by Drew Troyer

In my consulting activities, I perform surveys and audits to help plant management get their machinery lubrication and oil analysis programs on the right track. Much time is spent looking at machines, lubricant storage facilities, methods, etc., but I also spend a considerable amount of time interviewing various people in the plant: the plant manager, maintenance manager, reliability engineers and managers, lubrication and oil analysis technicians, supervisors, mechanics, operators, etc. It’s amazing how much one can learn by asking broad, open-ended questions, listening carefully and nudging the conversation in one direction or another.

During these conversations, I routinely observe a phenomenon I call centralized thinking — that is, one thinks (usually the manager) while the rest simply do.

I am particularly surprised when I interview lube techs or other craftspeople assigned to lubrication tasks. When I ask why a task is done in a particular way, the most common answer is “we have always done it that way.”  The second most common response is “such and such told me to do it this way, and I just do what I am told.” Sometimes, the individual will add the comment “I am not paid to think.” That last comment really troubles me.

I have traveled around the world looking at the lubrication and oil analysis aspects of maintenance and reliability programs. I have reached this important conclusion: most clients (heavy-industry plants, mines and mills) operate in what I call a commodity sandwich. By this I mean that they tend to be price-takers for raw materials and price-takers for finished goods. In other words, the market dictates the price that is paid. Profits must be found through efficiencies and competitive advantage within the process itself.

So what does this have to do with lubrication? Let me continue.

Another observation I have made is that wages in the United States, Canada and other so-called “first-world” countries are significantly higher than the wages paid in the Philippines, India, etc. How do we rationalize paying wages that are five, six, even 10 times more than those of our so-called “third-world” counterparts who are producing a product for which the same market price will be paid?  We have an educated workforce, which is purported to equate to higher levels of productivity. However, if we centralize thinking, we fail to take advantage of this opportunity.

Within the field of lubrication, I see a dichotomous distribution of plants and factories. Some have lube techs who are motivated and charged up. They look for opportunities to improve reliability in their plants through better and more effective machinery lubrication methods. They share their enthusiasm and engage operators and mechanics to help them find and implement reliability-improving machinery lubrication initiatives. On the other end of the spectrum are the lube techs who simply go through the motions. They are not paid to think, or so they say.

Managers who do not encourage, or in some cases even allow, their employees to think outside the box and develop better processes are usually the root cause of centralized thinking. If an employee does something good, it often goes unnoticed. If an initiative misses the mark, however, punishment awaits, not compassionate words acknowledging that mistakes are part of progress, nor encouraging words to help employees stay in the game and keep trying.

In about 50 percent of the cases, machines lose usefulness because of mechanical wear. About 60 percent or more of this wear can be directly attributed to the lubricant or lubrication process. So, on average, 30 percent of failures can usually be attributed to poor lubrication, many of which are avoidable.

Given the high stakes, it is in your best interest to decentralize lubrication thinking as much as possible, and to engage all available brainpower.

Educate and motivate your team. Create a new culture for machinery lubrication. It might just be a matter of survival.

Drew Troyer is the senior editor of Machinery Lubrication Magazine. If you have a lubrication or oil analysis question, contact Coach Troyer at 800-597-5460 or e-mail dtroyer@noria.com.

This article appeared in the December 2002/January 2003 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright 2003.

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