Has it ever occurred to you that it was necessary to specifically ask your OEM to add modern lubrication to the bill-of-material when you purchase equipment from him?

Have you ever thought about selecting and specifying equipment based on life expectancy and life-cycle cost as opposed to just the initial cost?

Maybe this is a more familiar scenario: Your OEM includes high-performance filters, breathers and modern sampling hardware as standard items on its equipment.

However, your bargain-hunting purchasing agent perceives this as “building the ticket” and asks how much less the equipment would cost without these items. After getting a better price (his goal), the purchasing agent replies, “good, sell it to us without the premium filters, breathers and modern sampling hardware.”

Many purchasing agents earn bonuses based on their performance in driving down the cost of the equipment they purchase. However, these agents are never asked to pay back their bonuses when later this same equipment experiences high maintenance costs and frequent failures.

A better purchasing strategy for companies is to minimize the life cycle cost of ownership. When you buy cheap you often are buying problems. Compounding the issue, once a lowest price specification is in place, companies tend to buy the same problems again and again.

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How does this relate to lubrication and maintenance? In my view, the most important maintenance function doesn’t require anything from the tool box. It doesn’t require an instrument or an oil sample. It may not be on your PM schedule or lube route.

What it requires instead are skillful inspections that are rapid, comprehensive and frequent. Taking a pointer from speed chess, we need to pick up both inspection tempo and quality by deploying sensory-based (versus instrument-based) condition monitoring techniques. Let’s call them daily OMIs, or one-minute inspections.

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Doctors have perfected the skills of conducting physical exams. They know what questions to ask and how to examine the body for clues that signify health, injury or disease.

The same is true of pilots. They are taught how to perform critical preflight checks or inspections that reveal mechanical condition and safety.

By walking around the plane with checklist in hand, pilots survey the aircraft for signs of tire damage, maintenance errors, material defects, and even sabotage.

Mechanics, lubrication technicians and even equipment operators must be skilled at giving physicals as well. Like the doctor or pilot, they need to be alert to subtle changes or symptoms that might be an early sign of machine malfunction or accelerated wear.

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