Machinery Lubrication

Machinery Lubrication July - August 2016

Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation

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L u b r i c a t i o n P r o g r a m s et's be honest. When manufacturing organizations launch initiatives for enhanced reliability through lubri- cation, there's often one main driver behind their decision — money. However, there are many reasons to embark on this journey outside of the obvious. This article should help lessen the challenge of linking those reasons or benefits to a successful program and a favored outcome. Performing CBAs The first tool most people use in their journey to acceptance from decision-makers and purse-string holders is a cost benefit analysis (CBA). The CBA can speak the language of managers and leaders. Return, investment and yield are some of the most useful vocabulary terms, as opposed to technical jargon like elastohydro - dynamic, contamination control and ferrous wear debris. Most CBAs are centered around opportunity costs. These costs are currently being incurred but could potentially be eliminated or redirected if the planned improvements were implemented. They are quite easy to associate to dollar amounts, as enough data has been obtained to show what improvements in lubrication and reliability can mean to a company's bottom line. Beginning with the overall annual maintenance costs, which encompass nearly everything it takes to run the plant at full produc - tion for the year, you can whittle away until you find these lost opportunity dollars. More specifically, this annual maintenance cost consists of parts, labor, supervision, management, overhead, insur - ance, incidentals, etc. You also will want to include unscheduled downtime, excessive scheduled downtime, production de-rates and anything else that might cost the company money because the machines are not operating at 100 percent of their design capacity. From this total, you can start narrowing down the recoupable money. Start with the percentage that is due to repairs. This will exclude PMs, inspections and proactive activities. Then find the percentage of repairs attributable to the mechanical wear of lubri - cated components. Of these components, estimate the percentage that is the result of poor lubrication. Finally, determine the percentage that could have been avoided with the proper program in place. Based on industry averages, approximately 10 percent of a typical plant's annual maintenance costs could be saved or redi- rected to other initiatives. This is a substantial amount of money for most plants, but it's not the end of the justification. There is still more on the table. Understanding ROI How do you put a value on a failure that you didn't know was going to happen? The problem with only using return on invest- ment (ROI) as a financial benchmark is that it can be extremely difficult to quantify the perceived benefit of the improvement. Many people think only about the value that lubrication excellence has for a reliability or maintenance department and do not consider how the implemented initiatives impacted other departments. For example, training employees leads to better retention, which requires less money spent on turnover and onboarding. Furthermore, how ROI is calculated differs from department to department and from person to person, making the usefulness of this metric considerably varied and unreliable. Not all lubrication Measuring the Financial L FROM THE FIELD Jerem y Wrigh t | Nori a Corpor at ioN IMPACT Lubrication PROGRAM 8 | July - August 2016 | www.machinerylubrication.com of a Successful

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