Last night I caught part of a documentary about over servicing in healthcare. The ordering of unnecessary and sometimes invasive tests. Performance of surgeries and other procedures which aren’t required or which are not scientifically proven to be helpful. And this issue is more or less universal across healthcare in developed countries. It’s a very costly one too. Not just monetarily, but also in terms of patients outcomes. Plus, the more sophisticated modern medicine becomes, the more complex and difficult this problem is to manage.

While watching this program it occurred to me that there are analogies here for other types of systems, which although not biological, do require ‘an apple a day to keep the doctor away’, and do become ill (develop faults). When it comes to hydraulic systems, you could be forgiven for taking the view that the prevailing culture is one of under servicing, rather than over servicing. And while this may be true in a broad sense, it’s not strictly true in all instances.

For example, a lot of hydraulic oil and filters are changed on hours in service, rather than ‘on condition’. If an ‘on hours’ change is too early, it qualifies as over servicing. And it’s not just the cost of the oil and filters that must be considered, but also the interference with the system that’s necessary to change them. Just like in medicine where every invasive procedure carries some risk of complications, the same is true for invasive maintenance on a hydraulic system. And this means you don’t want to do it needlessly or any more often than you have to.

This same minimal intervention approach should also be applied when troubleshooting. As I explain in chapter 2 of The Hydraulic Troubleshooting Handbook, there are a variety of troubleshooting tools and tests available. And it’s incumbent on the troubleshooter to know when it’s appropriate to deploy them, and when it’s not.

For example, a flowmeter (flow tester) is in many respects the definitive hydraulic troubleshooting tool. But it’s also the most invasive to use: the system must be opened in order to connect it. Fluid is lost, air and possibly other contaminants are ingressed. And the use of its loading valve damages the oil (thermal damage caused by the pressure drop). This means a flowmeter should only be deployed after all other simpler, less invasive checks and tests have been exhausted, or at least considered.

Like doctors, hydraulics practitioners are prescriptionists. And prescribing the right check, test or intervention at the appropriate time, requires both good training and sound judgement. In other words over servicing, or under servicing, is a costly mistake. And to discover six other costly mistakes you want to be sure to avoid with your hydraulic equipment, get “Six Costly Mistakes Most Hydraulics Users Make… And How You Can Avoid Them!” available for FREE download here.