Machinery Lubrication

ML_Sept_Oct_2017_DigitalEditon

Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation

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4 | September - October 2017 | www.machinerylubrication.com AS I SEE IT Conspicuously Display Excellence in Practice Use the walls of your lube room as bulletin boards to display and emphasize critical messages, especially the need for change. Don't assume lube technicians and other maintenance staf f members remember and understand the tenets of lubrication excellence. They may have been told during training, but that doesn't mean they remember or will readily change the way work is done in the plant. Lube room walls and bulletin boards should paint a clear picture of what is needed and expected. They are your front page and masterplan for change. Examples of what can be displayed as frequent reminders of your critical messages include housekeeping policies, safety policies, new standardized work procedures and tasks, training posters and wallcharts, and machine and lube room inspection tips. Consider showing annotated photos of best practice and perhaps what is no longer allowed. Some companies use T V monitors to loop training videos on such things as oil sampling, contamination control, grease gun procedures, inspection tips, storage and handling methods, etc. Don't Forget Metrics Use the lube room as a command post to display key per formance indicators (KPIs), including leading (what's going to happen) and lagging (what just happened or is happening) indicators. In all work environments, people need to know what's impor tant and what's being measured. Metrics shape and define an organization. We've all been subject to various measurements since childhood. Those early experiences ranged from the winning score of a little-league baseball game to the painfully serious day we brought home a low grade on a school report card. We learned that what counts is what is measured. We are what we measure. Use the lube room to focus and cele- brate the work that enables lubrication excellence. Construct a group of metrics and KPIs designed to stress the importance of doing just that. I'm always curious to see the charts and graphs that are posted by managers, often on bulletin boards outside their offices. A quick glance can tell you what defines the performance goals of the team that he or she manages. Oil and grease analysis are metrics on the state of lubrication and machine reliability. Condition monitoring metrics such as these should not be lost on a computer hard drive or in files inside a desk drawer. Instead, key data must be on display in real time to communicate all non-conforming conditions as well as successes from well-behaved and strongly earned data. Such aware- ness enables control and sustainability of program goals. Machine categories can be grouped together to show broader plant perfor- mance. Use control charts to display oil analysis trends such as particle and mois- ture trends, viscosity analysis, elemental analysis, ferrous densit y, and varnish potential. Big-picture metrics should also be added, including PM route compliance, contamination control compliance, overall lubrication effectiveness (OLE) and percent planned maintenance. Don't Overlook Intangible Benefits When people do bad work, they feel bad about themselves and their job. Like- wise, when people do good work, they feel good about themselves and their job. Training, empowerment, housekeeping (tidiness), tools, culture, documenta- tion, measurement, communication and machine readiness all enable good work. Reliability doesn't happen by itself. There is a human-behavior element that is critical. What happens when you have a world- class lube room that is clean, organized and complete with everything needed? It telegraphs a subtle message to lube techs, operators and others performing mainte- nance tasks that quality work in the plant is recognized as important. Furthermore, it broadcasts a statement that management will invest in excellence and expects work to be done to the same standard. The culture of excellence becomes a conta - gion that spreads and is soon engrained in everyone. At last, the "people part" of lubrication excellence gets under control. The lube room provides that necessary starting point — square one. When you have a high-quality lube room, you finally begin the process of getting high-quality, sustain- able lubrication at the machine. This translates to far greater attention to detail when performing lubrication tasks, more intense inspections, better oil samples, cleaner machines inside and out, etc. Your lube room becomes the command center or mission control for lubrication excellence. About the Author Jim Fitch has a wealth of "in the trenches" experience in lubrication, oil analysis, tribology and machiner y failure investigations. Over the past two decades, he has presented hundreds of courses on these subjects. Jim has also published more than 200 technical ar ticles, papers and publi - cations. He ser ves as a U.S. delegate to the ISO tribology and oil analysis working group. Since 2002, he has been the director and a board member of the International Council for Machiner y Lubrication. He is the CEO and a co-founder of Noria Corporation. Contact Jim at jf itch@noria.com. Read More on How to Improve Your Lube Room For more information on how to achieve a world-class lube room, visit Machinery- Lubrication.com. You will find numerous articles that have been published through the years on this important topic. To help narrow your search, the titles and web addresses of some of the most popular articles are listed below: • Is Your Lube Room Up to Par? (www.machinery- lubrication.com/Read/1133/lube-room) • C on st r uc t i n g a World- C l a s s Lube Room (w w w. m a c h i n e r y lu br i c a t i on . c om / R e a d / 53 6 / constructing-lube-room) • Lube Room E ssent ia ls a nd Best Pract ices (w w w.machiner ylubrication.com /Read /29008 / lube-room-essentials) • O i l S t o r a g e , H a n d l i n g a n d D e c o n - t a m i n a t i on C a n D e c i d e Pr o g r a m Fa t e (w w w.machiner ylubrication.com /Read /28376 / storage-handling-decontamination) • Designing the Optimum Lubricant Storeroom (w w w. m a c h i n e r y lu br i c a t i on . c om / R e a d / 212 / lubricant-storeroom)

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