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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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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Try this simple experiment. With notepad in hand, go out into your plant and walk around a sampling of your most critical machines. These are the ones that have high probability of failure and/or the greatest consequences of failure. They are also known as show-stoppers and, as such, generally merit a disproportionate allocation of reliability and maintenance resources.

Next, on your notepad make a list of all the lubrication-related enhancements that have been implemented on these same machines since they were commissioned. Take special note of those that have been applied in the past five years. Solicit any amount of help (from old-timers, for instance) you need to flesh out your list.

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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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The first step in designing a lubrication management program is to have a qualified professional perform a lubrication audit. Its objectives should be to:

• Identify current practices and suggest best-practice alternatives.
• Identify improvement and cost reduction opportunities in lubrication management, storage, handling, and disposal.
• Identify opportunities to enhance the effectiveness of oil analyses by incorporating or refining sampling methods, test slates, on-site analyses, target cleanliness levels, data alarms/limits, and sampling frequencies.
• Review contamination control and proactive maintenance practices and propose improvements to them.
• Identify opportunities and needs for lubricant consolidation and purchasing standards.
• Examine the way oil analysis is integrated with other maintenance technologies.
• Suggest needs for training and documenting procedures.

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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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