Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1449093
www.machinerylubrication.com | January - February 2022 | 43 ML ML In its infancy, a lubrication program is often filled with unnec- essary tasks such as over greasing, oil changes performed too often and leakage. As you can imagine, some of these are easier to fix than others, and some are more popular choices to attack than others. It's not simply a matter of deciding not to change oil as often or to grease once a month instead of once a week; a fair amount of homework has to be done to help mature the program to where we have optimized our lubrication cycles. Leakage is a more straightforward fix but, depending on the system complexity of duty cycles, leaks may be hard to pinpoint and fix. Regardless, we can walk through the process of how to implement this KPI: First, we need to baseline where we are currently sitting in terms of purchasing. Getting with the procurement team, we should be able to see how much money was spent on lubricant purchases over the last several years. While the cost is great to know, we are really looking to discover the total volume of lubricant ordered. is may be tedious, but getting a volume for each lubricant is the f irst step of the process. Some companies may decide to focus on the total volume and not break it down to individual lubricants, but there are benefits to seeing the details. is will become clearer as we move through the process. While it isn't necessary, deter- mining how much of the lubricant exists in warehouse locations throughout the plant is what you should determine next. is would also be best broken down into each individual lubricant. When you start looking through all storage areas, you may be surprised by how many drums/buckets/totes of single lubricants you have sitting around. While the stored lubricant may Prior Year Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 New Purchases 10,000 gal 4,500 gal 2,100 gal 1,420 gal Machine Volume Charge 4,200 gal 4,600 gal* 4,600 gal* 4,600 gal* Consumption Ratio 2.4 0.98 0.49 0.29 Consumption Ratio = Annual Oil Purchases Machine Charge Volume Oil Consumption Ratio Optimization *New machines purchased feel like a stockpile for use when there are "emer- gencies," it is actually a liability. Too often, these stored lubricants are beyond their shelf life; they could be grossly contaminated to the point that they aren't fit for use. Also, a significant amount of stored lubricant may skew the consumption ratio, so understanding current inventory levels as well as maximum, minimum and reorder levels is important. Once we have established our history of purchased volumes and our current stored volume, we need to figure out just how much of each lubri- cant is needed to completely fill all the machinery in the plant. While this task takes time and manpower, it yields powerful results. It is common for plants to know the details of large reservoirs or critical equipment; smaller pieces are often disregarded, and the information simply doesn't exist in the CMMS. is process allows us to put eyes on each piece of equipment, determine the volume, collect valuable operating data, and, ultimately, update our lubrication system (even if that is the CMMS). Keep in mind that, through this process, you should only focus on equipment that you intend to maintain. If you have a threshold of what is deemed "disposable," then use that as your guide. Any equipment that is sealed or simply ran to failure should be neglected from this audit. As you are collecting the volumes, this serves as a good spot check on your labeling of equipment for lubricants, as well as naming/ numbering for consistency. Finally, we want to check past work orders to determine how many of the pieces of equipment have recently had oil changes or significant top-ups. Perhaps many of you might not have that informa- tion available, which is okay, but it is something you will want to begin tracking and updating your work orders to include. is is also something that should be turned in with inspection routes/rounds. If an operator, lube tech or mechanic is topping some- thing up, we want to know how much oil was added.