Launch HN: GreaseBoss (YC W21) – Real-time system to manage industrial greasing
&gt;On the hardware side: we put RFID tags that fit like washers under each zerk. These are read by a head unit that is retrofittable to existing grease guns, which includes a custom RFID reader integrated into the nozzle. It also includes a flow meter and supporting electronics. Our device has 4G, Wifi and LoRa for comms, but also operates in an offline mode for customers in remote locations. Our hardware is rugged, dust proof, and water proof for some of the toughest operational environments (and operators..)<p>Sounds expensive, grease zerk&#x27;s are cheap, and easily replaceable, these sound expensive and likely just as prone to failure as a simple one.<p>&gt;On the software side, we record each greasing in the cloud, right as the worker greases the zerk. Since most industry is still tracking this using paperwork, you can imagine how much more efficient this is. Our customers get back to production much faster.<p>This sounds like an over engineered, expensive version of a maintenance schedule. It&#x27;s a management problem if they&#x27;re not scheduling maintenance.<p>Workers are still stopping to grease machines, they&#x27;re still using the same amount of grease, greasing the same spots at the same scheduled times. Tracking this by cloud adds nothing really from what I can tell.<p>This whole system would have driven me nuts when I was working machines doing biweekly greasing and maintenance.<p>It would have been just one more thing to worry about inside the machines and believe me, every little thing inside a machine that can go wrong, will go wrong at some point.<p>A couple of the machines had a few parts that were greased by a computer controlled auto greaser, it was always prone to trouble and needed to be adjusted frequently.<p>As you say yourself also, greasing maintenance is incredibly important to avoid downtime and machine damage, why should a company rely on your third party cloud for this?<p>What guarantee is there of its continued support and existence?<p>What happens if there&#x27;s internet outages?<p>How does having a third party between me and the maintenance of my machines benefit me?