Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Good day, everyone. Welcome to lubrication experts. And today we are talking grease again. And this time we're talking a new grease specification. So, something super important for the industry and hopefully something that we can all get on board with. Sometimes there's a bit of a black box as to why these specifications developed and exactly what they're for. So we're hoping to kind of like expand the sort of the knowledge gap, if you like, or close the knowledge gap on this particular spec. So the HPM Greece specification. And there's no one better to talk to about this than Gary Dudley. So Gary actually was an old colleague of mine at ExxonMobil, has since left and is working as an independent consultant. He's actually part of the lubrication expert group that we've put together. So trying to put together a full service technical offer formulation through the marketing, sales, as well as aftermarket support. And he's kind of come on board as both our grease and industrial lubricant formulation specialist as well. But Gary, did you want to give maybe a little bit more flavor to that background?
[00:01:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So thanks for having me on your show. Feels like this is a weekly show. I always look forward to seeing your YouTube videos come out each week from that. So, yeah, a little bit. So, like I said, spent my entire career of ExxonMobil, some people probably know, recently retired, and, you know, one of those things I say enjoyed always working in lubricants. I work from always tell people, like most remembering from Greece, this is what second half of my career really, at.
[00:01:34] Speaker C: Exxon Mobil was all about.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: But I spent a lot of time working on synthetic base stocks. You know, Pao esters did some and.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Then moved into aviation lubricants for a.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Bit and then, you know, did a bit extensive industrial lubricants, were doing various.
[00:01:49] Speaker C: Things there and then sort of integrases.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: But, you know, I sort of started my career in Greece. As I told people. I was like, I was doing the training at analg synthetic base stocks. And then later my career moved to the other side and worked on the formulation side. So for various roles from r and B all the way. And eventually when I retired, you know, the technology manager for ExxonMobil standpoint, so.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Been involved for 27 years now in this space.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome. I always like these kind of intros because you get to sort of see there's so many different career paths within our industry. You know, people often come into the industry, let's say, by accident, and then they find themselves kind of pinging around.
And so, you know, part of what I love about the industry is the breadth of experience that you sort of can gain.
But anyway, let's talk HPM grease specifications. And I think, you know, there might be a little bit of knowledge within our industry as to what it is. So let's say, for example, at Lubex, bow and stle, there's been a few people advertising HPM greases and things like that. So let's maybe take it one step further. If I'm an end user and I see that someone is selling an HPM Grease, what does that mean to me?
[00:03:04] Speaker B: I think the first part I always.
[00:03:06] Speaker C: Start off with, what is HPM?
[00:03:08] Speaker B: It's just an acronym for high performance, multi use grease.
Start with that. It's probably the most common grease of the industry. So I think a lot of folks.
[00:03:19] Speaker C: See it all the time and just.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Don'T recognize it and sort of, sort.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: Of evolve from there.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: So a number of discussions started, you know, maybe about a decade or so ago with NLGI really looking at, you know, trying to get more involved in the industry and so help guiding end users. If you look in this space for.
[00:03:37] Speaker C: Greece, there's not many specifications, right?
[00:03:40] Speaker B: So it's sort of new. And I think, like your question said, what's it mean?
[00:03:43] Speaker C: I haven't seen this.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: It just came out sort of nowhere. So it's sort of, in some ways, you know, it's an evolution of a.
[00:03:52] Speaker C: Specification that NLGI manages now, the GCLB.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: Specification, that's really more for wheel bearings and chassis on automotive vehicles.
But, you know, one of the things we saw is people were taking that.
[00:04:05] Speaker C: Spec and starting to apply it to.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Multi use or multipurpose type braces, which is probably really not the right way.
[00:04:12] Speaker C: To apply that specification.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: It really was meant for something else. And so what NLG ideas sort of.
[00:04:18] Speaker C: Got together and said, hey, you know, let's try to put a specification out.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: There that sort of defined the key.
