Customer
Shanghai General Motors (SGM), Shanghai, China. SGM is a merger of GM (General Motors) and SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation). They produce the automotive brands Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac for the Chinese market.
Problem / Objective
For many years SGM had searched for a solution to improve the air quality in their premises. It was mainly the grinding machines in the production area that caused problems even though they had filters installed that were supposed to prevent harmful particles from being released into the air. The filters were loud, did a poor job at purifying the air and simply unsatisfactory not reaching SGM’s high requirements. SGM had previously found it difficult to find a filter manufacturer that took the situation seriously and when it was time to install sixteen new CNC machines in the engine production at the factory in Jinqiao the company realized that it was time to find a new solution. SGM contacted Absolent hoping to find the professional filter manufacturer that the situation required.
Solution
Absolent immediately began to familiarize with the situation at SGM. Several measurements were conducted. Among other things, the spindle speed and the coolant pressure were examined. Soon it became clear that the existing machines were leaking oil mist/oil smoke and how little the existing filters prevented contamination of the air in the premises. To give SGM a greater understanding and show them a clear example of how well Absolent would solve their problems, we visited Bosch’s factory in Wuxi. Here SGM could see for themselves how the Absolent filter units worked in a similar environment, with similar manufacturing. This was an important step to show our professionalism. The visit convinced SGM that choosing Absolent was the way to go, and two A•mist40TF as well as two A•mist80TF were installed to take care of the process air in the machine park.
Results
As SGM continuously want to supply their operators with a clean environment, they also bought a measuring instrument, the DustTrak 8532, from Absolent, to be able to monitor the air quality. Since then it has been used to monitor the filter operation and efficiency. According to the tests, all filters deliver constant clean air and the machines have not leaked any oil mist since the filters were installed in September 2014. The employees have noticed a big difference because the particle load in the air at the plant has decreased to 0.3 mg/m³, a 40-50% reduction. This has contributed to a better working environment and at SGM they are very pleased that they chose to install filter units from Absolent because they have more than lived up to their expectations.
