AUTOMOTIVE HDDO
The challenges of heavy duty diesel engine oils for commercial vehicles:
An oil blender’s perspective
Adrian Hill, Technology Manager, Morris Lubricants
The life of an oil blender has never been an easy one and it is not going to get better any time soon. This is certainly true for the products designed for commercial vehicle applications. The constant legislative pressure for a continued reduction in emissions does not mean it is possible for progressive oil blenders, such as Morris Lubricants and others, to “take the foot off the gas” anytime soon.
The role of an oil blender is to take validated and approved product formulations and to upscale them into commercial batches to accommodate the needs of factory fill or the aftermarket. The complexity of this process continues to challenge Technical, Quality, Production and Logistics Teams.
Looking at the past trends, in the commercial vehicle sector, we have seen the cyclic change of broadly qualified heavy duty diesel engine oils becoming fragmented as Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) introduce new technology, whether its duty cycle, fuel type or since the 1990s, emissions related. A couple of ‘broad brush’ oil formulations may have satisfied the needs of the market, but constant change and updates creates product fragmentation in the market with multiple oil formulations and offerings being required. To remain compliant but improve logistics, the lubricant industry’s technology providers undertake a program of consolidating multiple additive
package options to help reduce end user inventory. The reduced product offerings means that oil blenders can benefit from narrow product offerings, simplified end user choice, enhanced commercials in terms of reduced manufacturing costs and improved economies of scale around the price of raw materials. At this stage ‘broad brush’ products return. After all, everyone wants to be competitive and a multi-qualified product that serves many OEM specifications drives volumes up and manufacturing costs down. However, these narrow product offerings appear to be drifting away again and with the latest set of changes it is all feeling a little different this time around.
As mentioned, legislation is the driving force behind change and with the environment a subject on everyone’s lips, along with an increased level of public awareness and global collaboration to meet targets, it is a bigger deal now more than ever before. Electrification, particularly in terms of passenger cars
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