Interview with Haris Trobradovic, Area Sales & Training Manager, SDT Ultrasounds Solutions
Monday, 11 July 2022

- SDT Ultrasound Solutions are a family-owned business with over 47 years’ experience, please explain the success of the business?
SDT Ultrasound Solutions has made it their priority to listen to the needs of their customers and to develop useful solutions in concert with real industry demands. SDT is, first of all, a family still very much in touch with its past, eager to innovate in step with technology while staying closely tied to its global client base. I think this is the main success of the company I have the pleasure and the honor of working in, we are humans that decided to work together to achieve a goal: spread the maintenance reliability around industry.
- SDT Ultrasound Solutions provides solutions to customers to help them understand the health of their factories. What processes do you go through to analyze the best strategy for the customer?
I don’t think our approach to the clients’ needs is special, I think it is necessary and should be common: I listen to him, to his problems and frustrations like a doctor, then I literally listen to the machines.
- One of the solutions is Bearing Lubrication Monitoring, how can an ultrasound device help determine the condition of bearings?
Not only an ultrasonic device can determine the health condition of a bearing, but it can also help injecting the right amount of grease into the bearing at the right time, right when it is needed. Listening to the ultrasound produced by an asset through friction, impact and turbulence, helps us and our clients to understand, over time, if the bearing is in good condition as well as its lubrication status.
- The LUBExpert and LUBEChecker are ultrasound devices that ensure the bearings receive the right amount of lubricant, please explain how they work?
The only way to know when a bearing is in need of lubrication is monitoring its condition with an ultrasound device. Over time, lubricant degrades and friction levels increase which is detectable with ultrasound. For this reason, and in order to prolong its life and prevent failure, the bearing needs grease replenishment.
An Ultrasound Device allows users to carefully monitor a bearing during a lubrication task. Both audio and visual representations of the bearing’s response are displayed to provide greasing guidance. As grease is added to the bearing the Ultrasound signal amplitude will decrease. Once it begins to climb slightly, you know you have reached the optimal level of grease. That is very simplified and covers only some of the cases, while on-board analysis covers much more.
- SDT are exhibiting at Lubricant Expo and The Bearing Show, who are you hoping to meet at the show?
Companies ready to adopt our condition monitoring solutions to prevent bearing failure as well as unplanned downtime. What we offer aren’t just our devices, it’s a new forma mentis, a new way of treating the assets in your factory, an ecological and environmental way. Maintain your assets instead of replacing their parts.
- What will you be showcasing at Lubricant Expo and The Bearing Show?
First of all, our company as solutions provider to increase the lifespan of bearings and machines. Secondly, the LUBExpert and its brain, in particular how we managed to connect the lubrication team with the Condition Monitoring team with the Dynamic option. With the latter, the lubrication team, while lubricating, gather condition monitoring information useful for the CM team, so they don’t have to visit the same machine again. The job is done once and is valid for both the teams.
SDT Ultrasound Solutions are exhibiting at Lubricant Expo and The Bearing Show on stand 541.