Many organizations failed to understand the importance of an effective lubrication procedure and how to apply them. The lubrication industry must realize the importance of lubrication and the application of its five basic “Rights” in order to achieve world-class machine reliability.
Let us study each of these concepts, along with a summary of best practices including procedures in the selection of the optimal lubricant supplier.
The Five R's Of Lubrication Procedures
1. Right Product
The determination of the correct lubricant is the initial move towards accomplishing equipment reliability. Boundary film formation properties and viscosity grade are the two most important factors that help to select the right product.
For the most part, the OEM can help you select the right lubricant products for your operations. It’s important to discover high-quality lubricant products that are promptly accessible and meet the OEM conditions.
One should select a product that meets their goals and budget. The lubricant manufacturers and OEM can help to make a final decision by consulting the maintenance experts.
Once we select the right type of lubricant, we need to apply it to the proper location. Adding the wrong product to a lubrication point is not uncommon.
In order to avoid these cases, all the lubrication points should be appropriately labelled. Lubricant manufacturers provide lube tags for the identification of the appropriate lubricant to be utilized at the lube point.
3. Right Amount
In Lubrication, more isn’t better. A lot of lubricant in a framework can be as destructive as not enough.
Over-greasing your machinery is one of the major failure modes. In the case of grease lubricant, it is more difficult to deal with lubrication. Manual re-lubrication is one of the aspects of lubrication that is difficult to control.
However, using few formulas and measurements makes it easy to calculate the right amount. It is likewise to consider the entire picture and factors that influence the volume.
4. Right Time
Once we establish our whole program with the right product, place, amount and quality there is a need to establish lubrication intervals. Re-lubrication intervals and amounts are affected by many other factors such as operating temperature, environmental conditions, machinery arrangements etc. When it comes to the right time these factors play an important role as it impacts re-lubrication intervals.
5. Right Attitude
We have effectively examined the 5 Rights of lubrication procedures and they appear to be more pertinent and significant. However, the accuracy in defining the lubrication properties, lubrication intervals, amounts, and different requirements carried out by the individuals plays an important role.
For example, you have well-defined lubrication practices but are poorly managed. Therefore, it is necessary to have dedicated maintenance and technical team with the right attitude.
MOSIL Lubricants is a leading lubricant manufacturing company where we help you to develop and implement the best lubricant practices. We offer a wide range of lubrication products along with our technical and on-site expertise.