WHY LUBRICATION SHOULD BE OUTSIDE THE CMMS

Those tasked with managing industrial facilities are data-centric, and they desire to track and improve virtually every aspect of the plant.

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Think about your plant or the last plant you walked through; you likely saw scoreboards or dashboards showcasing key information related to safety, production, maintenance, environmental or other programs that are managed to ensure proper functionality of the machinery and staff.

For improvement to be possible, we must be able to measure; to measure, we must be able to observe. This is where many fall short in their lubrication program - there is no way to observe the program, as it can't be measured or improved. A great need exists in the industry for a method to manage the chaos associated with lubrication.

Let's begin by defining lubrication as a fundamental activity for equipment reliability. Regardless of the methodology of asset management you subscribe to, lubrication is one of the key elements required to achieve high levels of equipment reliability. This means lubrication is more than simply - a task as it is a collection of activities that must be correctly performed in order to achieve the desired result.

The definition of a program is "a set of related measures or activities with a particular long-term aim." This means lubrication is a program and not simply a process or a task; by definition, it is related to a long-term goal. This begs the question: Does anyone treat lubrication as a factor in their facility's long-term-goals?

Most would likely respond that there are long-term goals associated withproduction, maintenance or safety and would quickly say that lubrication would be wrapped up inside of these. While lubrication is certainly involved with these aspects (as well as many more), it becomes difficult to truly measure the effectiveness of our lubrication program when it is buried inside other data sets. This is why lubrication needs to be managed and controlled separately from other programs within the facility.

A LUBRICATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM