It ain’t just about the oil. In recent years, it has become increasingly clear to me that applied tribology is more about training and behavioral science than about engineering and material science.

I would guess that for every bearing that failed due to a problem lubricant (wrong selection, poor quality, etc.) there are ten others that fail due to problem lubrication (neglect, procedural, timing, etc.). No amount of expertise in lubrication and machine reliability will overcome the destructive aftermath caused by rotten maintenance culture.

In fact. most companies seem to have a maintenance culture that is in urgent need of an intervention strategy. I recently wrote a column on a 12-step program for recovering addicts of lubrication neglect.

Although similar, this column discusses culture and behavioral foundation issues that seem to be at the core of lubrication neglect and other maintenance performance malfunctions. It borrows much from management science and leadership principles.

Over the years, I’ve engaged in hundreds of conversations on this topic with individuals from many companies and countries. Some come from organizations infected with culture problems, while others represent businesses that have emerged from a successful transformation.

Then there are those organizations which achieved transformation but transgressed to their bad habits and past addictive practices.

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Reliability and lubrication excellence are behavioral sciences. Bearings don’t just die; they’re murdered by people. What can change behavior? It requires awareness and know-how.

Imagine two fishermen using fly rods in a trout stream. One is a professional middle-aged man decked out with all the latest gear. He has a flashy, new high-tech rod and reel. He wears the latest fashion-forward chest waders and a fishing vest sporting pockets bulging with every gizmo and gadget on the market. His fly box is well-stocked and neatly organized with hundreds of store-bought flies. Hanging “at the ready” down his back is his landing net. While he looks good and fishes hard, he does not catch any fish.

The second fisherman is a young country boy. His fly rod is simple and worn with age. He moves through the stream wearing boots and cargo shorts. He carries limited gear in a small waist-pouch consisting mostly of an assortment of nymphs and flies he tied himself. His rod is rigged with a basic system of line, leader and tippet. He selects, ties and casts his flies with the skill of an artist. He works the runs and riffles as he stalks his prey. Although his tools are simple, his technique is masterful. He also fishes hard, but in contrast to the first fisherman, he catches many trout.

The reason I tell this story is because I was the first fisherman. I was humbled and in awe of the young country boy as he worked the stream and showed off his skill. His advantage was not his tools, his desire, his natural ability or even luck. His gift was know-how gained from years of practice. Know-how enables skillful execution. Those with know-how exude confidence and take initiative. It’s the secret sauce that can turn an ordinary company into a world-class organization.

Like fly fishing, reliability requires a keen skill. You may have all the latest technology tools and can talk a good game, but there is no substitute for knowledge and skill. Like your lubricants and machines, know-how ages over time, too. Methods and techniques become stale and need to be refreshed. Training and education are the cornerstones of a reliability culture.

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As oil analysis specialists, we had much to offer; and in the past 10 years, we’ve given hundreds of seminars and graduated thousands of students. However, we’ve also learned much from these students, especially details on the purpose for their hunger for knowledge in oil analysis.

For starters, we’re aware that people quickly accepted the logic that oil was the life blood of their machines. And, just like human medicine, they also understood that analyzing the oil equated to a pathological study of machine health and disease. We’ve all seen how human lives are spared when early alerts to threatening ailments are found, enabling corrective measures to be taken.

Since the early 1960s, oil analysis has been routinely applied to in-service lubricants of operating machinery. The field has benefited from many advances in technologies and procedures along the way. We’ve also learned that success seems to depend heavily on acquiring key skills. Imagine trying to perform the job of a pathologist without attending medical school.

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Over the past ten years machine-dependent industrial sites have been reinventing their views about equipment maintenance – adopting a reliability focus. One might say that maintenance has always been about reliability, but today, more and more organizations are taking that connection very seriously, whereas in the past, the term reliability was- casually associated with the maintenance organization, which was primarily focused upon expediting parts and people to respond to failure. It could be said that machines were in charge of maintenance in the past – they decided when they were going to be worked on and what work was going to be done. Today’s maintenance organization seeks to take charge of maintenance and planning activities which decrease maintenance costs and associated waste, increase equipment reliability and, above all, increase the firm’s profit, share price and ability to compete in tough markets, especially global markets.

It is hard to imagine an effective process reliability assurance program without a strong emphasis on assuring the reliability of mechanical equipment. Likewise it is difficult to imagine an effective mechanical equipment reliability program without a strong lubrication program.

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I’m proud to say that the Machinery Lubrication Engineer (MLE) certification has become a reality. Through studying and testing, qualified candidates can earn the right to hold this prestigious title, and Noria has developed a training course to help students prepare. Unlike other exams and certifications related to lubrication and lubricant analysis, the MLE stands alone as the highest professional designation in our industry. It also has a more holistic purpose. Let me explain.

Many know that the International Council for Machinery Lubrication (ICML) was organized to serve practitioners in the lubrication field, especially maintainers of lubricated mechanical machinery. So, it makes sense that the MLE would have a similar focus and purpose.

