Understanding Lubrication Failures

What is a lubrication-related failure? To those who think they have none or few, a lubrication-related failure is usually defined as one that occurs when a machine has no oil in it or someone puts the wrong oil in it. In reality, most manufacturers experience many lubrication-related failures and merely misclassify them. Many failures are not even recorded as such because the problems were diagnosed and repaired before the machine ceased to function. To understand why so many failures are in fact related to lubrication, or more accurately, poor lubrication, one must look at typical root causes of failure.