Every little helps, as they say. And this is certainly true of maintenance costs. Making minor improvements in your lubrication maintenance can add up to major savings. The minor measures may be many, but that doesn’t mean they are complicated.

SUPPLIERS – LESS IS MORE
One good starting point is to look at how many suppliers your company has at present. And the reason is simple: each supplier contact takes time, and therefore costs money. Quite a lot of money, in fact.

Add together all the time for meetings, negotiations and other administrative tasks, such as drawing up agreements, prices constantly being adjusted and other practical matters.

All in all, these procedures add up. A review of your suppliers would be worthwhile in terms of how much time and money you could be saving. Think ‘less is more’, and try to get more out of the suppliers you do decide to work with.
 

PRODUCTS – FEWER IS MORE 
As with suppliers, so it is with products: the more you have, the more time and energy go into keeping everything organised. And again, this means unnecessary costs. Order management, receiving goods, checking invoices. This all takes time and increases costs.

Coding and invoice payments are also factors, again serving to make everything more complex. Once again the key is to perform a review and slim down your range of products to keep things simple and save money. Having many different products in circulation also increases the risk of incorrect usage, such as using a product incorrectly. And that too can increase costs.

OIL CHANGES AND LUBRICATION POINTS – SMARTER LUBRICATION 
Needless to say, an oil change costs time and money – not only in emptying and handling the old oil, but also fetching and refilling with the new products. More often than not, this process takes several hours on each machine. The number of lubrication points also affect the time taken, as does the number of products used.

When it comes to oil changes and lubrication points, the key word is documentation. Map out the preventive maintenance. Record the results in an Excel file, for example. This will serve as both an instruction manual and a follow-up tool in the day-to-day operation. It shows which products, amounts and intervals have been used, as well as how much time the various tasks took. 

PURCHASING THAT PAYS FOR ITSELF 
Last but not least – buy lubricants that pay for themselves, i.e. products of a high technical standard. This brings several benefits and helps reduce maintenance costs. Products that result in lower consumption and longer drain intervals, which also reduces the amount of time you need to spend. Good lubricants can also reduce energy consumption and have less impact on the environment.

By Tore Nilsen, FUCHS Lubricants