Spectro Scientific Blog

Estimate your annual savings

Posted by Janet Keefe on March 06, 2018

Calculator   Spectro.pngWhen companies are considering adding on-site oil analysis capability to their maintenance program with the MicroLab analyzer they typically want to know how quickly the investment will pay off for them. To help fleets evaluate the potential savings that on-site oil analysis can bring to them we developed a savings calculator that allows you to input specific information about your fleet to determine the estimated annual savings you may achieve.

 The calculator considers three areas of savings potential.

The first is savings of moving from using an outside lab analysis to on site analysis.  Labs can cost anywhere from $10-15 per sample to as much as $30-50 per sample for expedited service. The MicroLab sample analysis costs approximately $3.50 to run a sample based on all of the consumables required.


The next area of savings evaluated by the calculator is the ability to extend oil drains.
 Only with on-site analysis do you have the immediate information needed to decide whether it is possible to extend an oil drain interval. This savings can be significant and is very measureable. The savings are achieved through the reduction in new oil, disposal of waste oil and the reduction in labor.

The last area of savings is the reduction in unplanned mechanical failures. The cost of equipment failure goes beyond the replacement cost of the failed component - if an engine fails on a vehicle there is also the towing costs to get it back to the garage and the lost productivity as well as potential inconvenience to customers.

 


Let’s look at a couple of examples of the calculator.

In our first example let’s consider a fleet that typically sends about 80 samples per month out to a lab at a cost of $20. They would be spending almost $20k per year for analysis. With the MicroLab cost per sample around $3.25 the cost of running the same samples could save them over $16k per year. 

 Our second example we will see what the potential savings would be for a smaller fleet of heavy duty equipment such as frontend loaders and large hauling trucks if they are able to extend their oil drain interval. The cost of an oil drain for heavy duty equipment can be $150 or more. If the typical drain cycle is about 4 times per year and oil analysis can eliminate just one oil drain per year per vehicle, the resulting savings would be $60k per year.

 Finally let’s consider an example of a bus fleet to see what the savings would be by eliminating unplanned engine repairs. If the fleet experiences just 2 engine rebuilds and 2 engine replacements it could cost them up to $80k. If oil analysis eliminated just 1 of each of those experiences it would save the fleet $40k.

 Please visit our web site at spectrosci.com and try out our MicroLab savings calculator to see what savings you can achieve by adding on-site oil analysis with the MicroLab analyzer.

Savings Calculator

Topics: Fleets