How AI Is Modernizing Lubrication PMs in Corrugating Plants

As a young engineer at Packaging Corporation of America (PCA) in Jackson, TN, I was eager to contribute and improve plant processes. One of the first challenges I was handed was helping organize greasing Preventative Maintenance (PM)—a task that sounded simple on paper but turned out to be one of the most complex and overlooked in practice.

I quickly realized how difficult this process was for the people doing the work on the ground. Improper greasing leads to an average box plant hemorrhaging over $200,000 every year due to bearing failures.

The Problem: Unreliable Greasing in a High-Pressure Environment

In the corrugating industry, production needs often cut into planned maintenance windows. This puts pressure on technicians to move fast—sometimes too fast. I watched maintenance teams struggle to:

• Keep track of hundreds or even thousands of grease points manually

• Identify and apply the correct type and amount of lubricant

• Complete their PM routes without skipping bearings due to time constraints

• Record what was done in a reliable, trackable way

Even with the best intentions, bearings were being over-greased, under-greased, or missed entirely. On some occasions, the wrong grease type was applied, simply because the technician grabbed the wrong tube. Maintenance managers had almost no visibility into what was actually done—everything was tracked by paper, memory, or word-of-mouth.

These issues weren’t caused by a lack of skill—they were the result of a system that had never been modernized. I knew there had to be a better way.

The Spark of Innovation

Years later, while pursuing my Master’s at the University of Waterloo, that same problem kept coming back to me. Why were lubrication PMs still being handled with binders and spreadsheets? Why did we treat such a critical reliability task as an afterthought?

That’s when I met Nathan Wong, a brilliant Computer Scientist at Waterloo. We quickly realized we shared a passion for solving real-world problems with smart technology—and that together, we could build a solution that brought modern tools to one of the most outdated processes in the plant.

That’s how GreaseTech was born.

The GreaseTech Solution: AI + Automation for Lubrication PMs

GreaseTech combines smart hardware and intelligent software to bring clarity, consistency, and accountability to manual greasing. It was built with one goal in mind: to make lubrication PMs accurate, trackable, and impossible to get wrong.

Here’s how it works:

✅ Live Tracking & Historical Records

Every bearing is RFID-tagged and digitally mapped. The gun displays real-time instructions and logs who greased what, when, and with what—ensuring no points are skipped.

✅ Grease Quantity Control

The gun stops automatically after dispensing the exact required grease amount, eliminating over- or under-greasing.

✅ Grease Type Lockout

If there is a mismatch of grease in the gun and needed by the bearing, the system blocks dispensing—protecting equipment from costly mix-ups.

✅ AI-Powered Grease Verification

This feature was added after a real-world repeating incident at a customer plant.
There, a technician unknowingly loaded the wrong grease cartridge into a gun, and applied it across their EVOL and corrugator lines. The result?

• Costly downtime

• Purging of expensive equipment

• A headache for the entire maintenance and operations team

To prevent this from ever happening again, we developed an AI verification system that uses onboard sensors and visual analysis to confirm that the correct grease is loaded into the gun—before any greasing starts. It's a safety net that adds peace of mind for both technicians and managers.

Why It Matters for Corrugated Box Plants

Lubrication PMs may seem small—but in corrugated plants, they are mission-critical. With production running 24/7 and maintenance windows shrinking, there is little room for error. Any of these bearings failing will cause expensive downtimes. $20,000 is lost every hour the corrugator is down.

Yet greasing is one of the few processes still relying on:

• Paper records

• Technician memory

• Verbal handoffs between shifts

• No digital oversight or verification

That’s where GreaseTech makes the biggest difference.
We take a high-risk, low-visibility process and turn it into verifiable, error proof process that supports your maintenance team—not burdens them.

From University Project to Industry Impact

After developing the technology at the University of Waterloo, we’ve brought GreaseTech into real plants—and it’s already making a difference.
Major companies like Smurfit WestRock, Suzano, and USG are utilizing our system to reduce downtime, improve compliance, and give managers visibility into lubrication PMs they’ve never had before.

We’re also expanding to new corrugating plants across, partnering with teams that are ready to modernize their maintenance workflows. Our tool is proving useful due to the shortage of skilled maintenance technicians in the industry.

To learn more about GreaseTech and how it can improve your plant’s lubrication PMs, visit our website or contact us directly.

Let’s redefine reliability, together.

Website and demo video: https://www.greasetech.ca/product

About the Authors

Jesh Ramesh is the CEO of GreaseTech. He began his career as an engineer at PCA and holds a Master’s from the University of Waterloo and is bringing innovation into corrugating.