Rolling Mill Monitoring – The Xtek DriveWatch™ Solution

To keep up with the high demand for steel, rolling mills must stay on schedule and in production. Whether it is a hot or cold operation, drive train system components must be kept in check with continuous rolling mill monitoring. Waiting for scheduled maintenance checks to identify potential operational problems may not be enough to avoid debilitating production downtime. Because rolling mills are working 24/7, monitoring operation must be constant to be effective.

True continuous rolling mill monitoring must encompass the entire mill operation. While vibration monitoring of select components may be effective to identify vibration problems, this will only tell part of the story. Since steel rolling involves a sequence of inter-related functions, a complete picture of the process is necessary to keep the entire system going. Such things as temperature, torque and speed will also be important to monitor. While the monitoring of separate systems working independently is beneficial, it will not provide all of the data necessary for generating an accurate assessment of conditions.

Xtek, the internationally recognized leader in drive train component technology, has made the complete picture available with the DriveWatch system, a network approach for comprehensive rolling mill monitoring. The Xtek DriveWatch™ system tracks irregularities in vibration, temperature, torque, current, speed and other parameters on a continuous basis.

Because Xtek has over 70 years of experience developing technology for the steel industry, we understand the complexity of rolling mill operations and the components involved. We have put this expertise into creating the ideal technology for rolling mill monitoring. Our engineers understand the problems caused by vibration, temperature and torque and have created a method for gathering the data needed to head off vibration issues before they occur. The Xtek DriveWatch™ system allows this data to be retrievable at any time, from any location with internet access, for 24/7 real time reporting.

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