An excellent track record

In the first of a two part series interview, Helen Difford, New Food, speaks with Ian Davidson of Exxon Mobil Lubricants & Petroleum Specialities about the company’s current role in the food industry.

With over one hundred years of industry experience and expertise in lubrication, ExxonMobil has a long and established history as a company. So what does ExxonMobil bring to the table that other companies might not?
“ExxonMobil has a long standing tradition of increasing our customers’ competitiveness by helping to increase their productivity and maximise equipment life. Our market leading product technology along with the application expertise of our sales staff and relationships with original equipment manufacturers provide the end-user with a compelling proposition that helps reduce their overall costs.

Our recently introduced line of Mobil SHC Cibus oils and Mobil SHC Polyrex grease are perfect examples of how our lubricants are designed to meet the most demanding needs of our customers.

These fluids are designed specifically for the food processing industry and are formulated to help companies benefit from long lubricant life. We believe these technologies to be at the forefront in helping to meet the needs of the equipment builder and end-user alike and capable of driving real benefits.”

And how does ExxonMobil help companies in the food industry to maximise their productivity?
“Productivity is directly related to asset availability, machinery and labour, as well as the avoidance of defects during the production process. In the context of the food industry, this means meeting production targets at minimum cost and minimal generation of finished food products that are unsuitable for consumption. Reduced energy consumption per unit of production is also a critical factor.

By using long-life lubricants, such as our Mobil SHC Cibus oils and Mobil SHC Polyrex grease, companies can help reduce the downtime associated with frequent oil changes, equipment failures and the additional labour burden required.

A perfect example of how our family of Mobil SHC fluids can help companies enhance equipment performance was recently documented in a sugar beet processing plant. At this plant, our Mobil SHC Polyrex 462 was used to replace a competitive product.

Our Mobil SHC Polyrex 462 was chosen to help the plant alleviate the consistent equipment problems they had been experiencing using the competitive product, which included frequent bearing and grease distribution failures in a high temperature, wet and heavily loaded machine.

Naturally, as a pioneer in the field of advanced synthetic lubricant technology, we consistently have these kinds of success stories from many customers across nearly every type of commercial and industrial market sector, including the beverage and food industries.”

With regards to production targets, how does ExxonMobil assist the industry?
“As a global supplier, we have a robust distribution network. One of our primary goals is to drive the flawless execution of our own manufacturing and supply logistics, all with the intent of optimising our c ustomers’ experience.

Our track record is excellent in this regard. We work closely with the end-user to intimately understand their operations and production goals.

When appropriate, we use our expertise to recommend process improvements. The goal is to increase asset availability, reduce defect rates, minimise costs and increase the availability of labour for alternative value added tasks. Our experience shows that our clients are able to set increasingly challenging production targets and our process knowledge, lube technology and application expertise plays a very important part in helping them achieve these goals.

Lubricants play their part by reducing component failures and extending the time between planned maintenance activities.

The technology-leading Mobil SHC Cibus oils and Mobil SHC Polyrex greases we offer can help extend equipment life beyond the capabilities of standard lubricants. Additionally, they are NSF H1 registered which fits into most customers’ risk management systems such as HACCP.”

What quality assurance does ExxonMobil employ in the manufacture of food machinery lubricants?
“ExxonMobil’s goal is flawless manufacturing for all of our product lines. To that end, ExxonMobil operates a strict product quality control process across all its product lines, not just meeting the requirements of ISO 9000/9001 and ISO 14000 but also employing additional internal processes to ensure the quality and integrity of our products in the market.

For food machinery lubricants, due to the additional sensitivity, the extra process starts with component compliance to Food and Drug Administration (FDA), formulations registered with the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF), strict production specification control, component receipt checks and specific manufacturing process controls. For our newly launched Mobil SHC Cibus product line, this means dedicated equipment which is employed for loading, blending, sampling, testing and filling of the product.

Risk assessments are run on the lubricant manufacturing process to further confirm the appropriate processes and controls are in place to ensure the performance, the quality and the integrity of the product delivered to the customer.”

For further information, please visit www.mobilindustrial.com