Looking past the barrel price

Selecting the right metalworking fluid and indeed the right supplier, can make a tremendous difference to a manufacturing process, but this often requires a change in mindset, writes James Byrom, managing director of ETL Fluid Experts, UK distributor of Motorex metalworking fluids.  

Selecting the right metalworking fluid and indeed the right supplier, can make a tremendous difference to a manufacturing process, but this often requires a change in mindset, writes James Byrom, managing director of ETL Fluid Experts, UK distributor of Motorex metalworking fluids.


What manufacturing business wouldn’t like to see productivity gains, cost reductions, improved environmental impact, HSE compliance, and even happier operators? I can’t think of anything else that can have such a far-reaching impact on an engineering business that is so easy and so inexpensive to change.

Unfortunately, not everyone views coolant this way, and a lot of business is still won or lost on price per barrel, even in facilities where everything else in the production process is the latest and greatest. Like the customer that wanted us to move coolant from an old disused machine into his just delivered £500,000+ acquisition!

You can tell the non-believers; they use terms like ‘oil is oil’ and refer to water miscible coolant as ‘suds’, ‘white water’, and even ‘slurry’. They are resigned to whatever coolant problems they have always had, and therefore set out to spend as little as possible on a barrel of metalworking fluid.

They’ve probably changed supplier two or three times in the last decade, but nothing has really changed on the shopfloor (except the barrel colour). One more common factor? You can smell their coolant from reception before you’ve even had chance to sign in.

Who can blame them for concluding that coolants are all much of a muchness? If they have bought from several well-known oil companies and had a similar experience from them all, why would they think there was anything better out there?

Price is obviously a component of overall coolant spend but there are many other costs that are directly influenced by the coolant in use and the support from the supplier. Any one of these resultant savings can make the barrel price seem relatively insignificant.

Consumption


The most significant element of coolant cost isn’t the initial fill – it’s the amount of product used for topping up every day. Forget what the sales guy or the datasheet claims and measure how much mixed emulsion you get from a barrel (use a flow meter) or monitor the top-up concentration needed to maintain strength in your machine.

If a ‘cheap’ coolant is half the price but you need to use three times as much, it really isn’t cheap, and you’ve done yourself out of the other benefits of using a high-performance fluid in the process.

Tool life


All coolants are not equal. Some are formulated to a price; some to achieve the ultimate performance and, of course, there’s everything else in between. Imagine for a moment that a premium quality coolant might bring better machining performance, and therefore create even a modest increase in tool life. Then consider how much more you spend on tooling compared to coolant. In many cases just a 10% saving in tooling would pay for all of your coolant spend, not just the extra to upgrade to a premium product.

As an example, we have achieved a 150% increase in tool life on a demanding thread milling operation during a recent trial – significant, demonstrable savings from simply changing to our fluid from a well-respected competitor product.

Sump life


It is reasonable to expect upwards of 18 months between machine clean outs with a high-quality metalworking fluid. A shorter sump life means more consumption, waste costs, and expensive downtime. With the right coolant, and ongoing fluid management from the supplier, machine clean-outs should be planned well in advance, meaning you’ll never suddenly lose a machine from your schedule because the coolant has ‘gone off’ over a weekend.

Service


A responsible coolant supplier will do that most unusual of things for any sales organisation – they will try their very best to make you buy LESS product! This will be through the promotion of best practice – product selection, water treatment, staff training, introducing equipment (coolant mixing, distribution, recycling etc) to reduce consumption and increase productivity, working with you on optimisation of cutting data.

On trial


How can you assess a potential new coolant against the above criteria? It’s not easy on paper; every press release for every new product seems to promise the same benefits. The only way to make an informed decision is to conduct a trial.

A trial should be an opportunity to assess both the fluid and the service from the supplier. Using your equipment, tooling, materials and operators means you get the chance to see the reality behind the claims – a real ‘money where your mouth is’ situation for the coolant company.

The definition of a successful trial will be different for each customer and must be accurately defined well before the start. What improvements are you hoping to achieve? Can you measure them; for example, which machine has consistent work going through that will allow you to determine tool life improvements? How long should the trial run before you are happy to make a decision?

Coming back to the non-believers – please cast the net out and give someone a chance to improve all things coolant-related on your shopfloor. I could cite any one of our managed coolant customer sites as an example. Imagine a workshop with clean machines, automatically topped-up, free of tramp oil, smelling fresh and with happier operators.

All of this is within reach and can be had without additional overall spend, if you are willing to look beyond price and towards cost.

ETL Fluid Experts www.etlfluidexperts.com

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