[00:04:24] Speaker C: Criteria and performance requirements for a multi use grease.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Something that an end user can look at and say, you know, I see this specification, you know, I should feel.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: A bit more comfortable that, you know, it could be used in a wide.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Range of applications, because a lot of businesses or companies, the ultimate goal is.
[00:04:43] Speaker C: I want one grease for everything. They'll try to get there.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: And so sometimes you're just picking and.
[00:04:48] Speaker C: Choosing what works and you really don't have a lot of guidance to get you there.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: So that was sort of, in a way, the premise behind this. The other part was, I think brings with this a lot of things like.
[00:05:00] Speaker C: On the automotive side, right? You've heard GF six, GF five, PC.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: Eleven, you know, part NlGI also brought.
[00:05:07] Speaker C: About this, too, that sort of make the end users hopefully feel better, more.
[00:05:10] Speaker B: Comfortable selecting an HPM. Greece is that, you know, they, you know, they're independent, right? Organization that, you know, dedicated to Greece industry.
So that means everything will be third.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: Party reviewed and assessed. From that standpoint.
[00:05:26] Speaker B: They have an external agency, center for.
[00:05:29] Speaker C: Quality Assurance is doing the auditing and qualification steps.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: So independent, you know, group monitoring and managing everything, so avoids all that, you know, you know, did they pass and not pass it type of thing? And, you know, and then they built into an audit process.
[00:05:45] Speaker C: So the old part with this, I think, gives end user, I think, a sense of confidence, you know, I'm getting a good grease. That's really what it sounds, right?
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Am I getting a good grease to use equipment? And so that's sort of, you know, behind what it means that, you know, if you look at it, you know.
[00:06:00] Speaker C: You'Re getting a quality grease.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Um, and I think another nice thing is, like, particular for end users. Like, a lot of times you see, you know, a supplier come in and say, hey, here's all my specification performance criteria, right? You get the second supplier, they bring in something completely different, and you're like.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: Well, how do I compare them?
[00:06:17] Speaker B: And so I think that, you know.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: That brings a good chance for the end users.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: Like, hey, okay, now I can start.
[00:06:22] Speaker C: Comparing things on equal grounds and make my decision based on what extra stuff.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Do they bring to the table.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: So I was going to ask a little bit about that in terms of the development of a specification. So it always feels like when we have a new spec come to the industry, it's basically setting a floor of performance. And so as long as you exceed that, then you meet the specification. But there's still quite a lot of room for different companies to differentiate performance within that spec. Is that the same for HPM? Like, is it, is it going to. Are you envisioning that the greases will be relatively consistent in performance, to use a grease pun? Or do you think of it more as, like a minimum criteria? And then, you know, people might, you know, overshoot that if they're going for a very, very high performance grease?
[00:07:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that was something we.
[00:07:18] Speaker C: Sort of kept in mind.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: We sort of set our goal as well as our team put together, obviously.
[00:07:24] Speaker C: The industry, to set these specs.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: And one of the things we always sort of reference to ourselves was, you know, we wanted the specs to be challenging but doable. Right. And so we wanted to be able, like you said, it's a, you know, may look at it as a set of floor spec.
[00:07:39] Speaker C: Okay, these are the bare minimums, but.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: You know, everyone should be able to meet those. And then there leaves that room for.
[00:07:46] Speaker C: Differentiation from that standpoint.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: And even within the differentiation, NLJ also.
[00:07:54] Speaker C: Adds the option of adding what they call tags.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: So you can get the HPM certification, but you can also add an additional.
[00:08:02] Speaker C: Claim for, say, low temperature water resistance.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Corrosion resistance, that type of stuff, which.
[00:08:08] Speaker C: Has already taken the base HPM requirements.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: And just adding an additional layer of.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: Difficulty to say, hey, you know, okay, now you need to step out if you want corrosion resistance.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: If you want water resistance, you need.
[00:08:20] Speaker C: To do a little bit extra, a little bit more there.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: So definitely opens the door for people to differentiate each other. I think the big part is too, is like you now have a common.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Set of tests and methods that really lets the end user do an apples to apples comparison.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: I know you were your video the other day talking about, you know, gotta.
[00:08:40] Speaker C: Be careful you're not doing apples to oranges comparisons. Right. You really want to do aftermath happens.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: And so I think HPM sets that by defining the test you should be looking at, and then the results let you differentiate performance for your application.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Yeah, that idea of the tags is really interesting because we've not really seen that in a specification today. Like you said, with the engine oils, GF six, A, GF six B, C, K four, or whatever, they've always been a very standardized spec across the entire industry. And, you know, if you wanted to beat some of the performance levels by two x three x, there was no real way within the spec to be able to claim credit for that.
Now, obviously there's still going to be differentiation, but the ability to have a tag for, like you said, you know, water washout or, or something like that is, is, that's actually kind of unique. I've not really seen that lied anywhere else.
Interesting. So you mentioned that there are previous specifications relating more to automotive and that people were kind of taking that spec and kind of using it and extending its use for multipurpose guishes. So what are the major changes that we had to make from that previous spec to the current one?
[00:10:03] Speaker B: Yeah, so we did, like I say, I do encourage everyone to take a.
[00:10:09] Speaker C: Look at the NLGI website.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: There's a nice comparison on there. So what you'll see is some of the tests methods will be the same, but we'll change the severity of the test. I'll pick one example, like four ball weld for GCLB claim. You know you're looking at 200, right when you move to HPM now it's 250.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: So same test method, but the severity.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Is different from that standpoint. So that's one example, something we did. The other one is we add some new tests in something like shell role stability.
Very common, well known in the grease industry, not part of GCLB specification requirement, as well as we had an oxidation test.
[00:10:51] Speaker C: That's not hard. GCLB is there a.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: We sort of also looked across where.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: The standard ones folks are always looking.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: At and using and making sure they.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: Incorporate those into the specification. So not only there's a sense of.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Familiarity, there's a sense of these are.
[00:11:10] Speaker C: Tests people are already doing and running right now. We just needed to find what's the.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: Bare minimum level of performance you need to set as a specification.
Yeah, that's sort of how we looked at it. We didn't want to just roll over GCLB new and improved version. We really wanted something that stood out familiar, but we wanted to be different.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: And really tear to being able to use in multiple different applications.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: So when you look at HPM spec and all the tests, you're going to.
[00:11:40] Speaker C: See a cover wide range of different.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Types of things, from oxidation, a little bit around, low temperature seals, stability, that type of stuff.
Yeah. Last thing I just want to add.
[00:11:54] Speaker C: GCLB is not going away. It's still staying.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: This is just another set of specifications.
[00:12:01] Speaker C: For the industry to use for greases.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Okay, so then if I'm an end user, where would I expect to use these greases? Because we've already said they're multipurpose. Now, unfortunately, multipurpose means completely different things to everyone.
And if I'm in industrial versus I'm in automotive versus I'm in agriculture, the expectations for a multipurpose Greece can change quite a bit. So what kind of applications are we expecting? And obviously people are going to take this specification and use it however they want. But when NLGI had some maybe applications in mind for this spec, what kind of things were we thinking about?
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Yeah, so we did think a bit about, you know, when we sort of started at the sector, you know, things.
[00:12:57] Speaker C: Like, okay, we wanted to make sure.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: It could be used in automotive, in steel, construction, mining, general manufacturing, you know.
[00:13:06] Speaker C: Paper, I, that type of stuff.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: So we sort of step back and said, okay, look at it from a secretary burge. Cause you can sit back now just like you said multipurpose dresus. You know, they end up everywhere. And so from that standpoint, we wanted to make sure we kept that part.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: In mind as we said, the new specifications from there.
