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| | Lubricant management
EPLUS ™ Esso
professional lubrication services
EPLUS (Esso Professional
Lubrication Services) is a comprehensive forum to record, schedule, track and
report lubrication activities. This service was designed by Imperial Oil to
organize and help manage the lubrication activities for Canadian companies of
all sizes. It is applicable to and currently being used by Esso industrial
customers in a wide variety of industry sectors in Canada: pulp and paper,
mining, manufacturing, utilities, forestry, and steel production.
The EPLUS offer is typically a two-phase implementation.
Phase 1 is the "lubrication survey". This is a comprehensive list of all
equipment, and associated lubrication points at our customer's site. For each
lube point, an Esso lubricant is recommended along with lubricant-related
activities; e.g. lube check/add/change out frequencies. Your Esso
representative will assist you in compilation of this information.
Phase 2 involves managing those lubrication requirements to optimize your
lubrication efficiency and effectiveness. This can be done in one of two ways.
Some customers choose to operate from a hard-copy lube survey where operating
environment and practices do not change. Other customers choose to manage
their lubrication requirements through utilization of our EPLUS software.
EPLUS software
The EPLUS software tool is the simplest and most
efficient method for Esso customers to schedule and track their lubrication
requirements. It was designed to operate like most Windows applications (e.g.
Excel, Word for Windows, etc.) and is compatible with Windows 95, NT, 2000 and
XP.
For example, each morning, maintenance personnel simply
call up the day's lubrication report to receive a printed listing of the
following:
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Machine, equipment number, part to be lubricated.
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Number of lubrication points.
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Recommended lubricant to be used.
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Check, add, or change the lubricant.
The computer program is flexible enough to group machines together in whatever
format you want. For example, machines can be grouped by section, and sections
can be grouped by department. Another option would be to group all machines
lubricated by the same oiler, resulting in lists for each oiler containing all
the machines for which they are responsible and the service required on them.
Reports can be customized and saved for future use. The user of the software
(site manager, oiler, etc.) does not have to worry about programming. Your
Esso representative enters the necessary information about your business and
the data collected from the lube survey. The system is flexible and simple
enough to allow you to update the information to ensure that it continuously
reflects the current state of your equipment thus helping to ensure the
accuracy of the lubrication and the preventative maintenance of your equipment.
EPlus lube survey and audits
Lube audits and surveys are just some
of the services provided by Imperial Oil's marketing technical services (MTS)
group, aimed at helping our customers save money through sound lubrication
practices. These savings are achieved by ensuring that the customer:
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Uses the correct products in their applications
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Has only the products they need (e.g. product consolidation opportunities)
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Is using the lowest cost supply options to meet their needs (e.g. purchases
bulk/drum product vs. pails)
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Is maintaining their equipment at the appropriate intervals
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Is taking advantage of products that can extend their equipment life and/or
increase their maintenance intervals
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Has an appropriate monitoring program on critical equipment
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Has the tools they need to support their lubrication requirements
What is a lube audit?
The lube audit is typically the first
stage in assessing our customers' lubrication practices, principles and
products. The lube audit is an evaluation of the current procedures used by
the customer to maintain their equipment. During a typical audit, our skilled
MTS representatives cover a broad scope ranging from how products are
purchased, supplied and used. The customer maintenance procedures are
evaluated along with ensuring they are using the right products in their
applications. The end result of a lube audit is the identification of
opportunities that will save the customer money. These opportunities are then
reviewed with the customer and an action plan to deliver those savings is
developed.
If you are a new customer of Imperial Oil, lube
audits are essential to enable the development of a sound lubrication plan
that can save you time and money.
Lube surveys - How they
can benefit your company
Imperial Oil's MTS specialists may
perform a lube survey once they have completed a lube audit. Lube surveys
involve cataloguing all equipment in various sections of the facility and
associated lubrication points. For each lubrication point, lubrication
intervals are assigned to ensure effective and efficient lubrication of
equipment. Often lube points will be tagged with the product name that should
be used in that equipment. Filtration and oil analysis requirements along with
other pertinent information will be captured. Once the data has been captured,
it is entered into Imperial's computerized lube maintenance system, EPLUS. In
its most basic application, EPLUS can be used to print off lists of customer
equipment, product recommendation, and volume required.
Once installed EPLUS is capable of :
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Providing lists of equipment, products utilized, volume required
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Providing a daily route schedule for the maintenance staff
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Providing either a standard maintenance schedule (system generated) or a
customized routing schedule (customer generated)
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Providing a forecast of product volumes required over a given maintenance
schedule
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Capturing comments from maintenance staff (e.g. bearing is noisy) which can be
used by the maintenance scheduler
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Storing the history of a machine's maintenance
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Including competitive products (but practice is not encouraged)
Lube audits, surveys and EPLUS are provided free of charge to customers of
Imperial Oil.
For more information on lube surveys and audits, please contact your Esso
sales representative, or call 1-800-268-3183.
See also:
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