It would be overly optimistic or even a bit naïve to assume that all lubrication-related design decisions made by the equipment manufacturer best serve the end-user’s long-term interests. Understandably, cost competitiveness will have been foremost on the manufacturer’s mind. After all, many machines are continuing to be purchased with initial cost as the primary (if not only) criterion. These machines are candidates for upgrading.

A modest upgrade today can prevent a cascade of costly failures tomorrow.

Paying a small incremental added charge for an upgrade makes far more sense than upgrading after many repeat failures. Upgrading at the specification stage is possible if the writer of the spec is knowledgeable. That’s important. Knowledge is a quality that builds up; lack of knowledge leads to decay in every sense of the word.

What Causes Lubricants to Degrade

Upgrading to superior lubricants, protecting lubricants from premature degradation, and improving the method by which lubricants are delivered to bearings is often feasible and desirable. Occasionally, “naysayers” argue that lubricants never wear out, but they’re wrong.

Lubricants can suffer from gradual depletion of additives, contamination, or the effects of excessive temperatures. Water causes partitioning, essentially a separation of molecules from certain beneficial additives. Water and dust particles combine to form sludge. Common sense tells us that issues with lubricants can render the fluid unserviceable to the point of initiating catastrophic machine failures.

When Manufacturers’ Standards Aren’t Enough

Experience also indicates that manufacturers are satisfied if, in their view, “traditional” maintenance frequencies or intensities are carried out. Similarly, a vendor-manufacturer may be satisfied if, of the 100 machines delivered to their Customer X, only 95 are reaching the industry average life of, say, three operating years. Thus, in this hypothetical case, out of every 100 machines, five would experience avoidable failures within this time.

Even a small percentage of avoidable failures can drain a maintenance budget fast.

But suppose that, in this arbitrary example, Customer Y has all 100 of his machines exceed the industry average, and they operate for three years before one of them needs a repair. In that case, Customer X will spend money on repairs while Customer Y has no such expenses or outlays. Chances are that Customer Y is more successful because it implemented suitable upgrades, and Customer X should consider upgrading.

Consider this our way of claiming that our text deals with eliminating the 5% of “elusive” repeat failures. Arguing that traditional methods and practices still suffice is a bit like pointing out that people can still get from one place to another in a 1915 Model T Ford automobile.

While agreeing with that statement, we would have no difficulty explaining and accepting that a 2021 mid-size Ford automobile will better serve our low-maintenance cost and high-reliability goals.

Elusive pump failures are, in all probability, consuming a disproportionate amount of the maintenance budget. Years ago, the author compiled statistics that placed from 7% to 10% of a facility’s process pumps in the frequent failure (or “bad actor”) category. Typically, approximately 60% of the maintenance budget for equipment category process pumps is consumed by the 7% to 10% low-performing population.

Cost-Justifying Upgrades

An empirical assessment makes the conservative assumption that a simple available upgrade measure will extend safe operating life by factors ranging from 1.1 to 1.4, that implementing two available upgrade measures would extend safe operating life by factors from perhaps 1.5 to 2.5, and that three low-cost improvement measures would move pump operating lives to multipliers in the range from 2.6 to roughly 3.3.

These approximations are often used in initial cost justification calculations; they have usually yielded reasonably close results. Proceeding with upgrade plans is considered justified if payback is obtained within 18 or fewer months.

The right upgrades can double or even triple a machine’s operating life.

Another rule of thumb uses an exponential approach. That rule states that if a fully upgraded machine has a reliability of 1.0, then one missed upgrade will lower the reliability to 90% of 1.0 = 0.9; two missed upgrades to 90% of 0.9 = 0.81; three missed upgrades to 90% of 0.81 = 0.73; four missed upgrades to 90% of 0.73, equaling only 0.66, and so forth.

We consider this elementary rule of thumb rather optimistic. Actual achieved reliability with four deficiencies is probably less than 50% of what would be achievable with better bearings, better mechanical seals, better couplings, better constant level lubricators, or whatever other upgrades are available and within reach.

Then, there is a third rule of thumb worth sharing. Again, a reasonable assumption is made; a probable 20% improvement in failure avoidance, or repair cost reductions, or life extension is thought to result from each upgrade. In that case, an upgrade will move the equipment reliability from 1.0 to 1.2; a second (different) upgrade would capture 1.22 = 1.44; further upgrades would be 1.23 = 1.73, and 1.24 = 2.07.

The implementation of four proven upgrade measures would cause the MTBR (mean time between repairs) to be extended slightly beyond twofold. Yearly repair expenditures would be one-half of what they were before; workers previously laboring on repairs would now spend time on repair avoidance tasks. Safety would improve, community goodwill would be boosted, and worker morale would also increase.