[00:13:23] Speaker B: But getting down to specifics, you know, things like, you can think of conveyor.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: Bearings, pillow block, fan bearings, you know, even at that level, specific type of things, you know, bearing rollers, henges bushings.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: You know, things like that is, you know, that's where we see this type of grease ended up end up showing up. And the reason, like I said, there's no good answers where you can see it everywhere.
But we also made sure the spec wasn't going to narrow you into things.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: Like, it had to be a certain thickener type, right. You can meet the specification with different types of thickeners.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: Looking at the list, and I haven't.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Done a deep dive, but I know.
[00:14:05] Speaker C: There'S a calcium sulfonyl there. There are definitely lithium greases on there.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: My experience, I could easily see a.
[00:14:12] Speaker C: Polyurea grease being on there, maybe already one on there.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: I just hadn't found it.
So from a thicker type, it's open to different types of thickeners, which opens up different applications.
Same thing around the base oil.
You don't have to use Pao to.
[00:14:29] Speaker C: Make this spec specification. You can use mineral oils, group ones.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Group two, you know, three, four, five. It could be any type of base oil being used. And the same thing around the additives. You know, it can be a various different types of additives can be used to get you there. So we wanted to keep that flexibility for the industry so we wouldn't mock people out, but at the same time.
[00:14:50] Speaker C: Give everyone a chance to make, you.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: Know, a good grease.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
So maybe to flip the question around, you know, because you've described what I would kind of imagine in a lot of industries is 99% of your greased applications. So what are kind of like the niche use cases or fringe use cases where you would see this specification not applying?
[00:15:22] Speaker B: I think right now, where we see, I'll put it this way, the challenge.
[00:15:27] Speaker C: We see for the future is, and.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: I'll put a caveat is NLGI's working on it, is when you get into long life and high temperature greases, it.
[00:15:38] Speaker C: May be a bit difficult to say, how do you take this spec and apply it to those type of applications?
[00:15:44] Speaker B: And it's something. Right now we call it phase two.
[00:15:47] Speaker C: Of the project they're working on.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: It's like, how do we come up.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: With a long life specification and a.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: High temp application specification or are they both the same? I would look at, I say to.
[00:15:58] Speaker C: Maybe be separate because you could have.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: Long life and you don't need high temp goes either way. And so that's one of the challenges.
[00:16:07] Speaker C: We know early on we saw going into this, we really wanted to try to build that into the spec.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: But challenge, Arizona, you start getting into.
[00:16:14] Speaker C: Dynamic bearing tests, right?
High speed bearing, low speed bearing tests where you actually putting it in, say electric motor or something that tests the grease and see what the life is.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: And so there's a lot of challenges.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: Around, you know, what's the right test to pick? You know, what type of bearing type they even pick.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: So what we decided to do is table it and said, you know, let's come back to that.
[00:16:34] Speaker C: Let's get this for specification out there.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Right now to sort of help folks.
And the other part, you can sort of build your comment like, you know, a customer or an end user maybe.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Like, you know, I got an extreme.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Application I'm looking at the HPM doesn't cover it well. You can still, what we've sort of been educating a lot of folks and saying you can take HPM and say as an end user or a manufacturer and say, hey, you still need to make HPM and that's part of your.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: Specification internally, but then you can add your own requirements onto it.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: So it's sort of a good way to say pre screen everyone, if you're looking at multipliers, say, hey, we need our minimum HPM. That puts everybody on equal footing. And all, by the way, we're going.
[00:17:19] Speaker C: To add two or three extra tests on our own.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: And so we think that's another way it complements what oems may be doing.
[00:17:26] Speaker C: With their own specifications that they're trying.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: To figure out what to incorporate into.
[00:17:31] Speaker C: Their own new spec.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: They can sort of pick the HPM and say, okay, we're going to go with HPM and then we're just going.
[00:17:36] Speaker C: To add another two or three tests to this.
[00:17:39] Speaker B: Or they take HPM and they may just say, hey, you know what? Your four ball weld is 250.
