#testoil

Análisis rápido de lubricantes atribuido a la estrategia Lean de TestOil

La presidenta de TestOil, Mary Messuti

TestOil, líder de la industria en análisis de petróleo, acredita su rápido crecimiento y excelente reputación a su iniciativa disciplinada de estrategia Lean. CLEVELAND, OHIO, EE. UU., 9 de febrero de 2020 /EINPresswire.com/ – TestOil, líder de la industria en análisis de petróleo, acredita su rápido crecimiento y excelente reputación a su iniciativa…

El líder de la industria de monitoreo de condiciones anuncia innovaciones en impresión 3D

La directora de operaciones de TestOil, Mary Messuti

TestOil acaba de anunciar capacidades de impresión 3D con un potencial de cambio de juego. La innovación se alinea con la operación Lean Six Sigma de TestOil. Hasta donde sabemos, TestOil es el único laboratorio de monitoreo de condiciones que utiliza una impresora 3D para avanzar en las soluciones del cliente. Esta y otras innovaciones…

The first and often the obvious option is to have an on-site oil analysis lab to process all oil samples collected.  There are many pros to this option.  Turnaround time for results can be controlled in house.  There is no dependence on an outside resource.  Testing packages can be altered easily, etc.  However there are also cons to this option.  Expensive equipment must be purchased and maintained.  Testing supplies must be inventoried and purchased on a routine basis.  Lab technicians must be trained for each test procedure.  At least one lab analyst must be trained to interpret test results.  This alone requires a technical skill that often takes years to acquire and refine.

Another option for testing samples would be to bargain with the lube vendor supplying the plant.  Who knows better what is in the oil and what it should look like – especially if there are any formulation changes?  Often lube suppliers will offer to perform oil analysis for “free” if the company will purchase all their lubes from said company.  It has been said that letting the vendor make all the decisions around oil analysis is like “Letting the fox guard the henhouse”.  One must consider if it is better to pay extra for an oil analysis program or to turn the program over to a vendor and then have limited control on most decisions.  Remember, lube manufacturers are in business to sell lubes, not oil analysis.  Also remember that the supplier has little to gain by offering poor results.  If they tell you it’s good and your machine fails, it will be on their head.  If we tell you the oil is bad so you’ll change it and you find out otherwise, you will completely lose trust in them.

If it is determined that contracting an outside lab is the best course for your oil analysis program, care must be taken to insure that the lab is a good fit for your company.  As previously stated, there are as many different approaches to oil analysis as there are types of cars.  This is not saying that any one approach is better or worse than another.  It simply means that it is important to match a lab with the predictive maintenance strategies that your plant employs.

It should also be understood that many labs serve specialty industries.  Some cater to the transportation industry while others are primarily power, petrochemical, etc.  While a particular oil analysis lab may not specialize in the industry you work in, if you give them a call they will still agree to perform your testing for you.  The question that must be answered is “will I receive the correct tests and does the lab have the experience required to be my oil analysis provider?”

There are several other considerations that must be taken into account.  Some of them might be:

What is turnaround time on samples?

What does pricing include?  Shipping cost/site visits from lab, training, rush samples, sampling, supplies, lube audits, re-tests, etc.?

Will technical help be available? Does it cost extra?

 How long will the contract last?  What would it cost to “drop” the contract?

Report distribution

Management reports and online access to program data

In today’s culture of looking for high returns on investments, there are not many that can compare to a comprehensive lubrication program. Tremendous financial savings can be enjoyed by eliminating poor lubrication practices from an organization. Numerous financial losses are attributable to poor and inadequate lubrication programs and techniques, and most of the losses are not going to jump out at you. This is why it is important to think of every aspect of lubrication. Just working on one area will not yield the financial results you desire. It is all or nothing. This article will offer valuable guidance as to why and how to look at the big picture when updating your lubrication program.

1. Benchmarking To understand where your lubrication program needs to be, you must first find out where it currently stands. In order to accomplish this, an in-depth benchmarking process must be performed to compare your current program to industry best practices in key areas of lubrication. Without having a metric to compare your program to, it becomes the blind leading the blind. All successful programs start with a clear picture of how much work they need to do to become world class and what they need to do to get there. Transitioning a lubrication program is not like turning on a light. It takes understanding, clear vision, dedication, champions, time and financial resources to make it happen.

2. Design and Engineering During the design and engineering phase, look at every lubrication point and determine what actions need to be put into place. These actions can range from equipment modifications and routine inspections to one-off inspections, etc. They are usually dependent upon the equipment type, criticality, reliability needs, financial benefit, safety consequences and other factors that affect the bottom line. Based on these factors, you should create clear, concise and specialized procedures for each lubrication point. These procedures will be used to modify equipment for contamination control, provide standards for oil analysis and coach the lubrication technician on proper lubrication techniques (i.e., top-ups, drains, filtration and oil sampling).

