Kevin worked for a firm that provided maintenance and repair services to small commercial and industrial clientele via two-technician teams. Each team had a set list of clients to serve. Usually, a trainee or helper was assigned to Kevin in deference to the “never work alone” safety principle. Considering customer feedback about Kevin’s ability to get things running again quickly, management felt this was good training.
What customers hadn’t yet figured out was Kevin’s haste left failure bombs. One week, due to a scheduling twist, a senior technician was assigned to work with him. That technician brought Kevin’s shady practices into the light of day.
Do any of these failure bomb practices happen in your facility?
- Re-using lockwashers instead of getting new ones.
- Not bothering with a torque wrench (over 80% of motor feet were distorted at his client facilities).
- Twisting wires together before inserting them into solderless connectors.
- Not replacing motor weatherhead gaskets if damaged.
- Addressing only the immediate or obvious problem, instead of running enough diagnostics to identify other problems that may exist.
- Not taking sufficient before and after data to compare to baseline data.
