Eliminator partners

Adding value for the customer is basic to the Cummins business philosophy. “We don’t look at Cummins’ critical success factors,” says Geoff Conrad, General Manager of Commercial Marine Globally at Cummins. “We look at our customers’ critical success factors.”

A Cummins engine must be well engineered and thoughtout,
with validated quality and proven durability, he says. But most importantly, the engine has to add value to the customer by lasting longer and being more reliable than competing products.

The Alfa Laval Eliminator filter meets all these requirements. Developed in the 1990s in a collaborative effort between Cummins and Alfa Laval, the Eliminator was the first full-flow automatic backflush and combined centrifuge-lube oil filter for the high-speed engine industry. The high-efficiency centrifuge reduces particles to below two microns. The Eliminator may be bolted to the engine or fitted as an upgrade, and it is used in the treatment of lube oil in many applications, including the railroad, mining and marine industries.

The estimated return on investment for the Eliminator is on average 18 months to two years.

“The Eliminator adds clear value,” says Conrad. “It eliminates the customers having to dispose of cartridge filters, eliminates man-hours, greatly increases uptime, eliminates the risk of contaminants entering the lube oil system and optimizes both the cost and the process overall. These added values are the main reason for the success of this innovation.”

And the success is evident. In December 2010, Cummins and Alfa Laval celebrated the production of the 5,000th Eliminator filter used with Cummins’ engines.

“We value the Alfa Laval team’s solutionoriented methods,” says Conrad. “They are proactive and come forward with thoughtful proposals and ideas. They listen, respond and take the time to understand our challenges, and then they work on a solution to these challenges.”

The Eliminator is an excellent example of how the partnership works. The filter was originally created for Cummins’ larger engines, but on request Alfa Laval developed the same solution for the company’s smaller engines, the Eliminator T160 – a “baby” Eliminator based on the original design premise. “This is now available on our 19L engine,” says Conrad.

Cummins also uses other products from Alfa Laval as critical systems, such as Alfa Laval heat exchangers for cooling for its marine engines.

The partnership between Alfa Laval and Cummins continues. “We are encouraging Alfa Laval to grow with Cummins as we evolve into new products, locations and regions of world,” Conrad says. “Cummins’ customer base is changing, and as long as Alfa Laval strives to find customer solutions with us, there is no reason why the partnership should not be successful.”