Electronics and electrical engineering group Siemens Southern Africa has expanded its Johannesburg oper- ations by upgrading its Isando mechanical drives centre, in the East Rand, and has increased its product offering.

Siemens, in the past three years, has expanded its Johan- nesburg facilities to about 9 400 m2, Siemens IDT Mechanical Drives business development manager Radek Hokr tells Engineering News.

“The company has made numerous upgrades to its work- shops. To meet increased environ- mental requirements, the company installed two new spray booths in its assembly and service repair workshops for geared motors in 2012. A 12.5 t crane was installed in 2011 to help manipulate complete drivetrains, also called power packs, during its final assembly. In the previous year, a 32 t crane was installed in the new heavy-duty hall to increase service capability for the entire range of Flender gear units in Southern Africa,” Hokr states.

He says additional upgrades in the past three years also included the installation of a new manipulation table with a jib crane and the completion of a new wash bay in the services workshop dedicated to the repair of gear units, which has facilitated increased capacity and the productivity required to support the growth of the company’s after-sales service business in this area.

“A complete facility renovation and administrative office upgrade were also undertaken last year,” he adds.

New Products

At the world’s biggest industrial fair, Hannover Messe, in Germany, in April, Siemens presented its integrated drive system (IDS), which is based on the con- cept of a totally integrated automation (TIA) portfolio that covers most tasks relating to electrical drives.

“The IDS will enable a greater configuration of the drivetrain for each specific task and will cover all processes and production- related elements,” says Siemens corporate communications man- ager Keshin Govender, adding that the IDS will provide South African consumers with great value, once it is officially launched in South Africa later this year.

He explains that the IDS will pursue a threefold integration.

“Firstly, [there is the] horizontal integration of the drivetrain, which will ensure a smooth interaction and improved dimensioning of all subcomponents from the converter, motor and gear units to the couplings,” he says.

Secondly, Govender says, based on the vertical integration to automation, the drive systems will be enhanced and engineered, configured and networked, using TIA through to control level.

“And, thirdly, the drive system will comprise suitable industry software solutions for integration throughout the life cycle of an application,” says Govender, adding that this will provide increased interaction and long-term compatibility of elements.

This will entail the initial planning steps of the drive system to engineering, operating, maintaining and modernising, the drive system offering maximum investment protection and improved performance.

This integration will pose a unique, yet exciting, challenge for the company, believes Siemens IDT Mechanical Drives sales head Donald Richardson.

“A mind set change will be required from our local division’s management teams and cus- tomers. Our marketing drive will have to be clear to communicate our complete drive system package offering. From a management perspective, all divisions will have to work closer to deliver the new IDS,” says Richardson.

Siemens also introduced a new line of Flender standard industrial gear (Sig) units and Flender standard industrial planetary (Sip) gear units onto the African market in 2012.

“The Siemens Sig unit, which was launched mid last year in South Africa, is a new generation of the current standard series of Flender FZG gear units. It has two basic types of design arrangements. They are the bevel- helical and the helical gear units,” says Siemens IDT Mechanical Drives engineering and quality assurance head Mike Hoepper.

The bevel-helical gear units are available in the horizontal mounting position in 11 sizes, from 504 to 514, with three to four gear stages and a power rating of up to 1 350 kW. Nominal torques reach up to 125 000 Nm.

The helical gear units are also available in the horizontal mounting position in 11 sizes, from 504 to 514, but with two to four gear stages and power ratings of up to 2 900 kW, and nominal torques of up to 125 000 Nm.

“The Sig unit is for use in several industries, such as the oil and gas, chemicals, pulp and paper, water and wastewater, mining, energy, materials handling and crane installation,” points out Hoepper.

He says the Flender Sip unit, which was launched in South Africa last year, is Siemens’ new range of small and medium-size planetary gear units, which has been specifically designed to close Siemens’ portfolio in these types and sizes of mechanical drives.

“The new planetary gear unit series offers a product range of between 10 000 Nm and 80 000 Nm, and six transmission stages in eight gear unit sizes. The variants include the output hollow shaft equipped with shrink disk or hollow shaft equipped with a spline profile,” says Hoepper, adding that taconite seals for the unit are available as an optional extra.

Hoepper cites various uses for the Sip gear unit series, including its application in apron feeders, shredders, mixers, filtration technology, conveyor drives, travel drives and water treatment facilities.

Further, Hoepper adds, that the new Simogear range of geared motors is planned to be launched in South Africa in the near future. It is going to be Siemens’ most comprehensive portfolio range of geared motors to date, as it includes applications from geared motors to motor starters and converters, identification systems and switchgears through to the automation of a drive system.

“The new geared motor series has lower assembly and commissioning costs and greater system availability,” says Hoepper.

He notes that the most important technical aspect of the new series of geared motors is that they are designed to mount induction motors and synchronous motors with high efficiencies in accordance with efficiency classes IE 2, IE3 and IE4, in an integrated design.

“The Simogear reduced backlash design in new geared motors include 1FK7 synchronous motors, which have a high dynamic performance for direct mounting,” says Hoepper, adding that the Siemens’ branches implement solutions based on a standard modular system, such as monorail drives.

“The new drive system technologies and the IDS are a sign of Siemens’ seriousness to deepen its footprint in South Africa as well as the rest of Africa. Siemens looks forward to gaining greater market share and touch- ing the lives of even more South Africans, beyond those who have already seen the benefits our technologies bring,” concludes Hokr.