From Our Perspective: How is Your ‘Date’ Life?

By Ken Bannister, Contributing Editor

Watching the local news recently, I became intrigued by what I consider an especially compelling human-interest story. The report focused on the growing numbers of people—many fully employed and living in nice neighborhoods—who have embraced “dumpster diving“ in supermarket waste dumpsters as part of their weekly grocery shopping activity. Fueled by the high cost of groceries and regulatory requirements for stores to dispose of products that have surpassed the “Best By” dates stamped on their packaging, today’s “dumpster divers” seem to have figured out a legal way to obtain perfectly edible free food!

Food packagers are mandated to place “Best By” dates on their goods, and grocers use them to rotate their stock and ensure that food is sold in a timely manner without spoilage. Ironically, when we take food home, we can store it for a long time before opening and using it. Days, weeks, even months later, if the food looks OK (or even if not) and if it passes a rudimentary “sniff and place a little on the finger taste test,” it may be eaten without any attention given to the date on its label. This is not always the case for lubricants.

Lubricants are typically shipped with “Best By” dates stamped or printed on their labels, much like food products. Custodians (including distributors) of such lubricants are expected to rotate stock and move them through the supply chain to end-users as quickly as possible. Like some foods—i.e., Limburger cheese—some lubricants (especially gear oils containing sulfur) can smell terrible as soon as they are manufactured. In some cases, improperly stored lubrication products (particularly vegetable-based and cutting oils) can be subjected to air, heat and light that cause them to become rancid and unusable. Luckily, there are steps you can take to eliminate confusion.

Oils that have been stored for long periods of time, especially those that have surpassed their “Best By” dates, require visual inspection to check if any of their additive packages have 1) dropped out of colloidal suspension, which looks like dirt or colored pepper sitting on the bottom of the pail and results in reduced protective properties; or 2) coagulated into heavy viscous lumps that could block a lubricant-dispensing meter device and starve the bearing. Findings such as these will necessitate a call to the supplier or manufacturer to determine if the oil can be “reconstituted” for use.

If a lubricant passes all ready-for-use tests and is dispensed into a working reservoir on a machine, the reservoir requires tagging with an “In Service” date stamp. (This is similar to an automotive service center putting a sticker on your windshield when you have your vehicle’s oil changed—it indicates the mileage of your last or next oil change.) At the same time you change out an industrial lubricant, you’ll probably change one or more filters. This provides an ideal opportunity to write an “In Service” date on the outside of the filter with an indelible marker. Air filters and drive belts can all benefit from the same practice of marking their “In Service” dates, regardless of the fact that their change dates are being captured in the CMMS through work-order closing.

The practice of viewing “Best By” dates and associating “In Service” dates with your lubricants and lubrication-related components helps validate calendar-based maintenance. It’s also of enormous value in understanding the impact and value of a condition-based maintenance approach. Good luck! LM&T

kbannister@engtechindustries.com