Mercury Marine: Oil Mist Collection System
An underachieving oil mist collection system resulted in a competition among partners to win Mercury Marine's confidence.
The Challenge
Once having made the decision to keep its marine propulsion manufacturing headquarters in Fond du Lac Wisconsin, Mercury Marine was faced with the challenge of reducing operating expenses to maintain its employee base. One of the areas marked for improvement was an underachieving oil mist collection system.
Mercury’s 120,000 sq. ft. manufacturing facility has a large volume of in-house metalworking machinery expelling excessive amounts of coolant oil mist into the air during production shifts. Unfortunately, that oil mist eventually comes down and settles everywhere, making the floors, walls and other equipment the recipients of oily residue.
The Solution
While corporate restructuring was underway, Mercury challenged IVEC® and two other companies to an in-plant competition, where each provider’s system was installed and fully tested for performance and
reliability.
Rigorous testing and measurement went on for several years. In the end, IVEC® Systems was the only provider to submit a “total-solution” which not only satisfied the oil mist collection performance requirements, but also saved Mercury hundreds of thousands of dollars on their energy bill each and every year.
One of our sustainable actions has recently included the installation of a Steward Oil Mist Filtration Control Unit from IVEC® Systems. This system effectively reduces our energy consumption by more than 65% over conventional installations and at the same time, makes us a much more efficient and cleaner manufacturing operation. Mercury Marine
The Results
Because of the sheer size of the plant, three separate IVEC® IPS-Steward systems were installed. Each Steward system currently handles 23 to 25 workstations, but offers the ability to expand to 200 workstations to accommodate growth. At the outset, Mercury Marine never imagined they could see a return on investment with an oil mist collection system. Now, because of IVEC®, Mercury is realizing hundreds of thousands of dollars in operational savings each and every year.
As an added bonus, the Steward’s fluid recovery system is saving Mercury an unspecified number of barrels of coolant each year and that slippery film residue that once covered the facility flooring and walls is now gone.
For Mercury Marine, oil mist collection is now part of the solution and no longer part of the problem...thanks to IVEC®!
