Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1487844
12 | November - December 2022 | www . machinerylubrication.com LUBRICANT SELECTION lubricant has specific additives and performance characteristics that are best suited for their equipment. Now keep in mind that their specifications may or may not match your use of their equipment exactly (as far as the viscosity portion goes), but the performance of the overall formulation is what they are looking at. So why not use this formulation performance as our standard identifier for the lubricant? Let's say that the OEM for a given truck dumper recommends Mobil DTE 10 Excel 46 for their system. It just so happens that Mobil has given us the specifications in their technical data sheet. Under these ISO standards, the Mobil product meets the requirements for both HM and HV classifications. So if I find myself in a pinch and can't get my hands on the Mobil product, I can look to other lubricants that meet the same standards. Like I said, these are globally recognized standards, and your suppliers know about these standards. Sometimes it is as easy as looking at the TDS, but other times you might have to reach out to your suppliers to get these identifiers. ML Here's what I would do: 1 Take an inventory of all the lubricants that are used in my facility. 2 Contact all suppliers and ask them what the ISO 6743 identifier is for your lubricants. 3 Make sure you know the viscosity of the fluids. 4 Come up with a color and shape (a large swath of people are color blind, so let's make things easier on them) system as your everyday label. 5 Use these ISO standards to create the "key" to your lubricants. is way, when a change is made to a product you are using, you don't have to change labels on anything, just the key. About the Author Jeremie Edwards is an Associate Technical Consultant at Noria Corporation. He is one of an elite few certified by the International Council for Machinery Lubrication (ICML) as a Machinery Lubrication Engineer (MLE) and did so in order to become the best advisor for clients when it comes to their continuing education needs. Before joining Noria, Jeremie served six years in the U.S. Army as a parachute rigger and was deployed in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and Germany. Contact Jeremie at jedwards@noria.com