Walk through any plant that uses linear motion systems, and you can often see maintenance workers, grease gun in hand, applying lubrication to linear guides. And why shouldn’t they. Under-lubricated guides can wear excessively, which leads to performance problems and premature failure.

These labor-intensive lubrication practices, however, do not come cheap. We estimate that manual lubrication can cost upwards of $500 per grease fitting when you consider the cost of the lubricant itself and the wages of the guy with the grease gun. And that figure doesn’t begin to capture the total cost of manual lubrication when you consider that many grease fittings are difficult to access and service without triggering some downtime.