Industrial plants are placing greater emphasis on lubrication programs that improve reliability, extend lubricant life and support uptime through training, oil analysis, color coding and consolidation.
This Q&A shows that effective lubrication depends on long-term discipline, supplier partnership and careful application, with growing investment in automatic lubrication, contamination control and predictive maintenance to reduce failures and costs.
Two experts provided advice:
- Don Wrocklage, Vice President/National Accounts, LUBRIPLATE Lubricants Co.
- Jim Girard, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, LUBRIPLATE Lubricants Co.
What are the biggest shifts you see in the needs and priorities of industrial plants and how are those shifts influencing the way suppliers develop new products and services?
Jim Girard: Industrial plants require services like hands-on training, lubricants analysis and color coding. They are demanding lubricants which last longer and are environmentally acceptable.
When manufacturers evaluate new solutions for plant operations, what problems are they most urgently trying to solve right now?
Don Wrocklage: One aspect is that they are looking for more efficient and effective methods of lubricating bearings. Automatic lubrication continues to improve in both the delivery device and the monitoring and control of the devices.
How have customer expectations changed in recent years in terms of safety, efficiency, reliability, ease of use and return on investment?
Jim Girard: Industrial customers want lubricants that last longer. They want lubricant consolidation. They want local, on-time inventory.
What common challenges do plant engineers and managers face when trying to modernize operations while still maintaining production uptime?
Don Wrocklage: Many of the improvements to be instituted do require the machinery to be down and locked out before work can be done. The challenge is to keep the program and effort momentum going over a long period and not letting the effort fail.
In your view, what separates the most successful industrial facilities from those that struggle to improve performance over time?
Don Wrocklage: A “can-do” and “open-minded” attitude is commonly seen at facilities that have high performance and success.
What broader economic, regulatory or workforce trends are having the greatest effect on product design and development for industrial users?
Don Wrocklage: We are seeing more lubricant additives and in one case a base fluid that are coming under regulatory scrutiny, which creates the need to do more research and development to find similar performing and safe ingredients to use.
How are manufacturers balancing the need for innovation with the need for proven, dependable performance in mission-critical plant environments?
Jim Girard: Lubricants manufacturers must listen to the needs of their customers. They must build trustworthy relationships.
What mistakes do plants most often make when evaluating or implementing new solutions and how can they avoid them?
Don Wrocklage: One of the biggest mistakes is having only short-term focus and attention to new solutions. These typically take many months to implement, so an awareness program needs to be developed to keep the solutions (and everything that goes with it), over a long period of time. Otherwise the benefits of the new solutions may not be fully realized.
How important is cross-functional collaboration among engineering, operations, maintenance, safety and IT teams and where do you see the biggest communication gaps?
Don Wrocklage: It is very important. For this reason, our company has at least one representative from most departments involved with any new product or process improvements discussions.
Looking ahead one to two years, what major plant-level priorities do you expect will most influence investment decisions across industrial facilities?
Don Wrocklage: Improved predictive maintenance capabilities.
How are manufacturing facilities moving from discussing artificial intelligence in theory to applying it in practical, measurable ways on the plant floor?
Jim Girard: Artificial intelligence (AI) is important for research and confirming industry trends but there must be real solutions/real work done by suppliers to help manufacturing facilities.
What factors should plant engineers and managers consider when deciding where AI can deliver real operational value in a manufacturing facility?
Jim Girard: Make sure the AI research corresponds with information delivered by suppliers.
How are lubrication practices evolving as manufacturing facilities place greater emphasis on reliability, uptime and asset performance?
Don Wrocklage: We are seeing increased interest in lubricant consolidation, visual tools for lube storage areas/plant floor to quickly and clearly indicate the correct lubricant to use. We are seeing more and more customers utilizing oil analysis. The list goes on from there to include all things that make a cost-saving and effective lubrication program.
What are the most common lubrication-related mistakes you see in industrial plants and why do they continue to occur?
Jim Girard: Misapplication and misunderstanding of the lubricants.
How often do plants underestimate the effect that proper lubrication has on equipment life, energy use and maintenance costs?
Don Wrocklage: Unfortunately, this still does occur on a regular basis. Many times the focus is only on the purchase price of the lubricant. Those that do realize the impact of proper lubrication evaluate, in addition to price, the services and the field representation that the lubricant supplier can provide. Experienced lubricant supplier field personnel that can spend time at the customers plant to work with the customer to develop a great program that saves money. They also look at annual lubricant spend and put that in perspective to what production downtime costs are and maintenance, repair and operations spend is. All of which the lubricant choice and proper use have a direct impact on lubricated machine component life.
What are the biggest challenges facilities face when trying to standardize lubrication practices across multiple assets, departments or sites?
Don Wrocklage: My experience is that the most successful multidepartment or multiplant conversions/standardizations have a reliability engineer assigned to the project who communicates with lubricant suppliers point person. From there communication of the program for all areas is provided in a consistent manner.
