Record-breaking response when Husqvarna received an unexpected production stoppage

Husqvarna has two belt furnaces from Cieffe installed in its production unit for saw chain details in Huskvarna near Jönköping.

In the curing process, shielding gas plays a crucial role in the properties of the details. The shielding gas atmosphere consists of a mixture of carbon monoxide, hydrogen and nitrogen where the fine-tuning of the carbon content in the material surface is regulated by means of a small addition of LPG or air.

Since 2015, Linde has regularly performed gas analysis on these belt furnaces at Husqvarna and in 2020 they signed agreements with FERRONOVA® for a more comprehensive commitment, including not only gas analysis but also ongoing service hours and consultation if necessary, e.g., for planned winter / summer service of the ovens and emergency assignments.


Unexpected breakdown

Just before the summer break this year, an unexpected breakdown occurred, when a drive shaft that drives the belt on one of the furnaces broke. This meant a complete stop in production in this furnace, which risked entailing high costs for Husqvarna.

Husqvarna immediately contacted FERRONOVA and our service technician Luca Girotto. In addition, the manufacturer of the furnaces, Cieffe Thermal Systems and its service organization were contacted.

With his approximately 15 years of experience as a technician and starter of heat treatment ovens from Cieffe, Luca Girotto has a unique special competence. He also has a background as a maintenance technician at Husqvarna, where he was responsible for the belt furnaces. Since 2019, Luca has worked as a service engineer at Linde and is part of FERRONOVA.

-          With the help of Luca, the oven could be prepared over the weekend so that when Cieffe's technicians arrived, he could immediately start assembling a new shaft instead of starting to dismantle the old one, says Anders Åström, head of FERRONOVA Process support.

Luca's contribution played a crucial role in getting production started quickly. With his help, production at Husqvarna was able to start up again after only 1.5 weeks instead of the expected up to 3 weeks.

-          As a service provider of process-related services, we at FERRONOVA always try to help our customers to the best of our ability. This can be particularly challenging when the customer's process does not yield the expected results or if the equipment fails. When such an emergency assignment appears, we may need to let go of what we have in hand and rush away as quickly as possible and begin fault analysis or repair. Therefore, it naturally feels extra good that the special competence that Luca possesses in the case of the damaged oven at Husqvarna contributed to the production stoppage being limited in time. It resulted in a very satisfied customer, says Anders Åström.

Gas customers to Linde have the opportunity to conclude a service agreement with FERRONOVA process support. FERRONOVA performs service, maintenance, temperature evenness measurements and atmospheric analyzes on processes and process equipment, primarily in the steel and heat treatment industry.

The service engineers within FERRONOVA process support work closely with Linde's application specialists and take overall responsibility right into customer process.

FERRONOVA also offers safety audits, which include risk analyzes, risk assessments, explosion protection documents and consultation on safety issues.

Background:

Luca Girotto has about 15 years of experience as a technician and starter of heat treatment ovens from Cieffe. He also has a background as a maintenance technician at Husqvarna, where he was responsible for the belt furnaces, among other things. Luca has been a Linde employee since 2019.