Product consistency is critical for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Your name and profitability are directly linked to the performance and reliability of your products. This includes the components they chose to build with. Can maintenance-free bearings improve the status quo?
When a component, such as a bearing, fails prematurely, resolving the problem often involves the customer filing a warranty claim with the OEM. These warranty claims are costly on several fronts. The time it takes the OEM to process and evaluate the claim and ship the replacement part results in lost efficiency and, ultimately, money.
The financial expense of a warranty claim is typically between one and five percent of sales. The costs can often be more insidious than that; A loss of efficiency and productivity on the part of the customer can lead a company to almost damage its brand reputation as well.
Why do bearings fail? Inadequate lubrication
Bearing selection and proper lubrication can have a huge impact on warranty costs and the time an OEM spends making warranty claims. Proper lubrication is critical to bearing performance. Lubrication maintenance is notoriously difficult to do correctly because it leaves room for error on the part of the end user.
Of course, there are many variables that the customer must take into consideration for proper lubrication. Grease compatibility, amount of lubrication (which depends on bearing size), frequency (which depends on manufacturer recommendations), proper cleaning, and proper storage are just a few examples.
The promise of maintenance-free bearings
Proper lubrication often depends on the need for experience. Due to the complexity of lubrication, coupled with the fact that not all customers may be immediately aware, inadequate lubrication is the leading cause of premature bearing failure.
Of course, determining the root cause of bearing failure is difficult and can easily become controversial for all parties involved; for many OEMs this becomes a very complicated position. And because failures are often the result of end-user maintenance practices, vendor recovery – the amount of money that can be recovered from a vendor in the event of a warranty issue – is often very low.
The solution: Eliminate warranty claims with solid lubrication
The good news: adopting maintenance-free bearings during design can virtually eliminate lubrication-related failures and warranty claims.
Solid lubrication eliminates the need for lubrication-related maintenance. This greatly reduces the likelihood of premature bearing failure due to inadequate lubrication. Maintenance work is easier for customers, which is an important product upgrade that an OEM can offer.
In short, solid lubrication eliminates the long list of variables involved in lubricating and maintaining customer bearings. Return time and energy to the right place: more productive activities and greater efficiency
