The new NORD blog Information, solutions, backgrounds

A smart colleague pointedly answered the question “What are your actually doing at NORD DRIVESYSTEMS?“ with: “We generate torque at the right speed”. Which really says everything. But as in chess, which allows a near infinite combinations of moves to arise from the initial position, generating torque also leads to many detailed questions. Besides the complexity you have practical relevance: Due to its central role in almost every application, industrial drive technology in particular offers great potential for optimisation in terms of economy and efficiency - be it through small improvements or completely new system design. This has been our daily business at NORD DRIVESYSTEMS since 1965. This know-how is what we would like to share with you.

The most important trends in drive technology

Like all aspects of your daily lives, drive technology also follows social mega trends like digitalisation, climate adaptation or individualisation. Digitalisation puts the focus on topics like condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. These are concepts that allow for the optimisation of operational reliability and efficiency for machines and plants. If you take for example our drive solutions, drive and status data can be recorded permanently and at regular intervals. This enables a continuous condition monitoring and thereby creates the basis for predictive maintenance concepts. The communications possibilities of the drive technology are equally important.

Improving energy efficiency is also an important and continuing trend, born of both ecological and economic needs. The focus of NORD DRIVESYSTEMS is therefore on developing and project planning of appropriate drive systems because it is our wish to make our customers successful with NORD drive technology. To this end we offer a large range of highly efficient solutions which can be adjusted to the individual needs of the application and the user, thanks to the modular system and customer-specific project planning.

How drive technology helps to reduce energy costs

Efficiency is of course a very important factor for your customers who are using NORD drive technology in their daily operation. Drives are the industry’s main consumers of energy and therefore offer one of the biggest fields for potential savings. Energy-saving electric motors in combination with gear units that are tailor-made for the application and the corresponding drive electronics are an essential part of a sustained efficiency strategy. For example, synchronous motors have a high constant efficiency over a wide speed and torque range and are also highly efficient in the partial load range. Through this they contribute significantly to reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TOC).

Of course an improvement of energy efficiency can not only be realised by exchanging individual components. If a truly energy efficient solution is to be realised, the whole drive system and a balanced reduction of the used drive versions needs to be considered. In our third blog post “Energy efficiency: How drive technology helps to reduce energy costs“ we will give you valuable advice on how a holistic approach to energy efficiency in plant system planning is connected to a sensible version reduction.

How is a frequency inverter built?

This will be the topic of our fourth blog post “How a frequency inverter is built: A look behind the scenes in Aurich“. Why the district town Aurich? Although Aurich is the centre of the central East Friesland region, in a beautiful location and close to the sea, it is so far largely unknown as the origin point of technological breakthroughs. This oversight is something we would like to correct in our blog post by taking you on a short journey through our modern series production facility for electronic components - which also allows for small batch sizes thanks to flexible production. NORD DRIVESYSTEMS has been producing and developing frequency inverters in the heart of East Frisia since 1984. Whether they are used in Europe, China or the USA, the cradle of all electronic NORD components is in our NORD manufacturing facility in Aurich. Drive solutions from NORD DRIVESYSTEMS distinguish themselves by their innovative technology, extraordinary quality and reliability as well as by their vertical integration. All quality-determining components are produced in our own factories, including research and development.

The development of drive electronics at the Aurich site originally began with the emergence of the first modern wind turbines in the early 1980s, since inverter technology is essential for the wind energy’s processing and feeding into the distribution networks. This was how a technology site emerged right at the source, providing the foundation stone for frequency inverters engineered and made in Germany, setting standards to this day.