Petrorath I Leading Expertise in Best-Practices Reliability Solutions

SERVICES

Through our strategic partnerships and leveraging our established experience and expertise in asset reliability and protection solutions, we are highly capable of guiding and assisting our clients in the following areas which cover mostly all areas related to each and every one of our product line and more importantly to operational challenges in terms of maximizing bottom line through reliability best practices and innovation.

USED OIL ANALYSIS

Oil Analysis is the analytical results of a lubricants property, suspended contaminants and wear debris. Oil Analysis is performed during routine Preventative Maintenance to provide meaningful and accurate information on lubricants and the machine condition. Oil analysis is the best tool to penetrate into the working heart of the equipment to reveal vital information about its condition and performance.

Techenomics laboratories are capable of analyzing many different types of lubricants (both petrol and diesel engines) from mining companies, power stations, agricultural machinery, paper mills, offshore, marine, road and rail freight companies.

Companies should have their oils analyzed as it is a known fact that when there is a problem with machinery almost 80 to 90% of the time, the oil carries details and early warning signs of potential problems or failures.

Just as the oil carries the information, so too does the coolant, grease and fuels, they all carry tell tale signs of potential problems or issues within compartments that can easily be rectified or corrected by having lubricants analyzed.

Techenomics has the ability to analyze these lubricants by numerous testing methods and procedures, from ASTM standards to in-house testing methods, all of which produce accurate and high quality results to help in diagnosing the performance and characteristics of the lubricant as well as the machinery health.

Oil Analysis, if used correctly, can:

Provide maintenance personnel with the ability to improve availability rates on equipment,
Lower downtime
Save extraordinary amounts of money that could be used on other maintenance requirements.

Our combination of both the laboratory chemists and maintenance engineers knowledge to evaluate each and every sample, provides clients with highly detailed insight information into the sample results that can reduce downtime on their equipment, achieve a higher and more effective availability rate and save companies huge amounts of money.

USED OIL ANALYSIS - Techenomics International

Oil Analysis, if used correctly, can:

Provide maintenance personnel with the ability to improve availability rates on equipment,
Lower downtime
Save extraordinary amounts of money that could be used on other maintenance requirements.

Onsite Reliability Audit or Assessment

Proper lubrication plays a significantly important role in achieving the utmost reliability. However, we understand that most companies will be focused on their core business activities and therefore some critical areas of lubrication programs or practices could somehow be unintentionally overlooked. This is what originally and still to this day motivates us to provide comprehensive reliability assessments in order to identify potential improvement toward best practices reliability programs currently available globally.

Our thorough assessment to understand current practices and then determine areas of improvement includes but is not necessarily limited to the following:

Lube points
Current lubricants(s)
Lubrication frequency & methods
State of lube room
Storage and handling
Filtration: If it is being done and to what spec (ISO target)
Verification of OEM-recommended lube
Visual inspection for dirt, rust, varnish, water ingression, missing or broken reservoir caps, open hatch covers, damaged seals, gaskets, and leaks

The outcome from the above assessment will then be put together for detailed discussions especially in terms of how we can both suggest and contribute to the desired improvement. At the same time, we will usually provide value estimates to be gained by the improvement opportunities for prioritization by clients and also for monitoring during and after the implementation.

Lube Room Design and Implementation

Generally, a well-equipped lube room will contain the following items:

Drum or IBC storage
Oil and grease transfer pumps
Drums or IBCs taps and faucets
Grease guns and oil cans
Portable equipment such as lubrication carts, sump drainers, air-powered grease guns, used oil-reclaiming systems and filter carts
Maintenance supplies such as wiping rags, grease fittings, spare filters and reservoir screens, absorbent materials to control spills and well-maintained lockers for their storage
When appropriate, a bulk tank or tanks for storage and delivery of primary oils or greases
Purification systems or re-claimers to recondition used oils, soluble oil mixing equipment and solvent tanks for cleaning parts

It seems redundant to say that oil and grease dispensing equipment must be kept spotlessly clean, but unfortunately many plant facilities and mobile equipment operators place very little, if any, emphasis on the cleanliness of stored lubricants or their dispensing equipment. These careless attitudes cost industry hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in contamination-related equipment failures.

At the very least, the following guidelines must be applied to reduce the problems associated with contamination of lubricants and dispensers during equipment servicing operations and storage:

All devices used to transfer or install lubricants must be kept thoroughly clean at all times, and each device must be thoroughly wiped and inspected just prior to its use. This includes oil cans, dispensing pumps, grease guns and tools.
Each container or dispensing device must be clearly identified and marked for its use, and it must only be used for the purpose for which it was intended to avoid the inadvertent mixing of incompatible oils or the installation of the wrong oil. Maintenance and operations personnel must be trained in these areas of equipment care.
Contrary to common practice, all oils should be pre-filtered prior to installation into an equipment reservoir or sump. A portable fluid purifier or filter cart can be used for this purpose. The filters used must be rated at a the right microns absolute and must be of the absorbent depth type.

If lubricants are dispensed from a stationary bulk oil tank, the outlet lines must contain similar filter installations. The filters used should have monitoring devices installed, such as flow meters or pressure gauges, to indicate when the filter is plugged.

Pre-filtering of oil is now being recommended by equipment manufacturers and oil suppliers, and oil cleanliness is a factor in many equipment warranty programs.

Some pictures from our previous design and installations for some of our major customers: