Identifying Root Cause Failures with Oil Analysis

One of SKF’s mining customers was up in arms because they were having catastrophic axle failures on CAT 789 dump trucks and the oil analysis results did not give them enough warning to prevent the axle from destroying itself. Three trucks were stranded within a three-week period with a repair bill of $200,000 per failure.

This case study proved that root cause analysis has to be done to prevent similar failures from occurring again. Data from periodic oil samples was gathered, environmental and operational conditions were analyzed, magnetic plug debris and sampling principles as well as maintenance procedures were taken into account to add depth to the RCA thinking process. The root cause was identified, a solution implemented and best practices involved were identified and the people educated to implement. That unique failure mechanism has not occurred since. Savings in identifying/preventing similar axle problems ran into millions of dollars.

Purchase this case study from SKF for $5 by clicking on the link below:

http://www.skf.com/portal/skf/home/aptitudexchange?contentId=0.237932.237933.237934.237950.243128