Over time, your facility can collect a variety of different lubricants without you or your staff having a solid understanding of how each differs or what application a lubricant is for. This can create inefficiency, increase costs, and even lead to improper use of lubricants. To avoid this, you should consolidate and organize your lubricants. The pros here at LH Travis have some tips on how you can do this.

Consolidating your lubricant inventory will give a variety of benefits, including:

  • Reduced excess inventory quantities
  • Reduced costs
  • Minimized cross-contamination and misapplication risk
  • Simplified storage and handling of lubricants

Because of the extensive benefits it offers, it is best practice for any facility to consolidate and organize their lubricants. Let’s take a closer look at just how to do so. 

How to Organize and Consolidate Lubricants

When organizing and consolidating your lubricants, it’s recommended to do so with the help of a qualified lubricant advisor. They’ll lend their technical expertise to help you properly consolidate your lubricants while avoiding issues like possible machine failure. 

When consolidating, the first step is to conduct a survey of every piece of equipment in your facility that uses lubricants, the components that are lubricated, the lubricants currently being used, and required lubrication specification. Be sure to provide the most specific information you can, including brand, information about things viscosity, ISO grade, viscosity index, and wear prevention characteristics.

Next, you’ll do a thorough inventory of all the lubricants in your facility, and gather the technical/product data sheets for each. Using this information, you can consolidate lubricants by doing things like eliminating multiple lubricants of the same specification and application. Another option is consolidating ISO grades of similar lubricants. Calculations of things like bearing geometry, speed, and operating temperature can help you make decisions about consolidation, and the equipment manufacturer may also be able to provide assistance as well. 

Lubricant Consolidation and Organization Provides Extensive Benefits

Any facility using multiple lubricants should implement a consolidation and organization program as best practice. Have questions, or want some guidance for implementing your own consolidation and organization program? Contact LH Travis and let our highly skilled and knowledgeable staff help.