Mechanical engineering has evolved significantly, not only in advancements, but also in health and safety, environmental aspects, reliability and sustainability.

Competition among suppliers is also noted, with available suppliers exceeding market demand. Competition between customers also influences their choice of equipment used, with grease emphasis on productivity, reduced operating costs, quick return in investments, health and safety, and profits.

OEM’s now place great emphasis on sustainable designs, environmentally and maintenance friendly. Cost of ownership has to be the lowest it’s ever been. No longer bulky units with high built-in safety factors. CAD and other IT technological developments have enabled engineers to design systems and machines to exact specifications. The decision is sometimes based on economics, which keeps maintenance engineers and consultants employed.

On lubrication system design, we consider not only the initial build cost, but also the running and maintenance costs during operation, which is normally in excess of 15 – 20 years. Oil circulation systems have to be simple, reliable and easy to work on by a diverse demographic variety of skilled and semi-skilled personnel, even in remote exotic locations world wide.

OEM’s have also turned to specialty firms to develop, design, manufacturer, install, commission and offer an after-market service on their lubrication systems and equipment. Each lubrication system is unique, designed around both the OEM’s and customer’s site specific requirements.

Our efforts are focused on understanding the machine components needing lubrication to operate reliably, and delivering a sound system design based on the OEM’s design, technical and economic factors and presented to us within a complex specification.