Machinery Lubrication March 2023

A columnar level gauge is a type of sight glass. It is a tube made of clear material that, when installed on a machine, allows the oil to be seen and shows the oil level. Learn why these sight glasses are used and how to properly implement them into your inspection process.

Wear debris is like a lit fuse to a catastrophic event, especially for critical machines. Most condition monitoring technologies and predictive maintenance strategies focus on discovering the signs of failure as soon as possible. But why did the failure occur in the first place? What is the match that lit the fuse?

For this month’s Lube Champs feature, we take a look back at the Simmons Feed Ingredients plant in Southwest City, MO. Simmons Feed brought in Noria consultants to develop a roadmap for lubrication excellence. After implementing Noria’s Lubrication Program Development and training, the facility was able to achieve cleaner oil, prevent machine failures, avoid lost production and save up to $1MM/yr.

Featuring a roundup of news, upcoming events, social media updates and more, the Sight Glass is your go-to spot for keeping up-to-date with the latest and greatest in our industry.

This month we bring you some history within history — an animated video released by SKF (known then as SKF Norma) in the 1980s. The delightful video depicts cavemen discovering different grease applications. And while not entirely accurate (at least, we could find no evidence that ancient monkeys used banana peels to grease wheel axles), the animated shorts are still intriguing and entertaining.

In this episode of Gear Talk, Wes and Bennett discuss what an innovative lubrication program looks like today, their predictions for where lubrication is headed in the coming years and what new and emerging tools and techniques lubrication professionals should be paying attention to.