Perhaps the best way to describe the profile of those whom the ICML targets for MLE certification is to look at the 35 subject-matter experts and volunteers who toiled for years to bring it to life. These individuals are the thought leaders and trusted advisors who have helped guide the ICML as well as the larger global lubrication community.

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Modern organizations call it raising the corporate IQ. Most of us have seen statistics on the lifetime financial returns of a college education. When it comes to education, a penny saved is not a penny earned, but rather green dollars forfeited – hundreds of them, all for the quest of a penny.

When it comes to lubrication and oil analysis, the unskilled and untrained workforce is deceivingly costly. These are the costs that go undiagnosed and unrecognized. What’s below the water’s surface and out of management’s view often has iceberg-like proportions.

So why does an organization look to the maintenance payroll to make cuts in the name of survival and prosperity? For one, it’s conspicuous, like the iceberg’s tip. It is also indirect labor that is perceived as easier to sacrifice. Managers often take a Parkinson’s Law view of indirect labor, “the manpower it takes to do a job is directly proportional to the manpower available to do the job.”

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TRAIN-YOUR-PEOPLE. Using oil analysis to enhance machine reliability is really too simple. Behind the appearances of complexity and vale of high science are the most basic of concepts. We can try to make it difficult, but why? With the right tools and a generous amount of training, a seemingly challenging task can be transformed into something almost mundane, but still powerful. It’s often said that if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. The high cost of ignorance affects all facets of life. In industry this includes maintenance, machine reliability, safety, lost production, and yes, oil analysis. Un-exploited opportunity is lost opportunity – a costly consequence of ignorance.

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Let’s face it, most companies need a culture intervention – something like a 12-step program. This article will explore behavioral issues that are often at the core of a culture of neglect and mediocracy. It borrows much from management science, leadership principles and conversations with individuals working in the field of maintenance reliability.

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You may not be surprised to know that most companies need a culture intervention – something like a 12-step program. This column will discuss behavioral issues that are often at the core of a culture of neglect and mediocracy. It borrows much from management science and leadership principles.

Over the years, we have had hundreds of conversations on this topic with individuals working in the field of maintenance and reliability. Some come from organizations infected with culture problems, while others represent businesses that have emerged from a successful transformation. Then there are those organizations that achieved transformation but regressed to their bad habits and past addictive practices.

Of course, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Past behavior establishes reputation, which many people use to judge others. You can judge culture in a similar way to help predict future maintenance and reliability performance. Behavior, values and decisions are all components of employee engagement. Engagement sharply impacts individual and business performance.

A positive, nurturing maintenance culture is a critical plant asset. Consider that when people do good work, they feel good about themselves and their job. When people do bad work, they feel bad about themselves and their job. Feeling bad is a serious morale problem that multiplies and spreads. The simple solution is to enable people to do good work that is recognized and celebrated.

This is both problem and solution. Culture drives behavior. Behavior influences quality of work. Quality work is fundamental to plant reliability and the cost of reliability. Why do we care? Reliability fosters job security and builds shareholder value.

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2020 will be known as the year when the world was forced to shelter to protect human lives and to stem the spread of a potent, invisible enemy … COVID-19. The dire economic consequences of this virus are affecting us too. Is it possible there is a silver lining?

Some have used this life-disrupting period to find and leverage key opportunities, both personal and professional. This includes planning and making ourselves, our careers and businesses ready for the time when we emerge at the other end of chaos.

Honestly, there could hardly be a better time to prepare and adapt for the future that lies ahead. View it as a time to reload and recalibrate. We are transitioning through both forced and necessary changes to a new normal. Things will never be quite the same. The opportunity is there to become stronger and wiser. Of course, this includes the field of lubrication and reliability.

Training organizations worldwide are scrambling to advance educational options that align with this new normal. These include various forms of distance and e-learning that include virtual and mobile device deliverables. Lack of mobility from this pandemic does not have to mean a lack of productivity from lost time and wasted resources. It is our choice to be people of action and purpose. More now than before.

What follows are common questions and challenges related to the concept of training and its true value relative to actual and perceived costs. Is training a want or a need? Are the benefits real or imaginary? What is the tangible connection of training to machinery reliability, maintenance costs, productivity and profitability? Read on…

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Having spent nearly my entire career in the field of lubrication, I’ve become increasingly aware that for many companies, the practice of neglecting lubrication has become deeply engrained in maintenance culture.

For these companies, changing such practices is like trying to turn an ocean liner. I’ve become convinced that their complacency is not simply a case of ignorance, but rather follows a pattern strangely similar to addiction.

After all, I’ve taught the virtues of modern lubrication to legends of organizations, only to see many of them quickly and irrationally relapse into their past destructive habits. This typifies addictive behavior.

These observations were the impetus for the topic of this column. In keeping with the addiction theme, I’ve modeled a plan for recovery using words and concepts resembling the highly successful 12-step program that serves as the cornerstone of recovery for the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) organization. After all, if lubrication neglect is an addiction then perhaps it should be treated in similar fashion in a program of 12 steps.

For companies afflicted with this addiction, casual intervention may not simply be enough. Instead, an ultimatum must be declared. Otherwise, past practices and bad habits will gradually return. Like other addictions, denial is the heart of neglect. The 12-step program discussed below brings the denial issue front-and-center. Until denial is acknowledged and addressed, no other progress can logically be made.