Where do oil and grease selection errors most often occur in manufacturing environments and what consequences do those mistakes create over time?
Don Wrocklage: Mixing greases in bearings is very common. This can be especially costly to electric motor bearings as well as other high rpm bearings.
How can plants improve the way they store, handle and manage lubricants to reduce contamination and preserve lubricant performance?
Jim Girard: Adopt a color-coding storage plan and machinery application plan. Lubricant suppliers need to provide this.
What role does contamination control play in the long-term health of rotating equipment and other critical plant assets?
Don Wrocklage: It is especially important for hydraulic systems. Pump and valve life can be significantly shorter if high particle count (contaminated) hydraulic fluid is used. All equipment benefits from using as clean of oil as possible.
How should facilities approach lubricant consolidation without increasing the risk of misapplication or reduced equipment performance?
Jim Girard: Demand that their lubricant supplier conduct a comprehensive lubricant machinery survey that may be installed and available interactively followed by an inventory and matching machinery color-coding plan.
What warning signs suggest that a plant’s lubrication program is too reactive rather than structured around long-term reliability?
Jim Girard: When initial price of the lubricant is the only concern, that is one of the main things that leads to mistakes.
How are leading manufacturers using lubrication analysis and condition monitoring to support maintenance planning and reduce unexpected failures?
Don Wrocklage: Step 1 is to identify the assets that will benefit the most from oil analysis and conditioning monitoring. Step 2 select and train the personnel to be responsible for executing the tasks. Not only will the oil analysis results and data help predict potential failures and help planning, the involvement with the equipment will identify basic problems such as low oil levels, leaking seals, etc.
What practical steps can plants take to improve lubricant application practices for bearings, gearboxes, hydraulic systems and other critical equipment?
Jim Girard: Establish and implement a color-coding plan for lubricant inventory that corresponds with machinery color-coding.
How should maintenance and operations teams work together to make lubrication a more disciplined and consistent part of daily plant activity?
Don Wrocklage: Lubrication training conducted by the lubricant supplier on-site for both maintenance and operators is key to improving machine lubrication. The time spent together in these sessions typically brings up applications to review and improve as well as new ideas to make the program work for that area or production line.
What training or workforce issues most often limit the effectiveness of lubrication programs in industrial facilities?
Don Wrocklage: For lubrication training to be as effective as possible, the maintenance manager is key. When a training session starts with the maintenance manager talking to the team being trained in a positive way how important lubrication is and he or she stays and participates in the training, there is much better results in what maintenance (as well as operators) get out of it. This makes a huge difference.
How do poor lubrication practices contribute to recurring mechanical failures that plants may mistakenly attribute to other causes?
Don Wrocklage: A common issue is overlubricating high-speed bearings. This typically results in higher bearing temperatures that not only reduces the life of the grease but can also cause premature failure. Many times it is attributed to not enough grease, which compounds the problem. Or the focus is on the equipment itself.
Another is awareness of the proper oil level in a machine oil reservoir. There are cases where the level selected results in an upper bearing not getting bearing splash in a gear box. As well as too high of an oil level causing foaming, which if it is in a high rpm blower, can cause premature failure due to the inability of the foam generated to provide sufficient lubricating film
What should plant engineers and maintenance leaders look for when assessing the health and performance of an existing oil analysis program?
Jim Girard: Establish a baseline for each machine and take samples for analysis regularly.
How can plants make a stronger business case for investing in better lubrication management, storage, training and analysis?
Don Wrocklage: That is a challenge as it is difficult to quantify how all of these aspects of a lubrication program can save money in the way of reduced downtime caused by unexpected lubricated machine component failures, as well as reduced spend on bearing replacement. Things that can be done are to take a problem area where failures are occurring and connect with a reputable lubricant manufacturer for an evaluation. Then present that solution to management for consideration.
Also, oil analysis can help extend oil drain interval safely and this will generate cost savings not only in reduced oil purchase/disposal costs, but also the time and labor to change the oil.
How are sustainability goals and waste-reduction efforts influencing the way facilities manage oil, grease and lubricant-related processes?
Don Wrocklage: These efforts motivate plants to use oil analysis and extend oil drain interval. As well as to evaluate greasing amounts and frequencies to bearings. Also chain lubrication, especially oven chain lubrication, can more effectively apply the lubricant and reduce waste or over lubrication of the chain.
What role do documentation, route planning and procedural discipline play in building a world-class lubrication program?
Don Wrocklage: These play an important role as long as they are used.
Looking ahead, what trends do you expect will most influence lubrication best practices in manufacturing maintenance and operations?
Don Wrocklage: Increased use of the latest technology of automatic lubrication coupled with the optimum synthetic lubricant available for the application to achieve the longest lubricated machine component life.
