The Cost Of Friction: How to Calculate ROI On An Automatic Lubrication System?

Do you have any idea how much your company is losing each day by continuing to rely on manual greasing of equipment? Without second-guessing your decision, retrofit your plant with an automatic lubrication system today and watch the upgrade pay for itself within a year by slashing downtime risk by 50%.

Additional benefits of equipping your plant with an automatic greasing solution include extended bearing life, increased plant efficiency, and reduced energy bills.

Why Manual Greasing Is Passe?

If one peeks inside an industrial plant on the day the onsite equipment is supposed to be maintained and lubricated, one would quite commonly see people with grease guns walking the length and breadth of the plant. For the uninitiated, this might seem normal, but for the people actually tasked with keeping a plant’s equipment shipshape, they know they are walking on a greased hill.

How?

Here are a few reasons why manual greasing is passe.

The Over-and-Under Greasing Trap

Manual greasing lacks real-time precision, as technicians, regardless of their skills, certifications, or experience, fail to apply the recommended amount of lubrication. They either drench the equipment with grease or apply too little.

Under-greasing increases friction-induced heat in a plant’s equipment. On the other hand, over-greasing exerts excessive pressure on the equipment’s housing, leading to costly issues such as blown-out seals and increased abrasive dust deposits within the equipment’s nooks and crannies.

The Financial Fallout of Human Error

Manual greasing is notoriously inefficient, which is why it is natural for a plant to reel with the ill effects of wasted consumables like grease. At the same time, manual greasing also increases a plant’s risk of catastrophic component failure.

Additional issues could manifest as seized bearings due to poor or no lubrication. When that happens, the production line at a manufacturing plant comes to a halt.

The losses compound over time as unexpected downtime results in lost output, additional costs from rushed shipping of replacement parts, and the need to keep workers happy with inflated remuneration, as they are compelled to perform emergency overtime.

Add all of the issues and the subsequent costs, and the final sum will surely dwarf the upfront costs of retrofitting your manufacturing plant with an automatic lubrication system.

The ROI Formula: Calculating Your True Savings

If you have yet to convince yourself that an automatic lubrication system can truly benefit your production plant, then take a look at the following sections, where additional benefits of the technology are explained.

Labor Redistribution

Go ahead and calculate the total annual hours your staff spend on manually greasing the plant’s equipment. Replace that with automation, and you can then reallocate your staff to pressing matters across the plant, such as diagnostic tasks.

Component Longevity

Does your plant need a steady supply of replacement seals, shafts and bearings? Do you want to prolong the overall life of your plant’s equipment?

Invest in continuous automatic lubrication solutions today to significantly extend the lifespan of plant equipment.

Downtime Mitigation

If your plant’s equipment will seldom break down, then the plant as a whole will hardly go offline. And when a plant seldom goes offline, it surely will make more profits, right?

Feeling convinced yet?

Secure Your Plant’s Competitive Edge

Friction is unavoidable.

After all, it is a natural law of physics. However, you cannot allow friction to have a strong hold on your plant’s operational costs, which, in turn, negatively affects your business’s future.

Take the right step today by shifting from manual lubrication cycles that rely on a reactive approach. Choose continuous automated lubrication. That is the best way to arrest mechanical wear in its tracks.

Additionally, with automated lubrication solutions offered by reputable companies like Solutec Ltd.

With automation, your plant’s lubrication data will be under your complete control, onsite equipment will be protected, your team can better use their skills on more pressing matters at the plant, and your business will be shielded from unpredictable expenses stemming from unchecked friction-induced machine damage.