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From the first two installments in this series, What’s Dirt got to do with it? – Part 1: What is Contamination? and What’s Dirt got to do with it? – Part 2: How can we identify & prevent contamination?, we found out more about what contaminants are, how to identify them and how to prevent them from getting into your system. In this last installment, we will look at the cost of contamination and how it really affects the end user.

Case Study #1 – Water contamination

At a steel manufacturing plant a few gearboxes began experiencing some issues with water ingress. There was a process leak which made its way to the oil sump. When the operators took samples from the gearbox, they were immediately aware that something was wrong. The sampled oil did not look normal and was “milky” in appearance. They still sent off the samples to the lab and confirmed the presence of water in the oil.

The sumps for these gearboxes were 1,000 gallons and there were at least 4 gearboxes which were contaminated. The team thought about their options:

• Complete shutdown – They could shut down the equipment, drain the sumps, clean the sumps and then refill with new oil
• Partial shutdown – they could try cleaning up the oil while running the equipment at a lower cycle

The cost of one ton of steel is USD 689. This plant produces 4M tons of steel per year.

For a complete shutdown of the equipment, they would lose one week (5 days) of production which would equate to (4M/365 * 5days) = 54,795 tons of steel which would not be produced.

This would be a loss of 54,795 tons of steel * USD 689 = USD 37.8M

The cost of bringing in equipment (such as pumps), hiring contractors to dispose of the oil and ordering new oil have not yet been calculated or added to this cost. But, due to water contamination, this steel company could potentially lose USD37.8M if they shut down production to solve this issue.

On the other hand, if they rented some dehydration units and passed the oil through these while the system operated at a reduced capacity (possibly 50%), then the losses can be reduced. Assuming the same time of one 5-day week is needed for the dehydration of the sumps, then the losses (at a 50% reduced capacity) would be USD37.5M / 2 = USD 18.9M

This figure does not include the cost of renting a dehydration unit or the labor involved in this process. Whether it’s a partial or full shutdown (at a rate of only 5 days!), this company could lose between USD18M – USD37M due to contamination! Clearly, contamination can lead to millions of dollars in losses.

Case Study #2 – Particulate contamination

A cement manufacturing plant in Egypt began to notice that their gearboxes were experiencing failures more frequently than in the past. They took an oil sample and sent it off to the lab for further investigation. They found that the oil was contaminated with cement dust. Some gearboxes showed higher levels of contamination than others, particularly in one part of the plant.

Upon further inspection, they realized that the covers of the gearboxes were cleaner than the surrounding equipment for that part of the plant. A new trainee who was responsible for lubrication decided to “clean up” the covers while topping up the sumps. Unfortunately, most of the cement dust from the covers fell into the sump of the gearboxes and this caused the oil to become degraded quickly as the cement dust reacted with the oil and formed deposits.

Since the cement had contaminated the system, the operators would be required to flush the system, clean it and replace the oil.

This manufacturing plant produces 4M tons of cement per year. Cement is estimated at USD 150 per ton.

To flush and clean the system would require downtime of approximately one 5-day week.

The losses for a 5-day outage = (4M tons/ 365 days *5 days *USD 150) = USD 8.2M

This figure does not include the cost of new oil, or contractor services for flushing but a simple contamination “error” can cost USD 8.2M!

Overall, we can clearly see that while contamination may seem to be a small issue, it can end up costing us quite a lot in the long term, especially when our equipment fails, or we must delay production. Being able to understand the impact of contamination can help us to plan better for the future and prevent these costly mistakes. Now that we’re more familiar with contamination let’s try to prevent it before the losses occur!

Thank you Sanya Mathura with Strategic Reliability Solutions Ltd for sharing this informative and educational series article with us!

Implementing Lubricant Storage & Handling Procedures: Part 1 Understanding Contamination