Has onsite oil analysis helped promote a change in the organization’s culture toward precision lubrication practices?
Herb: Cleanliness control is a major effort on our part throughout Southern Company. We use our onsite particle counters to monitor the cleanliness of new oil, top-off containers and in-use oil. We publicize improvements in systems such as turbine oil reservoirs and large circulating oil systems and bring attention to problem systems. By doing this, plant management and craft personnel alike are more aware of how their practices affect those cleanliness control efforts. Another example is water content in turbine oil reservoirs. By using our onsite oil analysis equipment, we can get a ballpark idea of water content and see potential problems with water ingress usually before the situation gets too bad. We can also monitor how effectively our water-removal systems are operating. Bryan: Our testing program can distinguish between similar lubricants. This sensitivity helps us find vendor-made formulation changes that we may not discover otherwise. When a product formulation change without