We're going to say we want 800. They may make a change. But I think that's part where I think it's going to really help a lot of these companies is it's a.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: Good reference document to help them build.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Out what they want to do. I think a lot of oems these days, they don't have lubes, experts on staff who understand oils and greases and that type of stuff. So I think this is something they.
[00:18:10] Speaker C: Can look at on the industry that's.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Specialized in Greece's to help them design.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: Their own specifications and make them better.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Save a lot of trouble down the road, faster and easier.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So a couple of things. To all those oems who do need a lube expert, I mean, give us a call.
So totally agree that it's nice to have kind of a reference document so that you can sort of base your own internal specifications on, right.
It's very, very useful.
Maybe a question, you mentioned a list that you can go to the list and find out what greases are on the list. And so that obviously implies that with the HPM spec manufacturers, or let's say Greece marketers need to apply and there's some kind of certification process, right. And you mentioned that audit is part of that process, right. Ensuring that.
And this is from a consumer protection standpoint, making sure, let's say, for example, if there's a random testing program that the manufacturers and the marketers are manufacturing to the performance criteria that they specified, which is great from an end user perspective, that sort of assurance that it gives you. Now, maybe a question that some of the marketers might be interested in is that lets say for example in engine oils, you and I would know that lets say a lubrizole or an oronite with their additive package will say this ad pack plus x base oil will give you, let's say API CK four.
And a lot of manufacturers will then list get grandfathered into CK four as a result. Now it sounds like HPM is not really going to work that way. And if you are using either a white label grease or a yemenite, like an additive package or a premix, that comes from one of the majors that you were then going to have to independently apply for HPM yourself to become part of that certification program.
Am I correct in describing the mechanics there?
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So each one will be like you said, each company will have to apply, get their certification. From that standpoint, there is a bit.
[00:20:48] Speaker C: Of where, say the manufacturer of the grease is applied and they got it under their own brand on the site.
[00:20:56] Speaker B: You can go to NlGi and see it. But there's also a process where say, if someone else is saying, buying that.
[00:21:02] Speaker C: Grease from them and rebranding it as.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Another grease, they don't have to go.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: Through the full process of re qualifying.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: They can use called the parent application.
[00:21:13] Speaker C: As part of the process.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: So you don't have to do a full re qualification.
[00:21:17] Speaker C: If you're just taking an existing product and rebranding it.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: So gets to a little bit, like you said, you can sort of get a little bit there.
The other part of what you're seeing out in the industry now, and I saw a bit of myself is over time was what we're actually seeing is.
[00:21:31] Speaker C: Some of the additive companies come out.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: With packages or individual components saying, hey, you mix these components, we're selling together and say a group one mineral oil lithium complex, you can meet HPM or.
[00:21:47] Speaker C: You can meet HPM plus the WR for water resistance.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: So you're seeing a little bit of that, like you said, moving towards what sort of the automotive industry there is doing. Not quite that far there yet.
The biggest challenge, obviously, in all this, people know what greases is. It's the manufacturing, right?
Two different companies could be using exactly the same additive technology and base oil. But if the processes are different, you easily make agrees with different properties and form itself. But you're seeing that move where the other companies are coming out and say, hey, someone wants customer comes to them and says, hey, I want to go out there. And HPM agrees with erosion resistance. What do you got?
You've really seen the additive companies now.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: And there's a number out there.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Hey, here's what you need to do to do this. I got the components, here's what you need.
[00:22:39] Speaker C: The mix, here's the tree rate, that type of stuff.
[00:22:42] Speaker B: So it's getting there. But like I said, the NF companies, I think they've definitely jumped on it.
[00:22:47] Speaker C: They were part of the whole spec setting, too, so they were aware of.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: What was coming from that standpoint. And I think a lot of them were, once it got published, they were ready. They're like, hey, we have the technology. This is what you need to do.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: To meet this spec. So sort of went, I see hand.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: In hand that way, too.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Awesome.
