked every day, the operators planned to watch them routinely until the scheduled shutdown, Massey says. After the new liners are installed, they might not need to be inspected for another year or more, he notes.
   In addition to this daily checklist, Macon Iron has checklists for items to be examined at regularly scheduled intervals, such as after 40 hours of operation, 160 hours, 250 hours, 500 hours, and 1,000 hours, Massey says.
   An hour meter on the baler and a counter on the wire-tie system collects this data, which is entered weekly into the company’s computerized maintenance records, Massey explains. The software then tracks the results and prints out work orders when each scheduled maintenance period arrives. The system also knows when to print out a request for more spare parts based on preset inventory requirements. 
   At OmniSource, a similar computer system can even automatically reorder parts from a vendor, Chris Charlebois notes.
   When Macon Iron’s baler requires unplanned service or repairs—such as a filter that needs to be changed ahead of schedule or a part that breaks during operation—that maintenance also gets a “work order” entered into the records system. This way, Massey and his crew can analyze the baler’s expected maintenance needs against the machine’s actual performance and adjust the timing of scheduled tasks as needed. 
   Tracking that sort of machine history is also a critical part of baler maintenance at Sadoff Iron & Metal Co. (Fond du Lac, Wis.). “We’re big proponents of predictive maintenance versus preventive or the old-school of fix-it-when-it-breaks maintenance,” explains Mark Katz, Sadoff’s COO and vice president of operations. 
   Breakdown maintenance is fairly self-explanatory. The difference between preventive and predictive maintenance is more subtle, with preventive maintenance focused on making adjustments and minor repairs to components during the normal operating life of the machine, such as testing hydraulic oil for contaminants on a regular basis. Predictive maintenance involves recording all important information about baler operation and component deterioration, analyzing the resulting data, and then drawing reliable conclusions about when the next problems might occur.
   By carefully tracking production hours and tonnage, for instance, Sadoff knows that the liners tend to wear out after so many bales, Katz says. Thus, once production reaches a certain point, operators know that the liners will soon need to be replaced, “so we go ahead and order the parts, plan ahead, and schedule production around [the maintenance] to have everything ready,” Katz explains.
   Though Sadoff currently tracks most of this data manually, he says, the company is looking into a computer system to automatically flag such production and maintenance milestones. The days of “guessing” when maintenance might be needed are gone, Katz stresses. “We rely on information, on production reports, on [daily, weekly, and quarterly] checklists. Having that information has been a major help. We have definitely seen an increase in our uptime production hours.” 

Keep It Clean
Housekeeping is critical to good maintenance whether it’s just to help you spot existing problems (new leaks are difficult to find if the floor is already oily) or to avoid potential trouble (such as material piled atop the hydraulic tank that prevents heat from dissipating, causing the oil to lose viscosity and break down). 
   “With good housekeeping and keeping machinery clean, you’ll be able to see things you wouldn’t normally see because it’s under a coat of grease, oil, or mud,” says one manufacturer. “You’ll be able to possibly see loose bolts, hoses that are frayed, or pipe welds that are cracking.”
   Another equipment maker is so adamant about good housekeeping that he claims it can eliminate as much as 80 percent of all maintenance problems. A third manufacturer adds: “Housekeeping is generally a reflection of how operators maintain the baler ... with the best installations having one thing in common—they always have good housekeeping.”
   Walter Massey certainly recognizes the importance of cleaning up the work area around a baler. “The machine we run has basically zero oil on the ground,” he says. “That really aids in troubleshooting because if there’s oil on the ground, something’s leaking, busted, or going wrong. Any leak that we find we try to repair either very quickly or we capture the oil in some oil pans we can put under the machine. That way, if another leak develops, then you know.”
   Wire-tie systems must be kept clean and free of build-up in order to work well, especially when baling dusty paper, notes Mitch Davis. And since processors usually purchase large quantities of wire at a time, be sure to store your wire inventory away from any source of moisture to help prevent rusting, adds a manufacturer.
   In addition, a clean machine also reduces the chance of contaminants getting into the hydraulic oil from material on or around the fluid reservoir.

Remember the Human Element
As balers become more sophisticated electronically, with sensors that automatically monitor oil filters, programmable logic controllers (PLCs) running the operations, and even software that tells you when to reorder spare parts, it might be easy to overlook the human element in maintenance. But Macon Iron’s Massey credits much of his company’s maintenance success to the fact that some of the people on his maintenance and operations teams have been working with the same baler for nearly a decade. 
   “When you can keep the same people with [the baler], you really start to learn what it needs, when it needs it,” he explains. “You can have a maintenance guy walking through the building and he can hear a noise and say, ‘That’s one of the pumps about to go, so we need to set up a shutdown so we can get into that.’ That has really aided in the success of this machine and having as little downtime as possible.”
   At Macon Iron, operators are primarily charged with productivity, but their maintenance duties include the daily inspections and remaining with the baler whenever someone from maintenance is servicing the machine. That’s so the operator “can learn more about how to care for the machine by himself, in case he’s running it at night or over a weekend,” Massey notes.
   Overall, Macon Iron relies on the combined efforts of its operations and maintenance departments. “The maintenance guy kind of knows how to run the machine,” says Massey, “and the operator kind of knows how to maintain it—but it takes both of them really to take care of it.”
   In addition, the company often has its baler operators swap jobs with the skid-steer operators who load the inground conveyor that feeds the baler. Often, the skid-steer operator can affect how much maintenance the baler will need by how well—or poorly—he loads the conveyor, Massey says. That’s because a piece of scrap that’s too large for the baler can easily drop into the baler chamber from the conveyor before the baler operator can do anything about it, at which point it’s difficult to remove.
   So the key is to make sure the skid-steer operator knows what not to load onto the conveyor in the first place. Toward that end, the skid-steer and baler operators not only trade positions, the skid-steer operators also assist the baler operators with maintenance duties such as the daily checklist and housekeeping, Massey says.
For Sadoff Iron & Metal, production and maintenance can be as different as night and day—at least as far as when each is performed. That’s because the company reserves its day shift exclusively for baling while performing all maintenance (other than emergency repairs) during a special second shift, when the baler must shut down anyway to avoid upsetting the processor’s neighbors, says Mark Katz. 
   The human element in baler maintenance was also on the mind of Midland Davis executives when they once considered replacing baler operators with an automatic weigh hopper system. “We didn’t do it,” Mitch Davis says, “because you still want that guy there as the last line of defense, watching the machine, making sure it’s working OK, monitoring the infeed—which is the key to keeping contaminants out.”

Adding Value
Good baler maintenance not only enables your company to handle its regular work, it can even help you branch out into new products. That’s what Macon Iron discovered when it started processing ACSR wire, an aluminum wire product with a steel strand inside. 
   Unfortunately, the presence of steel in a baler that normally processes just nonferrous material or fiber meant that certain components would wear out faster than the original maintenance schedule predicted. “So we’ve had to be proactive and be ready when some of the liners need to be changed sooner or to rotate the knives earlier than what our normal maintenance says,” Massey says.
   Despite the higher costs and extra work, upgrading the value of ACSR by baling the material rather than shipping it loose makes the effort worthwhile—while the firm’s good maintenance practices and precise recordkeeping make it possible, Massey concludes. 

Robert L. Reid is managing editor of Scrap.