Plant technicians inspected the gearbox and determined that the drive was experiencing vibration at a specific frequency. After several failed attempts to fix the problem, the plant was forced to shut down their generator and switch to power supplied by the main grid (which was charging them a premium for high usage). In dire straits and losing money daily, the customer called Philadelphia Gear's Gulf Coast Regional Service Center for help.

The customer approved the project with the stipulation that PGC designed the new gear set to an American Gear Manufacturers Association (AGMA) quality 14 standard, which exceeded the original AGMA 10 rating. In addition, to help further address the vibration issue, all finished parts were balanced to a tolerance that was 50% less than the allowable American Petroleum Institutes' (API) specification. After assembly was complete, a full speed, no-load test was performed for the customer, which met their expectations.

Only seven days after it was received, the unit was shipped back to the customer. The repaired gearbox was brought back online and when the vibration levels were measured under full-load conditions, the readings were reduced by an order of magnitude from 0.55 in/sec peak to 0.05 in/sec peak. "Having access to some of the industry's most state-of-the-art machinery and a network of millions of engineering drawings allowed us to do the job on-time and to the exact specifications of the customer," said Boyd Swearingen, general manager for PGC Houston. "We were thrilled when we received the final vibration results; it further proved that our investment in the latest machinery adds significant value for our customers."