Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?
- After 15 minutes of trying to remove the operator panel, you realize there are two 10-mm screws toward the back.
- It took you an hour to disassemble a mechanism for access to a failed part, and then you realized it comes out simply by removing a small cover and pulling a release bail.
- You just get it assembled and restored to service when the factory tech returns your phone call. That’s when you learn the contacts have to be cleaned with alcohol immediately before assembly.
You can probably think of more examples, some of them even more frustrating. The problem is in how late the repair tech discovers a requirement.
One solution is training, but realistically there’s no way to train everybody on every detail of every piece of equipment.
Labeling equipment helps if there’s room for permanently legible, permanently affixed labels. The best solution is to create step-by-step repair procedures for each major piece of equipment.