Turning Calculations Into Action Plans

Making good use of shortcut calculations is encouraged by a good management team. Good managers routinely ask responsible staffers to accept responsibility for cost justification and advocacy of reliability improvements that yield rapid payback. These employees would be encouraged to become familiar with the above three reasonably accurate shortcut calculations. In turn, these employees would accept the task of engaging in 12 management-sponsored actions and pursuits:

1. Define equipment operating capability (reliability) limits to prevent lubrication-related failures adequately.
2. Develop lubrication strategies sufficient to maintain equipment operation and availability within specified limits.
3. Prioritize detection of limit deviation and definition of response criteria according to known or anticipated failure intervals and consequences.
4. Enforce and own the policy and procedures for lubrication-related reliability-limit changes.
5. Document the approval of new and changes to existing lubrication-related reliability limits.
6. Establish lube-application-related limit documentation and ascertain access capabilities to retain lubricant performance limit, its purpose, and its history.
7. Set expectations for upgrading equipment assigned to limit monitoring points and assist in creating effective contingency plans for maintenance deviations.
8. Track and monitor limit compliance by contractors and the end-user company’s personnel.
9. Investigate chronic limit deviations to detect and address potential constraints that might degrade business value.
10. Communicate program performance measures on a routine basis (percent in control, chronic limit deviations).
11. Reconcile lubricant-limit performance against turnaround maintenance inspection results.
12. Audit reliability-limit database integrity.

Why Strategic Upgrades Pay Off Long-Term

We have learned that best-in-class companies have institutionalized the study and dissemination of best-practice lubrication details. But we have also learned that the decision to upgrade one’s method of lube application often depends on the equipment manufacturers’ input. Likewise, the decisions are at least influenced by the ranking that experienced users assign to these applications.

The success of oil mist lubrication on a scale ranging from just one machine to 30 plant-wide oil mist systems serving 2,000 or more machines at a single site has been a matter of record since the mid-1960s.

Oil mist lubrication is a fully proven and superbly reliable technology.

Oil mist experts with access to many plants and reliability professionals with decades of applicable experience consider oil mist lubrication a fully proven and superbly reliable technology. They have become experts by learning from others, being inquisitive, and considering it their obligation to read books, articles, and conference proceedings on the subject matter.

None of these experts would find requesting or endorsing field trials plausible. Even today, field trials would add nothing to the existing knowledge on the subject. We mention this because the issue arises when uninformed persons call for field trials to prove that oil-mist lubrication is not just wishful thinking.

There was no justification for such demonstrations on the two known occasions when field trials were requested in the 35 years from 1986 until 2021. Perhaps a subcontractor attempted to turn experience-based technical advice into a “make work” project. Or it could have been a matter of “seeing is believing,” and the individuals making the “show me” request hoped they would not need to spend time reading.

Mature technologies like oil mist don’t require prototyping or proof of concept.

Whatever the case, it is inappropriate and wasteful to demand proof of concept and/or selection of beta sites for mature technologies such as oil-mist lubrication and oil-mist preservation. Hundreds of full-scale installations attest to its effectiveness and reliability. Mature technologies are the exact opposite of ideas or pursuits that warrant prototyping.

Storage Preservation: Where Field Trials Still Apply

The conventional methods of equipment preservation using several products discussed in Chapter 13 of our book, Optimized Equipment Lubrication, 2nd Edition (2021), and the suitability of utilizing those protection methods from a technical point of view is undisputed.

Competent manufacturers and vendors have continually improved such products. Their product-summary books and applicable brochures are informative and helpful. All available brochures have been carefully reviewed and, where needed, updated. These updates occasionally include clarifying or amplifying some of the recommendations issued by lube marketers when they align with the field experience of experts.

Today, lubricant technology is accessible worldwide. Accordingly, the recommendations and summaries of major U.S. providers of industrial lubrication could probably be joined by similar summaries available in electronic form from providers in other parts of the world.

Clarifying Deliverables in Lubrication Projects

Expert providers of oil-mist lubrication and other preservation technologies usually have access to transparent polycarbonate or plexiglass (acrylic) demonstration models. For example, a transparent bearing housing replica equipped with ball bearings and a steel shaft is an ideal visualization tool. Mechanics, operators, supervisors, and managers can readily observe oil mist in operation.

Generally, expert providers agree to develop, sign, and adhere to contract clauses showing machine interiors in the “as-received” versus the “as removed from storage” condition.

The provider would have a service contract with the client and be able to monitor the storage yard, quality of instrument air supply, adequacy of lubricant, and so forth. The contract terms may include corrosion-monitoring details and an up-front definition of remedies.

Takeaways for Smarter Lubrication Practices

What have we learned here? Best practices do not involve reinventing the wheel. However, they require familiarization with the steps and procedures that have allowed the competition to prosper.

Best practices don’t reinvent the wheel—they use proven solutions.

Demonstrations, videos, and/or scale models may facilitate familiarization with best practices. Such items are often available at minimal cost. Some can be purchased, others rented or leased.

However, when it comes to oil-mist technology, which has been successful for decades at well over 3,000 plant sites worldwide, field trials proving that it works (in-plant “proof of concept”) are never justified.

On the other hand, in-plant demonstrations showing operators how oil mist works are part of an intelligent training routine that makes sense.