Have you achieved a level of lubrication practices that you would consider close to excellence? If not, you need to either upgrade your existing plan or develop a new lubrication strategy. The money you spend on purchasing lubricants is a tiny part of your plant’s maintenance budget. However, poor lubrication practices can end up costing you more than 30% of your total maintenance budget.

There are many service providers around the world that claim to be the best when it comes to industrial lubrication services. This creates confusion for the clients to choose the best one out of the range of service providers related to lubrication-based requirements. It would not be wrong to say that there is a big risk involved when the wrong lubrication service provider is hired for industrial or commercial based machinery maintenance and automatic lubrication systems.

Reliability gains and reduced operating costs are two of the major benefits of having properly lubricated equipment. In most industrialized plants, reliability gains can help manufacturers improve operational efficiency, energy efficiency, product quality, environmental integrity, and customer service. If you want to make the most of your lubrication program, make sure to use the correct, equipment specific lubricants that are designed and filtered to achieve equipment life extension goals.

Premature tool wear is certainly frustrating for machinists, which not only leads to higher scrap and longer job times, but also costs money in tooling. In most cases, it’s not the tool's fault. Lab analysis is the solution in most situations when some hidden problems with the machines lubricant affects the overall machine performance.

Valuable insights into the health and operating levels of your equipment is one of the prime advantages of regular oil analysis. It's important for most industries to keep track of lubricants running through their machines. Companies that don’t pay due attention to the importance of proper and consistent analysis leave the health of their equipment to chance.

A large number of products are made with paper. Machines in paper factories are expected to function non-stop and meet production requirements. Proper lubrication and preventive maintenance are the best techniques to ensure the smooth operation of paper machines. Most paper machines come with hundreds of lube points that require proper grease or oil application.

In a competitive environment, manufacturing equipment is pushed to its limits. Manufacturers expect their equipment to stay up and running to ensure uninterrupted operations. The demand for low maintenance, high accuracy, low energy consumption, and reliable industrial machines has also increased over the last decade.

Contamination is the reason why more than 80 percent of all hydraulic system failure occurs. You can keep downtime to a minimum if you properly maintain your hydraulic systems and maintain a recommended cleanliness level and oil temperature. 120°F is the ideal oil temperature for industrial hydraulic systems. When the temperature reaches 140°F, oil starts to break down. 15°F rise in the temperature above 140°F will cut the oil life in half.

Some companies give up on their oil analysis programs because they can’t achieve the desired results or apparent benefits. They take the samples and send them to the lab but still find it difficult to either identify or resolve the lubrication or maintenance-related issues.

The purpose of oil sampling is to use oil as a technique to uncover the performance of a machine. It can help maintenance teams achieve the highest level of equipment reliability in a cost-efficient manner. The initial samples help identify the machines with critical levels and establish a benchmark.