Simple Purchasing Practices Incite Lubrication Failure

Ultrasound technology can help reduce bearing and equipment failures associated with improper lubrication procedures.

While this account of one plant’s extremely costly, catastrophic experience is a tough read, rest assured that the situation was avoidable.

Maintenance departments may perform their own purchasing/expediting of MRO (maintenance/repair operations) materials or, conversely, rely on a formal relationship with the corporate purchasing department to perform that task. In either case, it behooves a maintenance department to have processes and procedures in place to ensure the exact lubricants required are successfully ordered and received—every time.

This case study involves a catastrophic event at an automotive assembly plant located somewhere in North America. At the time of this lubrication-related failure, the plant was operating with three continual shifts, 24/7, to accommodate a four-week running backlog of vehicle orders. With an average unit selling price of $35,000 and a line speed averaging 60 units/hour, downtime losses were unrecoverable at the rate of more than $2 million in sales losses/hour.

Despite its successful order book, the company had engaged in a corporate efficiency program that required its purchasing staff to individually review every purchase request and seek out less expensive alternatives wherever possible. In exchange, the company would extend a bonus based on the percentage of all accumulated savings. As a result, all purchases—including those associated with critical lubrication activities—slowed as agents in this motivated department immersed themselves in the role of price-cutting negotiator. The situation only served to reduce the level of service to the maintenance department and upset its regular group of suppliers.

If the original supplier didn’t lower its price, the purchasing agent would look for an alternative source based on the order specification. If the specification wasn’t exacting, he/she could seek out a “similar” product. As detailed here, this purchasing-efficiency approach fueled a very expensive lubrication failure.

Brewing a perfect storm

The maintenance purchase requisition simply stated “two totes of ISO 22 air-tool oil.” The automaker’s lubrication program had recently completed lube-consolidation activities that reduced the site’s different lubricant types/SKUs by half (to single digits)—leading to six-figure savings. As a result, lubricating oils were to be purchased in bulk totes from a reputable manufacturer through a reputable local supplier.

The lubrication program also ensured that lubricants were to be stored separately in a lubrication crib, and that they be adequately spill protected with a concrete berm and drain system. In addition to oils and greases, several release chemical agents were also stored in the lubrication crib.

To accommodate safe lubricant transfer, the maintenance department requested multiple “pogo-style” pneumatic drum pumps to move product to smaller containers. At the time of the failure, the lubrication crib had only one of these lube pumps to use with all lubricants and chemical fluids. (Questioned later, purchasing staff would admit that, to save money, they had made a conscious decision to only purchase one such pump.)

With no purchasing confines in place, only the lubricant viscosity specification to go on, and financially incentivized, enthusiastic purchasing staffers who had little understanding of or experience with lubricants, lubrication processes, or lubrication equipment, this plant put itself in a difficult place. It was the eye of a perfect storm.

Saving money in the wrong places    

Looking back, the day of the catastrophe started out as a productive one for the site’s lubrication personnel. They had just received a new shipment of ISO 22-grade viscosity air-tool oil that appeared to have new SKU numbers and markings on the tote.

Thinking nothing of those new designations, the unsuspecting technicians went about their tasks of dispensing a number of release chemicals and filling corresponding reservoirs. Next, they dispensed ISO 220 gearbox oil and filled the corresponding gearbox reservoirs around the plant. A second crew then diligently used the same pogo transfer pump to dispense the new air-tool oil and also filled up air-tool FRL (filter, regulator, lubrication) units.

An automotive assembly plant uses a significant numbers of tools, which, to work properly, require clean, lubricated air. Within hours of the lube teams’ busy morning, assembly stations across the facility began shutting down as, one by one, their air-tools failed.

Throughout the plant, maintenance personnel were shocked to find all air-tools, lines, and fittings coated in a gummy plaque that couldn’t be flushed or cleaned without mechanical assistance. The assembly line ground to a complete halt and, due to the enormity of the situation, the second shift was sent home.

For its part, the third shift was told to stay home as engineers and maintenance staff frantically worked together to put in place a series of rented air compressors, new tools, and flexible hose that could get the assembly stations back up and working and the line started. Although the teams accomplished this feat in time for the third shift, the plant still suffered the loss of approximately one and a half unrecoverable production shifts. Additional costs were absorbed in the dismantling and cleaning of the original air-oil system and interim equipment-rental expenses.

A root-cause failure-analysis investigation found that the combination of the new and, evidently, economical air-tool oil-additive chemistry—purchased from a recycled oil blender—was different from the original air-tool oil. Combined with the gearbox oil and release chemicals during the day’s lube-transfer processes, it acted as a catalyst that caused the resultant fluid to become highly viscous and gummy. This manifestation, in turn, caused the plant’s air-tool bearings to overheat, degrade, and rapidly fail.

Yes, the company’s purchasing agents had managed to save thousands of dollars in lubricant and lube-pump costs. In the process, however, their decisions had inadvertently cost the corporation tens of millions of dollars.

Note: This article was updated October 14, 2015.

Lessons learned

• Since many lubricants are not compatible with one another or other chemical fluids, always perform a compatibility test prior to changing out lubricants for a different manufacturers’ product.
• With engineered products and processes in place, always insist on “like for like” replacement/replenishment.
• When developing lubricant purchase specifications, do not rely on viscosity alone; spell out the manufacturer and full lubricant specification on the purchase request and accept no alternatives without a lubricant trial.
• When a lubrication-management program is in place, accept no new lubricants in the plant without them having gone through a lubricant-trial exercise to see how they perform. This requires your facility personnel to develop a lubricant-trial process designed to determine where and why a new product is needed, what it will replace, and how the new product will benefit the department.
• Always employ dedicated transfer equipment for each lubricant
and chemical.
• Never store chemicals and lubricants in the same immediate area, or allow their effluents to mix.

To learn more, see:

“Strategic Sourcing Implementation”

“The Maintenance/Purchasing Partnership”

“Strong Supplier Relationships Keep Critical Maintenance Services Close at Hand”

“What Maintenance Controls and What It Manages”