The role of Condition monitoring to extend Oil Drain Periods, PM Service intervals and Component Life.

The major components on any heavy equipment typically contain lubricant. Lubricant by its very nature has 3 main purposes:-


1. Provide a load bearing capacity so that internal components can move against each other without grinding themselves to destruction
2. Encase soot particles so that a grinding sludge is not created internally which will increase the wear of internal components. (Engines)
3. Provide the main source of condition monitoring data for determining the current condition of the component and the lubricant.

The OEM’s provide data for each model of equipment stipulating Oil change intervals, servicing intervals and component change intervals.
Extending the frequency of oil drain periods, PM services and component change-outs/rebuilds can have a significant impact on operating costs of the equipment. There is a fine balance between the savings that can be achieved by extending these periods without reducing the life of the components significantly. Further cost savings can be achieved by lining up the oil drain periods performed at services on the differing components. However this does require greater attention to the used oil sample results which should be taken according to a disciplined regime of test intervals in order to provide the necessary data analysis showing trends in degradation of lubricant properties, build-up of soot and other contaminants and trends in wear of the internal components. Regular Equipment inspections will also identify leaking hydraulic lines which can lead to a major loss of hydraulic fluid, the greatest potential loss of fluid on any equipment.

InfoTrak’s Equipment Health Management system provides all the tools to manage these different aspects in order to achieve the potential savings while balancing the expected lives of the components.
InfoTrak Component Life Management – for the management of each component’s useful life
InfoTrak Oil – for used oil sample results analysis and management
General Inspection Management – for the collection and management of equipment inspection results
InfoTrak Preventative Maintenance Management – for managing the PM Service intervals
InfoTrak Dashboard – to manage the overall view of the health of the machine in a single view. However there are a number of steps that need to be considered in this process in order to make this successful.

Please contact our Support Team for more information.