By Jim Fitch
Diagnetics Publishing
Many have read the well-documented case studies that convincingly demonstrate the practice of used oil analysis as a sound approach to reduce maintenance and downtime costs. However, for most users, these rewards have evaded their best efforts due to common implementation errors. Like many pursuits in life, there is often a very fine line that marks the division between success and failure. Success in the analysis of lubricating oils seems to consist of a series of such fine lines that must be carefully navigated.
This booklet draws on many years of experience in working with successful users. Its goal is to define a well-marked pathway to insure the success of new users, while at the same time, help existing users out of the slippery pitfalls they may have encountered. This will be accomplished by first identifying the ten most common reasons why oil analysis programs fail and then transitioning them into durable strategies that effectively overcome them.
It will be shown that these strategies depend much more on excellence in execution than the sophistication of underlying technologies. The guiding principle is the condition-based maintenance philosophy due to its penetrating sensitivity to both the causes and effects of failure. The familiar approaches of proactive maintenance (failure root-cause monitoring) and predictive maintenance (failure symptom monitoring) fall under the broad category of condition-based maintenance.
The practical wisdom of oil analysis pundits worldwide teach us that the most successful programs are those that are thoughtfully designed after careful need evaluation with mission and goals well defined. The emphasis is on designing quality and excellence in the beginning, not force-fitting it in along the way (see Figure 1 ). The many strategies and subsidiary tactics described herein are designed to help users achieve this as efficiently and effectively as possible.