Geiger Italia: AI supporting efficient waste disposal

The context

Geiger Italia, part of the Geiger Group of Oberstdorf, has worked for more than 30 years in the treatment, recovery and disposal of waste, particularly mineral-based waste. In 2016 it acquired a major storage, mixing and inertisation plant in Agnosine (Brescia), with an annual capacity of 65,000 tonnes.

At the Agnosine plant the company carries out storage and chemical-physical treatment of special waste, both hazardous and non-hazardous. Keeping it stable and holding pollution values within safe levels called for a system able to monitor parameters such as pH, redox, temperature and conductivity of the abatement systems in real time, to guarantee environmental and permit performance on emissions. On top of that, chemical and inertisation treatments happen in a plant made up of many parts driven by motors subject to heavy wear: avoiding stoppages on the processing lines meant adding a further layer of control over the electric motors.

The project

Maxfone set up two sensor ecosystems. The first group monitors the reference parameters of the aeration system during chemical treatments. The second, which includes more than 8 high-precision triaxial vibration sensors, is installed on the treatment plant's motors.

Data is displayed and managed in real time in the IDA application, which as well as collecting and analysing device data is the interface that sends notifications and alarms when parameters cross their upper or lower thresholds, or when a fault is developing.

The results

With IDA, Geiger put the focus on productivity and disposal standards, ensuring reliability during chemical treatments, environmental sustainability and compliance with sector regulations. But it was the predictive analysis on the plant's motors that delivered the biggest gains: after the work, downtime days and costs fell by 50%. Motor failures are heavy losses, with costs that can reach tens of thousands of euros, plus the delays caused by the time it takes to raise the alert and replace the broken components.

The story, told by Siemens

The system Maxfone chose for motor monitoring is Siemens' Condition Monitoring System CMS 1200. The project worked so well that Siemens brought it into its international portfolio: Geiger Italia is now a global reference on the Siemens website, also told in a case history by Siemens Italy's press area.

The solution developed with Siemens is an excellent response to the need of our customer, Geiger, to have constant monitoring of the operating condition of rotating parts, in order to cancel the economic and environmental impacts of machine downtime due to unplanned failures. Through the predictive and prescriptive maintenance of the machine fleet we have achieved a reduction of over 35% of the spare parts in the warehouse.

Paolo Errico, CEO of Maxfone

What comes next

Beyond stabilising the chemical-physical parameters and preventive maintenance on the treatment plant, monitoring can extend to other sensitive areas of the site, such as the machinery behind water consumption, compressed air and CO₂, for an increasingly complete dashboard of every activity. Activities that can reach the standards set out in the 5.0 transition plan, article 38, points a and b.