COMPACT AND RELIABLE HYDRAULIC DRIVE SYSTEM
INGENIO TAMAZULA INCREASES PRODUCTION THROUGH EQUIPMENT AND TRAINING
Ingenio Tamazula S.A. de C.V., a Mexican sugar company, has ordered a hydraulic drive system for one of its sugar mills. A Hägglunds CBM 4000-3600 motor is at the core of the system. The company’s investment also includes a service contract and highly rated training, which were conducted at the Swedish plant of Bosch Rexroth Mellansel, the manufacturer of Hägglunds drives.
Ingenio Tamazula S.A. de C.V. takes its name from Tamazula de Gordiano, the city of 40,000 inhabitants where it is located in the southeast of Mexico. The company produces sugar and small quantities of ethanol.
The sugar company is the city’s main employer. It has 340 employees working in production and a much larger number of indirect employees out in the field. The operation serves more than 3,485 sugar cane farmers in neighboring towns. Each year, the factory processes 1.4 million tons of sugar.
Ingenio Tamazula S.A. de C.V. is owned by Grupo Sáenz, one of Mexico’s main sugar cane biomass producers, which also produces ethanol, molasses, electricity, and other sugar cane byproducts. Grupo Sáenz is committed to increasing sugar and ethanol production at Ingenio Tamazula and is therefore focused on improving efficiency and fine-tuning processes.
Saving space and service costs.
As part of the improvement program, Grupo Sáenz has invested in an assist drive system for the mill. The solution includes a hydraulic motor with accessories, a dual power unit, pipes, and a control system.
A critical factor in the investment was the limited amount of space around the mill. This was one of the reasons why the company chose the compact Hägglunds CBm motor and equipment that can be positioned in convenient locations. The space-saving system can easily adapt to changes in production capacity, without interrupting the process.Grupo Sáenz also wanted a supplier that would take responsibility and had local service personnel, so the order included a service contract as well. Ingenio Tamazula’s employees were invited to attend several days of training at Bosch Rexroth Mellansel to learn about the Hägglunds products.
Gerardo Figueroa, head of machinery at Ingenio Tamazula, and Sergio Martínez, head of mill operations, were very interested to see the manufacturing process and the motor’s components. “I am very impressed with the tidy and orderly production, the technology, and the incredibly fine degree of tolerance. We want the rest of our staff to know how the system works and the important points to consider,” said Sergio Martínez.
Tough application
Operates 24 hours a day in small spaces with varying torque demands and high uptime requirements.
Ingenious solution
A flexible and compact hydraulic drive capable of continuous operation at low speeds.
Exactly
“This will increase efficiency and uptime,” said Sergio Martínez, head of mill operations at Tamazula.
Zero tolerance for stoppages
The Ingenio Tamazula sugar mills currently have old electromechanical drives that result in frequent production stoppages and time being wasted. Wasted time is not acceptable when you are working with a short season, 24 hours a day.“Our season lasts 210 days a year. During this period, production must continue 24 hours a day, regardless of the flow and speed,” noted Gerardo Figueroa.
If the fields are wet, Ingenio Tamazula receives no raw material. Sugar cane also cannot be stored, because it deteriorates within 48 hours of being harvested. To ensure continuous operation, production speed has to be reduced if sugar cane deliveries slow down. The thousands of farmers who supply the raw material have to be certain that the sugar plant will be in production on the day they take their harvest to it.
The Hägglunds CBm motor is ideal for this, owing to its high torque-to-weight ratio and its speed at full torque ranging from zero to maximum. It can also easily adjust to different loads and quality of raw material.
Increased availability
Previously, Sergio Martínez worked at a new sugar plant in Nicaragua that used hydraulic drives, so he has experience of Hägglunds drives from Bosch Rexroth.“The Hägglunds drives worked very well.
We never had any technical problems,” he recalled.
Sergio Martínez eagerly awaited the arrival of the new drive system.“This will increase efficiency and uptime in the mill, while reducing energy consumption and costs. It is also good to avoid oil spills and to have a tidy, neat solution that can be cleaned with water. The investment will, without doubt, help us achieve ISO certification.”
The new drive system was in operation at the sugar mill in time for the busy harvest season, which began in November.
Solved with Hägglunds direct drive systems including:
• A CBM 4000-3600 hydraulic motor
• A Hägglunds dual power unit with two SP 500 pumps and two 355 kW (475 hp) electric motors
• Spider control system
• Service contract