The client is a family-owned company and a leader in the lubricating oil market for over 90 years. With a presence in more than 40 countries, including emerging markets such as Bangladesh, India, and Morocco, the company has experienced significant growth in the past three years, both in revenue and in demand for tailor-made lubricating oils. This growing demand has led to strategic investments in new plants to enhance production and product quality.
Table of Contents
The Project
As part of its production expansion and optimization efforts, the client commissioned Granzotto to design and build a fully automated industrial plant from scratch, featuring 20 lines for various raw materials (bases and additives).
The primary need was to maintain a high-quality standard for the final product during every production cycle, minimizing human error.
This objective was successfully achieved by implementing customized solutions for the automatic dosing and mixing of bases and additives and by recovering residual product in the pipelines using the pigging system. These were integrated with a centralized control system managed through dedicated software.
The Use of Pigging Systems to Reduce the Number of Lines and Costs
For this project, Granzotto installed G-RECO PIG systems to recover residual product, both from bases and additives. This not only minimized waste and shortened production times but also resolved cross-contamination issues. As a result, the number of plant lines was reduced from 20 to 2 (grouping families of base oils), significantly lowering the initial investment, maintenance, and plant management costs. This also reduced the number of components prone to malfunctions (especially pumps and valves), operational defects, or misuse.
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Tailor-Made Lubricating Oil Production Plant: From Design to Engineering
After evaluating the client’s objectives and needs, the available space, and the product characteristics, the Granzotto team designed and built each plant line, taking into account regulatory and safety requirements, as well as the chemical, physical, and rheological properties of bases and additives.
Thanks to a high degree of engineering and expertise, the team was able to provide the client with the optimal piping solution for the transfer, distribution, and dosing of bases, additives, and lubricating oils (G-MOVE), automated systems for process temperature control, and pigging systems to recover product and drastically limit cross-contamination.
The piping was made of stainless steel, with wide-radius fittings and joints welded using a closed-chamber orbital process in an inert atmosphere to ensure smooth passage of the PIG device, which is propelled by compressed air. The material for the PIG device was carefully selected to match the specific requirements of this project, and its design was optimized to balance recovery performance and the pressures required for PIG propulsion through the pipelines. Granzotto also designed and built the compressed air management and distribution system used to propel the PIGs and operate the valves.
For each line, the project specified different pumping systems based on the viscosity of the liquids being handled:
- For the bases (maximum viscosity of ~200 cP), hollow disk oscillating pumps were installed.
- For the additives (more viscous), pneumatic diaphragm pumps were used.
Industry 4.0 Automation: Precision and Total Control
One of the most critical phases in producing high-quality lubricating oils is mixing, a step the client focuses on due to the presence of over 1,000 different formulations in their catalog. Raw materials must therefore be mixed carefully and systematically, respecting the recipe and the sequence of component additions, while maintaining constant control over quantities, temperature, and mixing times.
The Industry 4.0 automation system implemented by Granzotto enables the client to control the dosing operation directly through management software, ensuring greater precision and repeatability of the final product. This reduces errors in the quantities of raw materials specified in the recipe or the addition of incorrect additives, which could lead to significant non-conformities.
The automated production management system also allows for real-time monitoring of raw material inventory, keeping track of the quantities dosed for every product manufactured.
Conclusions
Thanks to innovation and automation, the client has effectively responded to the challenges of the global market by optimizing its production processes. With Granzotto’s technical support, the company has implemented advanced solutions for lubricating oil production, ensuring quality, efficiency, and sustainability in an increasingly competitive industry.
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