Brad KuvinLubricant Use/Misuse: Reducing Cost per Stroke
January 19, 2024Comments
A digital, data-based process implemented recently in the pressroom of the Hopkinsville, KY, plant of automotive Tier-One supplier Metalsa has opened the eyes of management, and plant-floor workers as well, to the reality of lubricant overuse and its associated costs.
“A big part of lubricant use, or overuse as sometimes can be the case, wasn’t understood,” explains Derek (Gage) Struckmeyer, a process engineering specialist at the Metalsa facility. “We didn’t have the data necessary to understand if it was a process- or culture-based problem, or both. Too often the cost of the lubricant is overlooked; it’s not an infinite resource.”
As Struckmeyer describes the atmosphere surrounding the plant’s pressroom, stocked with 14 presses all plumbed to one central lubrication system, he next explains how he and his team recently embarked on a project to examine lubricant use—and overuse.
“We wanted to better understand lubricant cost per stroke, and per part,” he says, recalling that the firm had been going through lubricant at an exaggerated rate.
A Wake-Up Call
That wake-up call led to the firm’s lubricant supplier, Irmco, suggesting that the plant perform a deep dive into lubricant consumption, by collecting data directly from the plant floor. The project goals: track lubricant consumption per press stroke, while also surveying and validating mixing accuracy and repeatability.
“The challenge we see at our customers’ facilities,” shares Irmco vice president and director of R&D Frank Kenny, “is over-application. We want to solve the problem of over-application, which creates problems that cost money—cleanup, scrap and defects. Today’s managers are awash in data; we’re all digital beings, so we wanted to bring this to the lubrication process. Gather data, then offer advice based on the data.”
“We had Irmco install the iNSight system on a 2500-ton coil-fed transfer press,” Struckmeyer shares, “outfitted with 24 manifold inputs—16 on the top die section and eight underneath. We used iNSight only for monitoring the top manifolds. We run two 10-ft. dies on that press and, depending on the part and process, will spray lubricant in the first die for blanking and the second die set for forming.”
Reviewing the system health data collected, Kenny and the Metalsa team found that the spray program for one of the parts had been altered, considerably so, leading to an overspray situation. And, after analyzing the data, the production team, upon close investigation of the system components, found that some of the spray-nozzle tips either had been exchanged for larger sizes, or drilled out, presumably to cure clogs. The larger nozzle openings led to overspray.