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People resist change not because they love the status quo but because they fear the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Yet, without change we are destined to repeat the past. After all, machines that are operated and repaired the same way will tend to wear out and fail the same way. And, for most organizations, what’s needed is not the tweaking of existing practices but rather throwing them out and starting over. Like people, organizations struggle through the transition period (denial-anger-bargaining-depression-acceptance). We all have vivid memories of change–even small things like the seatbelt law can cramp our style.

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A new non-profit organization called the International Council for Machinery Lubrication (ICML) has been launched to advance causes associated with machinery lubrication in industrial and fleet applications. The purpose of ICML is simple: help lubrication practitioners on a global scale to succeed in their professional careers. ICML will promote the interests of lubrication practitioners in a number of different ways and it will evolve in response to the changing needs of its constituents.

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We’ve addressed the virtues of training numerous times on the pages of Machinery Lubrication and other Noria publications. Still today, we encounter a national workforce in the lubrication field that seems largely oblivious to many of the fundamental concepts that embody excellence in the profession.

We are not sure if it is due to them not knowing what they don’t know, or not caring about what they don’t know. To become aware of what you don’t know requires becoming aware of your incompetencies and leaving the comfort of ignorance.

This editorial column seeks to define a minimum threshold of knowledge and awareness to qualify a person to work in the field rather than addressing the broader topics of educating a lubrication workforce.

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Do you know the six most expensive oil analysis tests? Maybe you do and maybe you’ve learned to tolerate them or simply didn’t register their true cost. For the maintenance organization seeking world-class status, you might call these the “tests of fire” because they often separate the winners from the users.

These six tests are expensive for many reasons but most often it’s because of lost opportunity. Thousands of organizations each year go through the motions of performing oil analysis and get little in return. Why? Often it’s the small things, the critical but seemingly insignificant elements, which have the largest impact on the value-generated potential of an oil analysis program.

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Poor maintenance performance is rarely the result of individual failure. Instead, it reflects deeper organizational and cultural issues that influence how maintenance is planned, executed, and valued. In How to Fix a Poor Maintenance Culture, Jim Fitch examines the systemic causes behind ineffective maintenance practices and explains why cultural transformation is essential for achieving reliable, sustainable results.

Drawing on decades of experience in lubrication engineering and reliability leadership, Fitch outlines practical strategies for improving maintenance culture through leadership engagement, workforce education, standardized practices, and accountability. The article highlights how a strong maintenance culture directly impacts equipment reliability, operational efficiency, and long-term asset performance.

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There is no greater influence on the state of lubrication than training and human behavior. I often say, “You earn what you learn.” I do not say it because it rhymes or it sounds cool. I say it because, to me, it is an unvarnished fact.

The words “optimum” or “optimization” are commonly used in maintenance and reliability. Their use refers to a balancing of costs, opportunities, benefits and risks. Common examples include PM Optimization (PMO) or the Optimum Reference State (ORS). Can “optimum” be applied to training and education? Most certainly!

Figure 1 is the Education Needs Chart (ENC) for Lubrication Technicians. On the chart are three plotted lines and three zones. The upward sloping green line is the cost of education relative to the amount of education received. The precipitously downward sloping orange line is the cost of ignorance related to the financial consequences of not investing in training for lube techs. The cost of ignorance is largely defined as opportunity cost, such as opportunity to reduce repair costs and downtime. The blue line is the total of the two: cost of ignorance plus cost of education.

The vertical Yellow Zone relates to a state of under-education and the high associated opportunity costs (penalties). The Blue Zone on the right relates to a state of over-education. Note the cost penalty of over education is negligible. The center Green Zone relates to the optimum level of education; not too much, not too little. The point of diminishing return is roughly the left edge of this green zone.

Note, this version of the chart only applies to lubrication technicians. Different version of the chart would be used for lubricant analysts and lubrication engineers.

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Almost subconsciously, our senses gather information on our surroundings. They recognize subtleties, discern unique features and examine characteristic details. This could be a glass of Spanish red, a seat on a flight to London or a test drive of a Tesla Roadster. Using our senses, we register facts and find nuances that collectively help us arrive at opinions and conclusions on quality, functionality, attractiveness, comfort and value. Perception is reality.

Computers with deep-learning algorithms fed by innumerable sensors are used to collect and process data. Notwithstanding, they are no match for our senses and our brain. Artificial intelligence is better at augmenting our intelligence but not replacing the cognitive ability of our brain flanked by human senses. If you think I’m wrong, try having a conversation about your favorite sports team with Alexa or Siri. Or ask a simple question like, “Can a fish be taught to ride a bicycle?”

This high level of human perceptiveness is applied to our work environment and maintenance culture. Let me give you an example. In criminology, there is a concept known as the broken windows theory. It states that “visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior and civil disorder, such as broken windows in abandoned buildings create an urban environment that fosters further crime and disorder, including serious crimes.” In other words, the perception of a neighborhood in decay bolsters criminal behavior.

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