Oil Sampling Frequency
A common question we are asked is, "How often should I sample the oil in my equipment?" While there is a lot to consider when setting an oil sampling schedule, there are two main factors that will help you determine your frequency.
What Factors Play into Sampling Frequency?
Criticality and Safety
Criticality
Some questions you will want to ask yourself are:
- How critical is this piece of equipment in your process?
- Will the product be affected in a negative way?
- Are you still going to be able to produce, or are you going to take a big hit on the bottom line?
- If this piece of equipment shuts down, how would it affect other pieces of supporting equipment?
Once you determine the criticality of the equipment, then you can decide how often you should pull oil samples.
If you have a piece of critical equipment, you're going to want to sample it more frequently, say on a monthly basis, rather than a lower criticality piece of equipment that you might consider sampling on a quarterly basis.
Safety
Safety is another very important component to consider when planning your sample frequency. If you have a piece of equipment that poses a great risk to sample, you might want to consider sampling less frequently.
However, if the machine's functionality is critical and can cause harm due to a failure, then you will want to sample it more often to avoid failure.
Learn More About Oil Sampling Frequency
If you are interested in learning more about the criticality and safety of your oil sampling process, get in touch with TestOil today! You can also download our Critical Pieces to the Puzzle eBook to learn more!
