Page 12

Are existing full flow filters capable of meeting the equipment manufacturer’s specifications or have these filters been replaced with less expensive jobber filters, whose quality and efficiency ratings may be questionable?

Smart lubrication professionals make the most of the tools of their trade. They know that a portable lubricant filter cart is a vital tool that can be used in more ways than one. When specified and built correctly, a filter cart can deliver a major return on investment. Consider the possibilities:

The oil can was in need of a major redo years ago. It was grossly outdated in terms of modern views and needs relating to lubrication and machinery reliability. Fortunately, new products sporting highly advanced features have emerged on the market. For clarification, I’ll refer to the historic products as “oil cans” and their modern replacements as S&R containers. S&R is short for “sealable and reusable”.

The importance of selecting the correct test to analyze the performance of a piece of equipment cannot be isolated to a specific test; it requires the combination of two or more tests or a group of tests depending on the activity of the selected equipment in the production process. In order to keep the unit in the field, it is necessary to avoid constant failures and downtime due to corrective maintenance or in a worst-case scenario, the replacement of the unit as a consequence of a catastrophic failure.

Condition monitoring by lubricant analysis is one of the basic tools of predictive maintenance programs; however, to date, industries have struggled managing programs on a larger scale, standardizing knowledge throughout multiple locations and capturing overall program success.