Bonus Content for STLE Members
What OEMs Really Need from Lubricants
TLT OEM Article August 2026
Panelists from the U.S. Army, Danfoss, Dauch and Jenbacher Gas Engines discuss validation challenges, supply chain pressures and the future of lubrication at STLE’s inaugural OEM Panel.
Panelists:
• Allen Comfort, Lubricant Technical Specialist; DEVCOM - Ground Vehicle System Center
• Rebecca Lauer, Senior Tribology Engineer Fluids, Surface Texture, and Wear; Danfoss Power Solutions (US) Company
• Troy Muransky, Lead Organic Materials Engineer; Dauch
• Christoph Rohbogner, System Owner - Lubricants and Coolant; Jenbacher Gas Engines
• Moderator: Bill Anderson, Afton Chemical Company
Late on a Wednesday afternoon, a crowd gathered for STLE’s first-ever Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) Panel Discussion, a session that drew more attendees than the panelists expected. “Troy and I figured maybe five or six people would show up,” admitted Alan Comfort, a lubrication technical specialist for the U.S. Army. “So thank you.” What followed was a frank, wide-ranging conversation about the real-world challenges that OEMs and large equipment operators face when selecting, validating and managing lubricants, and what they wish lubricant suppliers understood.
The panel included Comfort alongside Rebecca Lauer of Danfoss Power Solutions (U.S.) Company, Troy Muransky of Dauch (formerly AAM, which recently acquired GKN) and Christoph Rohbogner of Jenbacher Gas Engines. Their organizations span military ground vehicles, off-highway hydraulics, automotive driveline components and large gas engines. While their applications differ considerably, their frustrations overlapped in striking ways.
The validation problem
If there was one theme that united all four panelists, it was this: the burden of validating lubricants falls squarely on the OEM, and it’s getting harder.
“When I’m given a new program, I receive duty cycles and efficiency targets, select a fluid and then work through multiple levels of testing,” said Muransky. “If there’s a failure related to the lubricant at a late stage, I may have to start over, and automakers have fixed production dates. Recouping time and budget is a significant issue.”
Lauer echoed the frustration from a hydraulics perspective. Danfoss hydrostatic units rarely operate in a full hydrodynamic film regime. They face constant low-speed, high-load conditions with unpredictable transients. That makes bench testing unreliable as a predictor of field performance. “There’s not really a lot of bench tests we can perform that will actually predict how we’re going to do in our lab tests with our full pump system,” she said. “You can’t introduce the same vibration that you’re going to see in a feller buncher cutting down trees all day.”
The consequences are real. “Field failures are typically traced back to the OEM regardless of lubricant branding,” Lauer noted. “The risk stays with us.” Her wish list: earlier transparency from lubricant suppliers when formulations change, especially when a product is sold under the same name, and better screening tests that can precede full-system validation.
Muransky described a similar dynamic. “We don’t always know what we don’t know. On the electric vehicle (EV) side especially (instant torque, ten times the number of cycles, high-speed regimes) there’s still no good industry test that accurately evaluates bearing and gear behavior in an electric drive unit under those loads, especially with high aeration content.”
Standardization versus specialization
The tension between standardized and application-specific lubricants surfaced repeatedly, most pointedly when an audience member asked which approach panelists preferred.
While one size fits all might have appeal, it doesn't always work out.
Comfort represented the outlier view, one shaped by the Army’s unique logistics constraints. “We definitely prefer multi-use fluids whenever possible. It’s critical for reducing the logistics and maintenance burden,” he said. “We do have to give up some performance in certain areas to get multifunctional properties, and we’re constantly weighing those trade-offs.” The Army’s approach is codified in Army Regulation 70-12, which governs fuel and lubricant selection and standardization, including the doctrine for a single fuel on the battlefield.
Lauer framed it as a cost question: “If your customer can get away with the cheapest Group I mineral oil with a minimal additive package, they want to do that. And there are industries like forestry and mining that require fire-resistant fluids, which come with entirely different requirements. A one-size-fits-all fluid is simply not something we’d ever expect to have.”
Global sourcing and formulation transparency
A recurring frustration for Lauer is the opacity of lubricant formulations, particularly in global supply chains. “A fluid you think is the same in the U.S. and Asia may have a different base oil or additive supplier,” she said. “And even when there’s a change in formulation, we usually find out when our customer runs into an issue, sometimes a year down the line, when a pump fails after one year instead of five.”
She added that this dynamic is becoming more acute as the industry moves toward environmentally friendly fluids and re-refined base oils, particularly in Europe. “The validation effort and responsibility are still sitting mainly with us. We’re expected to validate lubricants against our specific materials, designs, duty cycles and contamination conditions, and laboratory data from lubricant suppliers often doesn’t reflect those stresses.”
Unique challenges: Gas engines and military vehicles
Shifting gas quality adds another dimension, from pipeline gas and biogas today, to hydrogen, synthetic methane and ammonia in the future. Each fuel places different demands on the lubricant.
Comfort’s challenges are different but equally distinctive. Army vehicles rarely wear out; they corrode, seals crack, but mechanical wear is seldom the limiting factor. Equipment can sit for years with minimal use, then be deployed across the globe. “We have vehicles that might be sitting in Texas and moved to Alaska the next week,” he said. “So we really have to worry about these extremes.” Shelf life testing, Arctic and desert performance and supply chain simplification are priorities the civilian market rarely contends with at the same scale.
When to engage lubricant suppliers
An audience member asked at what stage of development panelists typically engage with lubricant formulators, and whether that needs to change.
Muransky described Dauch’s approach as relatively unusual in the industry: “We co-develop fluids with additive companies. We get them involved very early in the process, with strong NDAs and as much technical detail as we can provide.” The goal is to vet as much as possible before reaching hardware-level testing.
Lauer acknowledged the gap at Danfoss: “We usually find out something has changed with the fluid when our customer runs into an issue.” She emphasized openness to earlier collaboration at any stage, whether during development or at market release.
Moderator Bill Anderson with Afton Chemical Company closed the session with a note that the turnout, and the quality of questions from the audience, made a strong case for making the OEM Panel a recurring event. “I thought it was excellent,” he said. “Hopefully we can do it again.”