Whether your site has an established, well-functioning lubrication program that has been in place for several years or you have just begun the journey of building your program, if long-term, recurrent success is the end goal, the challenge of developing and sustaining a reliability culture will need to be addressed.
“How can you tell if an oil has exceeded the appropriate temperature range?”
Lubricants are formulated with base oils and additives to function under the conditions expected for the intended application in terms of speed, load, temperature, oil change interval, etc. These formulas may be designed for compressors, turbines, engines, gearboxes, etc. When their properties or performance are diminished as a result of contamination, temperature changes or additive depletion, the lubricants must be modified.
How uncomfortable is it for your organization when off-specification product moves through your quality-assurance process and reaches your customers?
“Our maintenance department is understaffed, especially when it comes to completing lubrication tasks. Do you have any advice for helping management understand when more resources/people are needed?”
“When we sent several duplicate oil samples to our oil analysis lab, the particle counts were quite different. Some differed by as much as five in the ISO code. The samples taken after the 7-micron absolute filters were higher than the before samples. How can you determine what the real particle count is so you can make the best decisions?”
