Problem
Seeking to ensure both high-quality, consistent industrial cleaning and the best available options in safety and efficiency, an Ohio chemical manufacturing facility requested bids from industrial cleaning contractors specializing in automated tooling.
The plant selected MPW Industrial Services from a multitude of options, based on MPW’s history of results and safety achieved through training and automation.
Solution
MPW’s automated tooling has been the key to decreasing downtime and increasing production at the plant. MPW has improved its situational safety by achieving 85 percent automation in all industrial cleaning services at this location. Meanwhile, MPW’s engineering, training and operations departments have ensured excellent customer service through consistent communication.
Specific examples of automated execution for this customer include:
- Condenser cleanings: MPW engineered and designed a system specifically for the plant’s equipment. Utilizing an array of cleaning heads, MPW cleans and maintains the integrity of vulnerable tubes, while removing personnel from a hazardous area.
- Boiler Tube Cleaner: MPW used its boiler tube cleaner system to remotely clean the interior tubes of mud drums within the client’s boilers. The cleaner travels along a track, indexing each tube with consistent pressure. The cleaner is operated remotely from a control station featuring a real-time display from the forward-mounted camera, and achieves increased safety via elimination of confined space entry.
- Automated lancing: The quality of clean realized by these tools enabled the site to reduce the number of annual cleanings from three to two. MPW used its single- and triple-lance machines on the plant’s solvent-recovery unit that includes exposed piping and tube bundles. The previous method of cleaning this area involved more dangerous hand-lancing techniques.
Results
Overall, these tools remove employees from jetting areas and other areas that can be contaminated with hazardous material. Additionally, MPW’s automation improves cleaning consistency and quality, while decreasing the numbers of plant personnel.
This client is confident MPW will deliver safe, effective results no matter the difficulty or scope of the industrial cleaning task. Managers at the facility regularly include MPW representatives as consultants in their meetings regarding safety and/or industrial cleaning.
Based on MPW’s history of safety, innovation and service, plant personnel have high expectations for MPW. As a result MPW will aim for continuous improvement until it achieves 100-percent-automated industrial cleaning processes.