Insufficient or over-lubrication can lead to unplanned machine down-time or even

breakdowns. And every maintenance team knows what a breakdown can cause. In fact, it’s

safe to say every associate in any company who is based on production, quality and

consistency knows how deadly breakdown is. It creates a cycle that is hard to thrive in:



Stage 1 – production is driven hard so as to make company successful

Stage 2 – extra attention to production leads to neglect in maintenance

Stage 3 – neglect in maintenance leads to failure of equipment

Stage 4 – production halted and all resources and personnel dedicated to fixing equipment

Stage 5 – loss of money through halted production results in increased production demand

Stage 6 (really Stage 1) – production is driven hard so as to make company successful



It’s a hard loop to get out of! Yet with some simple changes we can do so. Here are the 4

modes of maintenance, and we should all strive to reach the last one:



REACTIVE (BREAKDOWN) MAINTENANCE – that is the case that we describe above. We wait for something to fail, then purchase new or repair. This is the most costly long term of all maintenance modes, and the most infuriating.



PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE – at timed intervals, specific parts of machines are attended to. This mode helps greatly, but is reliant on doing prescribed actions as opposed to analysis of WHAT is needed. You can equate this to changing your car’s oil at a set mileage rather than if the oil is still good, the filter is still clean, etc. In this mode, you can recognize 50% savings versus REACTIVE.



PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE – requiring a higher up front cost, the payoff is unmatchable in the long run using Predictive Maintenance. The regular time intervals do more than a prescribed action, but employ many means of analysis (what kind of wear are you seeing, has this happened before, should we change the parameters for this point on the machine, etc.).



PROACTIVE MAINTENANCE – the highest level a company can achieve, here the practices of the maintenance team is put to test, knowing the equipment is secure. Root cause analysis rules, and the control of issues that can stem from root cause are what are systematically controlled. Issues are eliminated before every causing problems (specific training, utilizing supply chain, investment in reliable systems, etc.).



Our automatic simalube lubricators offer you the perfect solution to this problem. The

continuous lubrication ensures low costs, high reliability and many other benefits. The

simatherm induction heaters as well as the simatool toolkits prevent premature bearing

failures that are caused by improper installations.