So maybe as we start to wrap up here, HPM greases, now, I've seen them kind of advertised in some of our trade shows and things like that. But is the program, like, fully up and running and, you know, HPM greases are available in the market? Is there some kind of, you know, stage rollout plan? What's the plan?
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's fully up and launched. Officially launched in 2021, obviously, as folks remember, that was sort of right in the middle of COVID So there were, like I said, we all recognized it. There are some challenges getting things up and going.
[00:23:46] Speaker C: It was harder to get word out.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: And talk about it, but it was launched January of 2021 1st Greece. What looked was approved in August of 2021. So too long after it first launched, I checked this morning, I counted 24 greases are now on the list.
A range of companies. From that standpoint, the one thing I.
[00:24:13] Speaker C: Thought was interesting, I hadn't noticed it.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Before, but there were two greases on the list. I was who they are, one with Mac tools, the other one was Dewalt. So in North America, two well known brands for tools. So it sort of got to what we were hoping at the very beginning, that oems would start recognizing the value of the specification and they could use.
[00:24:37] Speaker C: It for their products.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: So I thought was deciding to see Mac tools and people listed brands on.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: Two of the greases that got HVM approval.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: So it sort of gets back to you. I think the industry is starting to see it.
[00:24:48] Speaker C: I think it's starting to pick up steam now.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: I think things like these, they take time.
It's not easy. Change the spec, get a spec launched. So if you think through it, we launched it in 2021, expect a year or two of medication development time.
[00:25:06] Speaker C: If you want to make a new.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: Grease, that takes time. And then as it goes down, the end users and the equipment builders think about the time it takes for them.
[00:25:14] Speaker C: To change a spec or update document.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: So, you know, this is something we realize, you know, it's going to be a long term driven specification.
[00:25:23] Speaker C: It will grow over time.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: I mean, GCLB, I think well over.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: 200 listed greases on that specification.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: So that's what we're looking at. You know, we think it's going to grow over time. It's just going to be, you know, as more and more people recognize it.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: If they know yam creates a new.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Product piece of equipment, that's when I.
[00:25:43] Speaker C: Think you're going to see them apply HPM.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: I don't think you'll see the retroactive, like, hey, we got a piece of.
[00:25:48] Speaker C: Equipment that's been out there for ten years, we're just going to jump over to HPM.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: I mean, a bit more unlikely. I think what you'll see is new things come out.
[00:25:56] Speaker C: That's when you'll start seeing HPM work its way more and more into the industry.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: And then on the NFGI side, I talked about the log life and high Tim tags continue to work that area.
[00:26:09] Speaker C: I think NLGI is committed.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Get through those two, which will be.
[00:26:13] Speaker C: Challenging, you know, may take another two to three years before we see that.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: And we've already started talking a bit about, you know, wouldn't it be great if NLGI could come out with a.
[00:26:21] Speaker C: You know, specification or method around energy efficiency for greases.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: That's. So I think what we're looking at is like just the first phase of this. And I think I. The plan analgies that are mapped out, you know, this is something we want to keep growing and doing over the.
[00:26:36] Speaker C: Years, adding more and more, whether it's a tag or a specification, to really sort of help the industry.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:42] Speaker C: Feel confident and have something to look at.
[00:26:44] Speaker B: Right. You know, too many times, it's like we started off at the beginning, it's like, you know, you get a couple suppliers come in, they all have their.
[00:26:50] Speaker C: Own test methods, they all have their own preference for limits.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: I think having a common ground to start with for the industry, I think.
[00:26:57] Speaker C: It'S the real quad.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Well, I very much look forward to the growing family of HPM specs now. I mean, specs are always one of those things which are, they kind of like the boring part of our industry, right, of setting specifications. But the downstream impacts of setting those specs were obviously really important for end users. So, Gary, really appreciate you coming in and helping to explain a bit of the history and the context behind the, the grease spec and, you know, what end users can expect out of that. And I think there's some really good tips, especially around setting a baseline for internal specs as well. So really appreciate your time and we'll talk soon.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: All right, excellent.
