Issues with Lubrication Programs with David Pedden

It is not possible to keep your equipment operating at efficiency and for high productivity if you are not lubricating the machines properly. That is why it is so vital to use the right lubricant to avoid any breakdowns or other failures in your systems. You have to always keep an eye for the contamination because it alone can cause severe damage. When you apply the lubricants poorly, there are a hundred things that go wrong with the handling of the machines and in a result causes problems for your storage strategy.

That is where the supervisors come in. You have to take his suggestions and any other information provided by him on a critical note and act on it immediately. There are a lot of failure modes and malfunctions that are caused by a bad lubrication program in maintenance and reliability. Organizations need to spare more resources for lubrication programs rather than just changing the lubricant as a commodity whenever they want. It is a whole process right from the sample taking, checking it for contamination, applying it, and then monitoring it throughout the production level. Any poor judgment is going to lead to a catastrophic failure in the end.

One of the common problems in the industry is that the workers don’t pay attention to the cleanliness of the oil while applying it to the machines. They should consider the lubricant an asset and organizations should do something to change their mindset about the whole lubrication program. As long as there are contaminants in the oil, there will be always health and safety issues for your equipment. There are always some unfiltered small but harmful particles into the oil and some other sample taking, critical points. These can be detected if you have your parts count.

To keep such particles out that can truly damage the surface of the machines, air breathers—an accessory provided by the OEMs—are used. They will not only filter out the small contaminants, they also keep the oil from rusting by keeping the moisture from mixing with the lubricant. The oil should be filtered depending upon the application process but is a good practice to do it even before you apply it to your machines. Another issue that messes with the cleanliness of your systems is the cross-contamination of the lubricants. This is very serious when the cost of application is higher because once the breakdown occurs, it is not easy to replace the affected assets—considering it can cost millions.

The people use grease guns for greasing and they fail to understand the precision factor that is heavily involved there. They over-grease the machines by poorly applying at some critical components and that leads to higher operating temperatures, bearing failure and increased contaminant problems. The lubrication programs can be made good by having a trained and good team. The senior members retire sometimes. So, it is good to have an overall experienced and skilled team with better procedures.

Eruditio Links:

• Eruditio, LLC
• A Smarter Way of Preventative Maintenance – Free eBook
• Maintenance Planning & Scheduling: Planning for Profitability Video Course

David Pedden Links:

• Lubrication Engineers
• Lubrication Engineers Canada
• Oil Analysis

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