MRO Today - This is your wakeup call

This is your wakeup call

by Drew Troyer

Despite the fact that ineffective lubrication is routinely identified as the primary or contributing root cause of mechanical failure, it continues to be overlooked as an opportunity to increase plant reliability and uptime. In each column in this Coach series, I will tackle an important machinery lubrication or oil analysis topic. This series is designed to help you discover opportunities to create value through effective management of machinery lubrication and to whet your appetite to seek further knowledge about machinery lubrication.

Overgreasing, wrong oil mixing, contamination, equipment that is poorly designed for lubrication maintainability, ignorance about the importance of effective lubrication . . . regrettably, the same machinery lubrication mistakes are made again and again in plant after plant. These mistakes wreak havoc on bearings, gearboxes, engines, hydraulics and other mechanical systems.

The effects of poor lubrication are often slow and imperceptible. When a failure does occur, we fail to associate the causal link between improper lubrication and the failure event. And, let’s face it, addressing machinery lubrication lacks allure for many plant engineers and managers. But the fact remains: poor lubrication costs big money.

Ernest Rabinowicz, a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, estimates that between 6 and 7 percent of our gross national product (GNP) is required to repair damage caused by mechanical wear. This impressive figure doesn’t take into account a host of other costs that are directly or indirectly tied to wear.

SKF, the bearing manufacturer, surmises that inadequate lubrication is a contributing cause in 90 percent of all bearing failures. In the same breath, SKF points to contamination, another lubrication-related root cause of bearing failure, as contributing to 70 percent of all bearing failures. Managing machinery lubrication is serious business.

Here are summaries of some select case studies that highlight the business opportunity associated with upgrading your plant’s machinery lubrication program.

Port of Tacoma: The port upgraded the diesel engine filters on its fleet of straddle carriers, increasing the meantime between rebuild from 7,200 hours to more than 21,000 hours. The project paid for itself in just over two months and delivered a whopping 664 percent internal rate of return.

BHP Steel: This steel producer upgraded its lubrication and contamination control practices. Over a six-year period, the mill reduced bearing failure frequency from 12 per year to just one, which significantly reduced plant downtime. As an added bonus, the improved equipment reliability enabled the mill to increase its mill speed from 45 meters per second to 120 meters per second. That’s nearly triple the throughput.

Kawasaki Steel: By improving hydraulic fluid management practices, this company reduced its breakdown frequency 96 percent and its fluid consumption 80 percent.

Baltimore Gas & Electric: This utility company reported an additional $16.3 million in profit through initiatives to improve equipment maintenance. Of this total, about $6.8 million (41.7 percent), was attributed to oil analysis and lubrication improvement programs.

Weyerhaeuser: Through lubrication improvement initiatives, which included upgraded lubricant selection, aggressive contamination control, staff education and careful maintenance of the lubricant, including oil analysis, this wood products company saw bearing failures drop as much as 80 percent.

These cases are just a taste of the opportunities to build value through improvements in machinery lubrication. I hope they inspire you to look at lubrication differently than you have in the past.

Lubrication is a critical element of mechanical reliability and requires skilled technicians to look after it. Historically, lubrication has been trivialized in the plant. This oversight has cost industry dearly.

I look forward to guiding MRO Today readers on their pathway to lubrication excellence. In coming issues, we will address many technical issues as well as important organizational and strategic issues related to lubricating your valuable assets.

Drew Troyer is the senior editor of Machinery Lubrication Magazine. If you have a lubrication or oil analysis question, contact Coach Troyer at or e-mail .

This article appeared in the February/March 2002 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2002.