Cement plant on the waterfront under a blue sky
Cement Industry - Criticality 1 Pelletizer

From Alarm to Root Cause: Machinery and Reliability Institute Resolves a Pelletizer Crisis with Viking Analytics

Machinery and Reliability Institute used Viking Analytics to monitor a cement plant's Criticality 1 pelletizer. When vibration suddenly spiked, MultiViz flagged the anomaly and guided a two-phase investigation that uncovered both a VFD tuning error and an emerging bearing defect.

$200K+

in failure costs avoided

2+ days

of shutdown avoided

6

triaxial wireless sensors on the pelletizer

The story in brief
Machinery and Reliability Institute used Viking Analytics to monitor a cement plant's Criticality 1 pelletizer. When vibration suddenly spiked, MultiViz flagged the anomaly and guided a two-phase investigation that uncovered both a VFD tuning error, driving dangerous gearbox oscillations, and an emerging bearing defect. The VFD fix immediately restored safe vibration levels; the bearing replacement was scheduled proactively. Avoided costs: over $200,000.

Challenge

Sudden high vibration on the plant's most critical asset - cause unknown

Solution

Continuous vibration monitoring with Viking Analytics AI

Result

VFD fault fixed immediately; bearing replacement planned; $200K+ in failure costs avoided

MultiViz caught two problems traditional threshold-based tools would have missed.
Ernesto Primera

CTO, Machinery and Reliability Institute

At a glance
Industry · asset

Cement Industry - Criticality 1 Pelletizer

Partner

Machinery and Reliability Institute

Location

USA

Monitoring setup

6 triaxial wireless sensors on motor and gearbox

Employees

Production

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Technical deep dive · inside the full PDF

Two faults behind one vibration spike on a Criticality 1 pelletizer

When vibration on the plant's most critical asset jumped from a stable 1–3 mm/s to 5–15 mm/s, MultiViz flagged it and guided a two-phase investigation. The PDF walks through both phases.

  • The three hypotheses the team started with, and how motion amplification narrowed them down
  • The one drive setting that made vibration drop immediately
  • The second fault hiding underneath, and how it was planned around
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  • Why the pelletizer is a Criticality 1 asset
  • Both investigation phases, with MultiViz charts
  • Root cause, the fix and the costs avoided
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