When lubricants "get chatty"

By: FUCHS Lubricants Co. 

In the not-too-distant future, it may not just be your colleagues and customers talking to you – your lubricants might also have something to say. That's because digitalization is making machines and lubricants smart and may even make them "talk." 

So the question is, of course: how will your business and your day-to-day life be affected?

RADICAL CHANGES

Digitalization is revolutionizing not only our economy, but society as a whole. Just think about how e-commerce has completely changed the world of retail. The industry is no exception and is being widely influenced by Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and connected systems, which are laying the groundwork for radical change.

THE FUTURE IS ALREADY HERE

Artificial intelligence may sound like science fiction, but the technology is already being used in the industry. A good example from the Nordic countries is ABB, which has worked alongside IBM and is now using AI to optimize flows and increase quality in certain areas of production.

The application is a smart technology that performs its own image analysis of lacquered products. The technology learns what the correct quality of the final product is, as well as what needs to be corrected and what could go wrong in the next phase. So, basically, the technology "talks" and advises ABB on what needs to be changed before something happens, and it all happens automatically. 

LUBRICANTS THAT TALK

Lubricant producers are also affected by new technical solutions that introduce radical changes in everything from logistics to production. In every way, we are preparing for a world in which everything – even machines – "talks" to everything else. And the reason is simple: machines and tools will want to increase their efficiency. Therefore, we need to make sure that lubricants are also part of the debate.

PREVENT PROBLEMS

"Talking" lubricants, of course, won't really talk, but they will provide information about your condition.  Therefore, it will be important for us to identify the right status parameters, so that we can predict impending problems at an early stage and thus prevent them. A decrease in certain values could indicate that the lubricant needs to be replaced as soon as possible.

But a smart, nullifying system could do much more. You could take responsibility for certain parts of the process, order lubricant and spare parts, when necessary, reduce the performance of the machine as a precautionary measure, etc.

WHILE THIS DEVELOPMENT IS IN OTS INFANCY - HOW DOES IT AFFECT ME? 

This is of course a challenging development, but I also find it tremendously exciting as it opens up so many fascinating new possibilities. I think the evolution is probably only in its early infancy, so the potential is tremendous. With all that in mind, the obvious question is of course: how will my company and my day-to-day life be affected?