New facility attains 100% lube route compliance

Overview

A newly built wood production facility had no structured lubrication strategy. Charting roughly 500 assets into managed routes delivered 100% compliance, near-eliminated bearing failures and around $480,000 in annual savings.

The challenge

The plant was newly constructed and commissioning was still open. Without a structured lubrication strategy in place, bearings were being replaced frequently, repair costs were climbing, and production losses were substantial, at roughly $12,000 for every hour the line was down. Because nothing was charted, there was no way to tell a missed lube point from a genuine mechanical fault, and no baseline against which to judge whether a repair had actually fixed anything.

The solution

The company deployed Redlist lubrication management software with on-site training delivered by the vendor. Approximately 500 assets were charted to establish a facility-wide lubrication strategy: every point assigned a product, a volume, an interval and a route. Compliance became measurable per route and per crew, so gaps showed up as data rather than as a bearing failure weeks later.

Results

The facility achieved 100% lube route compliance and near-eliminated bearing failures. Daily production expanded from 200 to 800 cubic metres, a fourfold increase. Labour savings reached $180,000 annually with roughly $300,000 in avoided downtime cost, for an estimated $480,000 total. The result exceeded management expectations and allowed plant commissioning to be finalised.