Benefits of Good Lubrication

Accord to one report from British Government, in 1966. This study was funded by the British Ministry of State for Education and Science. The committee, headed by Peter Jost, was asked to consider the positioin of lubrication education and research in the U.K., and to give an opinion on the needs of industry in this field. This wat to be the world's first comprehensive study of how friction, lubrication, and wear directly and indirectly affected the country's Gross National Product in the areas of industry, natural resources, and agriculture.

The fact that we are dealing with a preventive maintenance system does not preclude the lubrication system from requiring its own preventive maintenance.

The bigger danger in using automatic lubricating systems is complacency. There is a general tendency to forget to check and fill the lubricant reservair on a regular basis! If the lubricant is depleted, the pump loses its prime. If the reservoir is then filled and the pump and injectors are not primed, it appears as if the system is working until someone notices the lubricant level hasn't changed. This could rresult in serious equipment damage.

Proactive Maintenance

Proactive tasks: these are tasks undertaken before a failure occurs, in order to prevent the item from getting into a failed state. They embrace what is traditionally known as 'predictive' and 'preventive' maintenance, although RCM uses the terms scheduled restoration, scheduled discard and on-condition maintenance.

Default actions: these deal with the failed state, and are chosen when it is not possible to identify an effective proactive task. Default actions include failure-finding, redsign and run-to-failure.

Since 1966, there have been numerous other studies performed in the Western World that include the U.S., Canada, and Germany. All of these studies have mirrored the findings of the original "Jost Report." Note: This type of savings is indirect and is dependent on the "cost of downtime" figure associated with each specific equipment piece or train. These figures will equate substantially higher than the repair itself. More