If destructive complexity is allowed to persist and grow, it will increasingly slow the development of new products and specifications and raise costs to an unacceptable level. Ultimately, it has the potential to result in products that may not meet the needs of customers, original equipment manufacturers or the end consumer.

The Challenge

It is a matter of public record that global lubricant volumes are projected to grow by only 1 to 2 percent per year in the foreseeable future, with quality upgrades and drain interval extensions offsetting the volumetric growth driven by the introduction of new vehicles. At the same time, technology investment costs in the additives industry are running at a significantly higher rate, with publically reported annual increases of between 7 and 20 percent.

This situation clearly is not sustainable long term. The combination of low growth, rapid cost escalation and high baseline investment is a challenging mix that could ultimately stifle the innovation the entire industry desires.

Sustainable Innovation

The lubricants industry has proven over many years to be highly adept at delivering significant innovations of great value to the market. Tremendous advances in engine technology have been introduced, for example by the development of fuel efficient lubricants, low- and mid-sulfated ash, phosphorus and sulfur (SAPS) formulations and very high performance synthetic products that can help meet CO₂ emissions targets, protect aftertreatment systems and provide enhanced durability for advanced components.

The industry needs to ensure that it is structured and operating in a manner that allows lubricant innovation to continue thriving. This will be increasingly true as a number of new and different challenges – for example, emerging health and safety legislation such as REACH or the Globally Harmonized System – begin to impact the industrys ability to bring innovative new formulations rapidly through to market.

Whether for generic industry or OEM specifications, all stakeholders want to deliver the final specification, need or product as quickly as possible. However, they must also ensure that they deliver tangible, meaningful and monetizable value to the end consumer. This might be, for example, in the form of clearly improved fuel economy for ILSAC GF-6, greater engine durability for PC-11, a specific engine need for an OEM, or a differentiable feature for a marketing benefit.

Many in the industry believe that the current approaches to specification development increasingly build unnecessary complexity into the system. This not only slows down development but also reduces the flexibility to deliver real, sustainable innovations.

Industry Standard Specs

All current mainstream industry standard specifications are developed through discussion among the three key industry trade associations (OEMs, oil companies and additive companies). Therefore, any change needs to start with open, meaningful dialogue among these associations on what the specifications are intended to deliver. It is critical that the key industry bodies engage and incorporate the input from all the qualified members – any change neither can, nor should, come from only one set of stakeholders.

Infineum believes that current standard specification setting processes are meant to deliver a good quality, widely available lubricant that consumers can rely on to provide baseline protection of their vehicles. The specifications should not be designed to deliver the highest level of performance that can be negotiated and agreed by all parties, a process that normally incurs significant cost and time to identify routes to balance conflicting technical issues. As an industry, we should clearly restate the intent of the standard specifications, then test whether the chosen model is being followed effectively and ensure that unintended complexity does not creep in against this objective.

Once agreement is reached on the intent of the specifications, all relevant tests (from a global assessment) for a given performance attribute, such as soot dispersancy or piston cleanliness, can be considered, assessing all markets in which the application is valid. Depending on the specific application, it is possible that the same test but at different limits could then be applied to different regions.

It would not be practical to simply pick the most severe limit for every performance area because the likely outcome would be over-formulated lubricants with higher-than-necessary costs in some markets. This approach would reduce the number of tests that product developers need to assess or OEMs need to develop into industry standard tests; thus, reducing overall development times and costs.

Of course, the previous considerations are completely separate from OEM specifications. Some OEMs rightly want to ensure their hardware is protected in the service cycles and consumer environments where they are found. And the ability to define and set specifications meeting their particular needs will remain, as is the case today.

However, by being clearer and simpler about what the baseline specification needs to deliver, more formulation flexibility will be available to study the items most relevant to OEMs, which in turn delivers clear consumer value. Any such in-house OEM tests and specifications should conform to industry standard norms, for example, on repeatability and reproducibility; having tests that are uncontrolled or unrepeatable does not support the development of robust technical solutions.

And the prize for this dialogue? Faster development of lubricants that are focused on bringing real consumer value, removal of less value-adding cost or time elements in all parts of the value chain, and a greater ability to differentiate lubricants in areas of consumer or marketing value.

Simplifying Specification Development

If the industry is to truly realign investments back toward supporting innovation, it must simplify the baseline performance specification development programs. It must reduce duplication, redundancy and wasted effort to drive down development times, while ensuring quality is maintained. In particular, Infineum suggests that at least three key areas of destructive complexity need to be addressed.

First, drive out unnecessary, redundant or inappropriate testing. As outlined earlier, specifications currently feature many different, yet overlapping, performance tests or rated criteria. This results in duplicate assessments, and large amounts of time and resources are spent on developing potentially redundant and unnecessary tests. As noted above, the first stage in assessing any performance need should be a review of the current range of tests available, and then focusing on the smallest number possible.

There is also an understandable interest in bench and rig testing to assess performance. Although rig tests can be quicker and relatively inexpensive to run, they do not always replicate what happens in the engine. For such tests, the industry needs to be particularly rigorous in demonstrating their correlation with real-world engine and field performance. The industry must ensure that the tests used are fit for purpose, not simply the most convenient, and that wherever possible duplication and redundancy are minimized.

Second, ensure that specifications meet a clear field need. The industry must pay close attention to each performance category and each test to ensure they reflect the real world, with a clear and demonstrable correlation to real field performance. While in principle this happens today, very often connectivity is lost in the desire to demonstrate a particular issue, for example through artificially severe conditions. This, in turn, can lead to investment or formulation selections that are unnecessary for field performance.

Of course, we do not want to wait for field failures before starting the lengthy process of test development. However, we must ensure that before development starts, there is a clear demonstration of a real need for protection as demonstrated under field conditions.

Third, collaborate in the early stages of research and development. Multiple stakeholders typically work independently on common industry issues in their early stage R&D, like fuel economy, emissions reduction and durability. This is expensive and resource intensive. For common industry challenges, collaboration is essential – for example, through topic specific consortia.

For clarity, this is only proposed for early stage R&D. It is fully recognized that all stakeholders wish to develop their own unique approaches, as products get closer to market.

Taking action in these three areas would reduce time and effort spent on lower-value testing, improve industry agility and innovation, and through reallocation of resources enable the entire industry to invest more in the topics of highest, realizable value for all parts of the value chain.

The Way Forward

In my view, it is essential that at the start of a new specification development all stakeholders agree on specific needs so they can be met in the most resource efficient and timely way possible, with a clear and unambiguous focus on simplicity.

Everyone I have spoken to agrees that there is a need for lubricant technologies to come to market more quickly. The North American ILSAC GF-6 and PC-11 category developments are current examples of how complexity can cause undesirable delay, with the development and introduction of a number of new tests being the rate limiting step. Perhaps by considering these specification developments against a simplified model, things could be improved for all stakeholders.

All industry players see and feel the impacts of unnecessary, destructive complexity within their own parts of the value chain, and I believe we need to start talking openly and honestly about these topics within industry consortia.

By being realistic about the costs of continuing down the path the industry is currently on, by changing the way stakeholders collaborate, and by being open to a more efficient use of the tools industry has at its disposal, I believe we will all benefit through the ability to re-focus our energies on those innovations that are essential to ensure our industry continues to thrive.