During this phase, you also should make sure the correct lubricant is being used in each lubrication point. This process involves checking the OEM recommendations for a baseline and then performing certain calculations for proper viscosity selection, lubricant type, performance properties, re-lubrication volumes, re-lubrication frequencies, etc. Re-lubrication volumes and frequencies often are left out of procedures, and a “shoot-from-the-hip” method is used. Not understanding how much and how frequently the lubricant should be supplied to an application, especially grease-lubricated bearings, can cause frequent lubrication-related failures.

3. Lubricant Consolidation Many times, as a byproduct of the design and engineering phase, lubricant consolidation occurs. This is important on many levels, as it allows for a clearer picture of what products need to be purchased, which reduces purchasing costs, eliminates unnecessary or unused products from inventory, decreases the likelihood of lubricant cross-contamination and helps the lubrication team understand which products they need and why. As the specialized procedures are created during the design and engineering phase, each lubrication activity should have the correct lubricant specified. This will help ensure that the technician is using the right product in the right place.

4. Storage and Handling Once all of the necessary lubricants are identified, it is time to think about your storage and handling practices. Proper storage and handling techniques are essential in developing a successful lubrication program. You can perform all of the equipment modifications for contamination control, but if you can’t get the lubricant from the storage room to the application without introducing contamination, all of those modification efforts were in vain. This is why it is so critical to have a proper lube room with dedicated receiving filtration, storage systems, filter carts, stored filtration, dispensing equipment and a safe and clean environment for the lubricants to be stored.

Lubricant labeling is another frequently missed opportunity. Labeling should be a high priority when thinking of execution. Lubricant-specific labels should be created and placed on stored lubricants, top-up containers, grease guns, filter carts and the equipment. This makes lubrication tasks much more efficient and reduces the likelihood of the wrong lubricant being used in the wrong application. If technicians can clearly see the label on the equipment, go back to the lube room and find the matching label on the filter cart, top-up container or grease gun, their jobs become much easier and safer.

5. Implementation After designing and engineering a lubrication program, the next step is to implement what you have developed. Many times this is where organizations fail to execute and never see the value of all their previous efforts. Implementation is not a one- or two-day exercise but a multi-month commitment based on available resources. Complex types of equipment such as hydraulic systems will necessitate multiple modifications in order to be considered best practice, requiring a substantial financial commitment. The modifications can include breathers, sight glasses, dedicated sampling ports, quick-connects for periodic decontamination, filters, etc. This is where all the time spent developing the specialized procedures from the design and engineering phase pays off.

Every modification activity for each piece of equipment should have its own dedicated specialized procedure to instruct the labor force on how to perform the modification correctly. Other less complex types of equipment such as grease-lubricated bearings may not have any modification procedures but only routine lubrication procedures. These applications do not require as much of a financial or labor commitment to implement, and once the specialized procedure is written, the technician can start with the needed tasks immediately.

6. Re-benchmarking and Continuous Improvement After your newly revamped lubrication program has been up and running for a while, it is time to re-benchmark your program with industry best practices to see where your program is now compared to where it was during the initial benchmarking. This is where all of the hard work in the previous steps will show the financial rewards and re-enforce that the decision to develop a real lubrication program was worth the financial commitment.

As with any change of culture, management and workforce, a lubrication program needs constant refinement and continuous improvement. It is easy to slide back to the old ways of doing things if not careful, especially if the organization has a high turnover rate in the labor force. This is why it is so important to have developed the specialized procedures during the design and engineering phase, as they make it easier to train new members of the lubrication team and define how to do things correctly and accurately the first time, which promotes a sustainable culture change.

Featured in Machinery Lubrication (10/2011)

Any business that relies on heavy machinery to carry out their daily tasks also relies on things like oil analysis testing to actively monitor the condition of those machines. There are many industries that have to have some pretty expensive pieces of machinery running around the clock, and that machinery will get them nowhere without good oil. In order to ensure that those vital fluids stay at their optimal operating condition or to see what they can tell us about the interior conditions of the machine, they must be tested and analyzed on a regular basis.

The fluids located within each of these machines are generally necessary for normal operations, with many machines needing more than just a single type of fluid. Oils that are used to lubricate a machine do so by eliminating the resistance between moving parts that would generally cause a great deal of friction and results in excessive wear. In other machines they are critical to the operation because they are actually what operate the machine, like in a backhoe, which uses compressed oil to transport a hydraulic piston in and out to control the position of the machine’s digging arm.

