GW Kewder gained more than they bargained for with their Alfie 500
GW Kewder Engineering Pty Ltd in West Heidelberg, Victoria is a specialty manufacturing company with a strong focus on developing cost-effective products for their customers. From machined and fabricated parts to fully assembled products, GW Kewder have the capacity for large scale production with a collection of metalworking machinery that includes: 4 Multitasking Machines, 7 CNC Lathes and 11 Machining Centres.
As you would expect with this amount of machinery in operation, GW Kewder use a large amount of machine coolant. Gerry Warrington, owner and operator of GW Kewder, told us that around 8,000 litres of coolant is used every quarter. “In the past we pumped out the dirty coolant and replaced it on a regular basis, overall we had to clean out the coolant system of at least one machine every week," said Warrington.
While this kind of regime obviously becomes expensive on an operation of this magnitude, smaller operators with fewer machines also know coolant to be a considerable cost. There is the labour associated with handling and discarding old coolant, replacing the new coolant and of course, whilst all this is all happening, your machine is not operational. Warrington explained, “While we conceded coolant was just a cost of our business, we always thought there had to be a better way.”
When Accessories for Manufacturing’s Howard Crampton introduced GW Kewder to the Alfa Laval “Alfie 500” centrifugal coolant cleaning system, the concept was initially met with scepticism. The idea of effectively cleaning your coolant and returning it to a useable state just seemed too simple. However, after an in-house demonstration in which the Alfie 500 unit was able to perform everything it claimed it could while the machine was still in production, from separating the coolant from tramp oil, dirt and particles, then returning the coolant to an almost original state to be re-used, Warrington was sold. Additionally, the machine was so effective at cleaning the used coolant that one machine operator at GW Kewder who suffers from dermatitis, was able to submerge his hand in the treated coolant tank without any inflammation of his condition.
Since ordering the machine in late 2008, Warrington told us “The Alfie 500 has been used every day, rotating between all our machines and as yet we have not had to drain and replace any of our coolant systems in this time.” GW Kewder have also seen a pay back on the machine in a short 6 month period, which in Warrington’s eyes, should make purchasing an Alfie 500 a simple decision for almost any metalworking manufacturer.
As Warrington will attest, if you are using machine coolant, you should also be using an Alfie 500.
Read more information on the Alfa Laval range here.
