What is your company and how did your relationship with ROCOL begin?
The owners of IMESTRE also own a business manufacturing ice cream cones. The ovens that are used in production are manufactured by HAAS who recommended that we used ROCOL HT-70 for the maintenance of them.
ROCOL products weren’t available in Chile at the time. This meant that we had to fly to Brazil to buy supplies and bring them back in suitcases, luckily for us, the world was very different 40 years ago as you couldn’t do that now. We searched for alternative products, but couldn’t find anything locally that was as good as ROCOL. That was when we decided to start acting as a distributor.
How long have you worked with ROCOL and what attracted you to the company?
We have been working with ROCOL for around 40 years now. We only want to work with the highest quality products, not the cheapest, that deliver the best solutions for our customers. ROCOL fit that perfectly.
What are your favourite parts about working with ROCOL and why?
The way that ROCOL innovates and are the market leader in terms of the quality of products as well as giving the best service to customers are just two of the reasons why we love working with ROCOL. The technical staff are also fantastic in helping to solve any issues that may arise, which gives us confidence when selling the products.
What ROCOL products do you use and where do you use them?
I think the product we see being used most are ULTRACUT 370, for use on lathes, and ULTRAGRIND Premium for grinding machines. Products like DRY MOLY Spray, high-temperature greases as well as chain and wire rope lubricants are also popular with customers.
Share one experience with ROCOL that made them better than any other competitor?
A customer had been experiencing issues with bearings failing in a high-temperature oven that was used in producing cardboard boxes. The lubricant needs to withstand carbonisation at high temperature, high load, steam as well as dust and paper fibre.
The product that they had been using required lubricant to be applied weekly, with the bearings replaced twice a year leading to production having to be stopped for maintenance to be carried out and excessive scrap from the lubricant dripping and contaminating the product being produced.
We recommended that they move across to using ROCOL SAPPHIRE Extreme. This change meant that the bearings only had to be changed once a year and all corrective maintenance due to bearing failure was eliminated, saving around $8,000 per year. This led to an increase in production due to the need for less maintenance. Another benefit has been that there now isn’t any scrap being created due to contamination.
