Why Oil Analysis, and why specifically to use OAL for your analysis?
If condition monitoring and oil analysis are terms totally new to you, watch this 3-minute explainer video to give you some background to how Oil Analysis touches every aspect of your life, keeping things going and you didn’t realise it.
Oil analysis is a proven service that is saving money for customers just like you all over the world by keeping your machinery running for longer. Put simply we detect early wear like this in your oil and more importantly the causes of wear like contamination.
This means you see less catastrophic failures like these...
... And catch them earlier so they can be repaired early which can cost you up to 60% less than repairing after a failure. What's more the true benefits comes in that you have less machinery downtime which can reduce downtime costs by up to 90%.
It allows you to identify faults and repair them before a failure – This can save you 60% in repair costs alone compared to repairs after a failure.
Reduce power/fuel consumption and improving your carbon footprint – if your machine is in peak condition then great, but the likelihood is that will not always be the case. With fuel and energy being two large inescapable costs for your business finding ways to reduce inefficiency such as fuel leaks on your vehicles can reduce your energy costs and improve your carbon footprint.
Reduces unplanned downtime - this is the most widely known benefit and where huge returns on investment up to 10 times higher than the cost of impmenting the programme. If your machinery not working is a problem then you need oil analysis.
Improves your reputation with clients – this may seem strange at first but if your machinery working is critical to your business operations when it fails it can mean you are unable to deliver to your clients, which in turn can damage your clients' confidence in the robustness of your service. Oil analysis helps head off potential PR disasters before they happen. Equally if you are involved in supplying machinery lubricants, filtration, cleaning or repair services what better way to prove your value to your clients than with a before and after sample.
Reduces over maintenance and reduces lubricant costs – this ensures components / lube replacements happen only when needed. In fact 85% of all oil changes are done at the wrong time when not using oil analysis, so you could be pouring money away with each unecessary oil change.
Reduces wastage or build-up of intermediate items in manufacturing – if the last stage of your production process fails then you risk build-up of intermediate or perishable stock that cannot be converted to your end product. In food production facilities for instance this can mean loss of entire stock inventories whilst waiting for a repair.
Improves safety – you can't put a cost on safety, but if something saves you money and can improve safety all the better. Oil analysis helps spot machinery faults and fire risks so they can be corrected before they lead to loss of life. In fact many governing and industry bodies recommend oil sampling for safety in:
Offshore and Mining to reduce fire risk with flammable products nearby and test lubricant fire resistance.
Construction to reduce risk of uncontrolled hydraulic machinery movements.
Rail and Road to reduce risks to passengers of fires, crashes and de-railment.
Marine to ensure ships can be controlled safely at sea to avoid capsizing or running aground when attempting to enter ports.
Metal working to ensure fluid does not become contaminated leading to microbial growth and potential operator skin and breathing problems.
Metal casting and quenching - confirms when using quenching or cooling oils there is not an explosion risk.
Safety equipment - Lifeboats and backup generators at a hospital are key pieces of equipment and end users usually make testing to confirm in serviceable condition mandatory.
Apart from our passion for helping our customers to succeed and extensive experience, Oil Analysis Laboratories has developed a new method called LubeWear to accurately detect abnormal wear metals in your oil before other traditional methods. Watch the video below to find out more.
Our laboratory team is one of the most experienced and well established Oil Condition Monitoring teams in the Europe - consisting over 50 years experience and a wealth of industry knowledge.
Watch the below video to find out more about Oil Analysis Laboratories values and history of the team.
Based at our state of the art facility, we are well respected oil analysis experts having travelled all over the world delivering training and consultancy to lubricant, fuel and equipment manufacturers, government and trade bodies as well as consulting on multi million warranty and root cause analysis cases. It is no underestimation to say oil analysis is in our blood and a high quality diagnosis and excellent support go hand in hand with every oil sample purchased.
Our dynamic and customer focussed team realise what is at stake when your machinery is on the line and we never forget who is relying on us.
So do not hesitate to Contact the oil analysis lab for which failure is not an option! Use the link above or the icon on the bottom right to start chatting.
We are committed to delivering you the best quality on every sample. Find out more about our commitment to you here.
Our commitment to safety and environmentally clean operations
We are green at heart and truly care about reducing the environmental impact machinery makes. Fluid analysis helps reduce machinery impact on the environment making fluid analysis a very low carbon profession. However, we are always striving to do better and you can find out more here.
Find a copy of any of our policies
To find out copies of all of our publicly available policies, you can find them here.
