⎪ Maintenance and asset management ⎪
approach has been utilised across the entire fleet at Delta Transport Services, resulting in significant cost savings and enabling Delta’s forklifts to operate for 18-21 operational hours per day. Delta Transport Services Technical Manager, Mr Tavonga Gwatidzo, had this to say: “Well done to the team for uphold- ing systems and maintaining a good level of responsiveness to the alerts by WearCheck. The WearCheck tribology programme has as- sisted Delta Transport to maintain a reliable, healthy and highly productive fleet. We have achieved up to 30 000 forklift operational hours, exceeding the target of 18 000 hours. We believe that the effective implementation of the oil analysis and condition monitor- ing programme is contributing significantly to this level of success. Thank you to Team WearCheck for the partnership.” Kennedy Kashangura, Delta Transport Services National Operations Executive, added: “Our two key KPIs – oil sampling compliance and corrective action response rate – help us to maximise operational cost savings and keep productivity high. With an average fleet availability of 98.8%, we can deliver our products on time, ensuring high customer satisfaction. Our systems are standardised throughout all our operations around the country, with WearCheck at the heart of our maintenance systems.” In reality, time, resources and produc- tion pressure are always constraints. From WearCheck’s perspective, feedback is criti- cal. To ensure full team participation in the continuous improvement process and boost cost savings, we encourage the implementa- tion of a four-pronged actions-and-feedback approach as follows: • This is what I found as the root cause of the problem. • This is what I did to address the root cause of the problem. • These are the further challenges or risks I have observed. • Given more time, this is what I would do. Gaining maximum return on investment from a good condition monitoring programme requires leadership with a strong business culture, cultivating a positive work ethic and a winning mentality across the team, leading to ultimate cost savings. Oil analysis is not an event; it is a process involving the accumulation of many tiny actions that can result in a Domino Effect – where one event triggers a chain of related events. Small, consistent corrective actions in oil analysis will lead to significant outcomes, including substantial cost savings and full asset utilisation. These wins are evident in individual im- provements that accumulate over time. https://www.wearcheck.co.za/
The Oil Analysis Cycle begins with regular, systematic oil sampling that generates data to support informed decision-making.
failures, and component changes, among other factors. We discovered a direct link between changes in oil-wetted components and repeated faults in oil analysis. The compo- nents being repaired had a history of repeated contamination and wear issues. There was also a common pattern ob- served with the third consecutive fault occurrences. In areas of high operational intensity, three out of four components with fault repeats either underwent a part change on the third occurrence or a complete com- ponent change. In areas of low operational intensity, repeated part changes were common. Table 1 highlights this trend, showing the history from normal to severe status for a Fleet D01 Transmission component. Borderline status in month three led to further deterioration in months four and five, with resultant com - ponent failure three months after the water- contamination problem was first discovered. This aligns with this key principle: ‘Oil analysis helps the most if you pick up a prob- lem and address it at its onset’. We also noticed that this phenomenon of excessive fault repeats was associated with over-expenditure. ‘We have overshot our budget’ was a common refrain during feed- back sessions. Components end up running to failure, reminiscent of the Black Swan Effect, where unpredictable events are explained in hindsight, but with severe consequences that often affect an entire production line. New equipment purchase costs were found to exceed US$ 500,000 and, in some cases, running above US$ 1 million, depend- ing on machine type, brand, size, application and other factors. We realised that, by year five, substantial component changes that increased the average cost of equipment ownership meant the equipment was still not able to reach its full expected life. The above scenario provides a compelling
case for every organisation that has decided to embark on an oil analysis programme to put in place and relentlessly enforce systems that enhance effectiveness and efficiency, guided by the vision to achieve cost savings. Every alarm presents an opportunity to save. It therefore follows that if an organisa- tion is to reap the benefits of investing in an oil analysis programme, a sound corrective- action strategy must be at the heart of the maintenance system. What cost savings are: a forklift differential case study To demonstrate what cost savings are available, we examined a case study from Delta Transport Services, the Transport and Logistics arm of Delta Corporation Limited, a leading beverage-manufacturing company in Southern Africa that has been implement- ing the oil analysis programme for the past twenty-five years: A scheduled oil sample was extracted from a forklift differential. The WearCheck labora- tory detected and urgently reported critical water contamination at 4.1%. The workshop responded quickly by replacing the defective breather. The results of the two subsequent oil tests showed that the issue had vanished, indicating that the problem’s underlying cause had been identified and fixed. The history tracking report illustrates this improvement. If the issue hadn’t been resolved promptly, the organisation might have suffered a prema- ture differential failure, costing it anywhere from US$2 500 to US$9 000 in repairs or com- ponent replacement expenses, not to mention the cost of lost productivity and downtime. If this had been a CAT 797 mining dump truck, this same solution could have saved US$100 000 on a differential overhaul. The team's good responsiveness significantly reduced the risk of failure, thereby improv- ing forklift availability and reliability. This
May-June 2026 • MechChem Africa ¦ 29
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