Unless there is a highly skilled maintenance crew on standby around the clock, it is imperative that the fluids used to operate a machine not become contaminated and left untreated, because this will result in some costly problems. Contaminated fluids make up the vast majority of industrial maintenance issues that result in countless hours of downtime and some very expensive part replacements and repairs.

No matter how highly lubricated a machine’s inner parts are, they are sure to deteriorate a certain amount over time. When a machine part wears down, it leaves behind millions of small particles that get trapped in the fluids, making the fluids contaminated and no longer ideal for normal operations. Through proper analysis, the experts will discover the volume of particles that exist in the oil and where they came from, which will tell the maintenance personnel a lot of what they need to know about the machine’s various issues.

Oil analysis testing is one of many types of critical preventive maintenance that must be carried out in order to ensure that piece of industrial equipment is kept in optimal working order. Across every major industry, from farming to manufacturing, there are numerous types of machines and equipment that cannot function without the oil required to lubricate its moving parts and keep things in motion. In order to ensure that those vital fluids remain at their optimal operating condition or to see what they can tell us about the interior conditions of the machine, they must be tested and analyzed on a regular basis.

The fluids located within each of these machines are generally necessary for normal operations, with many machines needing more than just a single type of fluid. In some machines, they are required to properly lubricate and reduce the friction created by moving parts, which allows helps keep the machine at a safe working temperature. In order machines they are critical to the operation because they are actually what operate the machine, like in a backhoe, which uses compressed oil to transport a hydraulic piston in and out to control the position of the machine’s digging arm.

If any of these important fluids gets contaminated or lose their original properties over time, they will no longer be able to keep the machine running safely, which often leads to some very serious and costly malfunctions. It has been shown through a great deal of research that the majority of equipment failures are the result of none other than contaminated and poorly maintained fluids, so taking care of those fluids is the number one way to take care of the machines they are used in.

One thing about heavy machinery is the fact that there is no amount of maintenance that will prevent them from gradually wearing out over a certain number of years. As moving parts wear out, they are torn down into billions of tiny particles, which will be circulated through the oil until the oil is filled with tiny particles of whatever material the parts are created from. A maintenance crew can learn a lot about what is going wrong in a machine by analyzing the fluids and seeing what sort of contaminants are present and what materials they are made out of, which can then be matched with the parts that are wearing out.

“A customer of ours is using an external engine oil filtration device designed to take out contaminants down to the 1- to 3-micron range while not affecting the additive package. The customer now believes he can extend the recommended oil change interval from 250 hours to 1,000 hours. However, if you take out all the normal wear particles, how can you determine or trend the wear in the engine.”

By sampling after the pump and before the filter, you can still see an increased rate of wear generation with oil analysis. By reducing the background level of wear particles (noise), it is comparatively easier to detect the abnormal generation of wear particles assuming, of course, that the sample is drawn after the pump but before the filter.

You will also need to set alarms carefully, using statistics to derive level limits and rate-of-change limits. The benefit of engine life extension associated with polishing the oil is considerable and will easily warrant some efforts to ensure that oil analysis can still the generation of abnormal wear.

I would advise your client to make sure that any decision to extend the oil drain interval is backed up by oil analysis (oil properties, contamination and wear debris monitoring). It is unwise to arbitrarily extend oil drains unless the decision is supported by data. Excessive particle contamination level is just one reason why we may change the oil.

The best way to tweak your oil change interval is to make actual assessments of its condition and remaining useful life. Unlike routine oil analysis, the types of tests you might want to select could be more similar to what you see on your lubricant’s spec sheet.

Begin by talking to your lubricant supplier about which performance properties would need to be evaluated. These could include oxidation stability, rust/corrosion protection, air release and foam stability, demulsibility, anti-wear protection, viscosity index (VI), silt particle concentration and other essential performance properties. Expect the cost of these tests to run several hundred dollars. However, you only have to run tests on samples from a few representative machines.

Obtain the sample just prior to the currently scheduled oil change. Send this sample along with a sample of the new lubricant (for baselining purposes) to a lab that can perform ASTM performance tests. You may need to obtain several hundred milliliters of fluid of each sample.

Once the tests are complete and an assessment made on remaining useful life, a decision can then be made on whether the oil change interval can be shortened or lengthened. A reasonable safety margin needs to be included in the decision. Once changes in the drain interval are made, monitor the oil carefully.

While fluid analysis is the best way to safely determine an optimal drain interval, the appropriate testing should be done by a reputable laboratory that uses reliable testing methods and produces quality results you can trust. Accredited laboratories are required to prove the accuracy of their results on an on-going basis or risk losing their accreditation.