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Justifying an Oil Analysis Program
Bill Jacobyansky, Maintenance Manager, Guardian
Industries
In one sense the Maintenance Manager is correct. The industrial
oils that are supplied today are manufactured well and it is rare
when poor oil quality causes a problem. What the Manager needs
help to understand is the full scope of how an oil analysis program
can reduce costs and increase equipment efficiency.
Most equipment comes with a recommended time between oil change
intervals and Maintenance departments rigidly adhere to them.
These recommendations are usually conservative generalizations.
Sampling will tell you when the oil actually needs to be changed
which often leads to an extension to the oil life. This can reduce
Maintenance man-hours, the expenditures for new oil and the cost
and liability for disposal of the used oil. This is the most obvious
cost justification for the program. The opposite is also true
where oil sampling can lead you to change oil sooner than the
recommended frequency that can lead to extended equipment life
through reduced wear. This is a harder cost to quantify, but it
is probably the more significant of the two.
Oil analysis is also a safeguard against human error. Many oils
look alike and there are many examples of the wrong oil type accidentally
being put into a piece of equipment. Oil analysis will give you
the ability to find and correct this mistake.
I think the greatest strength of oil analysis is that it gives
Maintenance the ability to determine when equipment failures have
started before there are any other indications which are obvious
to the senses. The analysis of wear metals in oil can even lead
you to the exact component of a complicated machine that is failing.
The early diagnosis of an equipment problem gives Maintenance
time to prepare for the repair and allows the repair to be scheduled
so that the effect on production is minimized. We all know that
planned Maintenance is 3 to 5 times less expensive than unplanned
Maintenance. The effect of minimizing or eliminating an affect
on operations can multiply the savings further. If you have an
oil analysis program that is integrated with other predictive
Maintenance strategies you can use the increased knowledge of
your equipment's operating condition to reduce the number of spare
parts that are kept on-site.
Oil analysis is a tool that allows Maintenance to manage the
equipment instead of letting the equipment manage you. It is nice
to know on a Friday afternoon that you will be going home at 5
and won't need to come back until Monday morning. If you don't
know the condition of your equipment you're not quite so sure
that will happen.
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