Tribology and equipment reliability

When you need it

The service is relevant if the company faces:

• repeated failures of units and assemblies
• reduced service life of engines, gearboxes, hydraulic systems and transmissions
• increased equipment wear with no obvious cause
• oil contamination with water, fuel, dust or wear debris
• unstable oil analysis results
• high consumption of oils and greases
• a large number of breakdown repairs
• no systematic control of equipment technical condition
• the need to extend the interval between repairs and reduce unplanned downtime
• the need to assess how effective the current maintenance programme is

What you get

On completion the client receives:

• an assessment of the actual condition of the equipment examined
• laboratory analysis results for oils and lubricants
• identified signs of wear, contamination and lubricant degradation
• a list of potentially problematic units and mechanisms
• an assessment of how critical the deviations found are
• recommendations on further operation, additional diagnostics or repair
• an analysis of the causes of repeated failures and premature wear
• recommendations on oil and lubricant change intervals
• recommendations on lubrication points, volumes and frequency
• equipment reliability indicators and failure history analysis
• a list of actions to raise reliability and reduce the risk of breakdown stoppages
• a technical report with conclusions, priorities and recommendations

Where required, the results can be arranged as an equipment monitoring programme with regular condition checks and tracking of indicator trends.

How it works

The work is carried out in stages.

1. We study the equipment and operating conditions. We identify critical assemblies, operating modes, the oils and greases in use, maintenance intervals, repair and failure history.
2. We collect the source data. We analyse operating history, running hours, results of previous studies and maintenance data, and arrange oil and lubricant sampling where needed.
3. We run the diagnostics. We examine the condition of the lubricant, contamination and wear debris, assess how indicators change over time and match them against equipment condition.
4. We analyse reliability. We study failure and repair history, recurring faults, downtime duration and component life. Root cause analysis is carried out where required.
5. We draw up recommendations. We define the actions needed: continued operation, closer monitoring, additional diagnostics, adjusted maintenance or planned repair.
6. We track the trend. With regular support, a condition history is built up that shows trends and reveals deviations before a serious failure occurs.

The outcome

The company gets more than a single laboratory figure or diagnostic conclusion: it gets a way of making technical decisions based on the actual condition of the equipment, knowing what to check, when to step in and where the real risk of failure is.