The Value of Tribology (Part 1), Analyses from a Macroeconomic Viewpoint

摘要

Tribology has contributed to the control of friction and wear of machine elements, which cause mal-function and failure of machinery and equipment (hereinafter referred to collectively as machinery). Tribology therefore is one of the most important and basic sciences and technologies for machine elements and operation of machinery. However it is very difficult to quantify the value of tribology. Sir Jost and his team made analysis of lubrication losses in UK in 1966. Their achievement is known together with the terminology of "tribology". ASME published "Strategy for energy conservation through tribology" in 1977 and 1981 and discussed the role of tribology for energy conservation. The National Research Council Canada published "A Strategy for Tribology in Canada" in 1986 and discussed the role of tribology for enhancing reliability and efficiency through the reduction of friction and wear. However the authors believe that it is difficult to make the management of companies understand the value of tribology. Lately achievements of the management are evaluated on "Return on Assets (ROA)" and "Return on Equity (ROE)". Why shouldn't we use the same method to evaluate the value of tribology for convincing managements?rnIn order to evaluate the value of tribology from the macroeconomic viewpoint, the authors analyzed the statistical data published by Japanese Government and the financial reports of leading Japanese companies, which are published for investors. This paper discusses that maintenance of machinery is the job of optimizing ROA and intends to demonstrate that the value of tribology is largerthan hitherto thought.