Going Against the Grain

Some of the most cost-effective maintenance practices don’t occur because they go against the grain of existing culture. For example:

1. Replacing good parts. Suppose a circuit breaker has a bad component. You must take the breaker out of service to replace that. Does it save money to replace that one component versus a total rebuild? You don’t know those other breaker parts are actually good just by looking at them. Similarly, if you find one motor lead has a bad connection why assume the other leads have good connections? The same person made all the connections.
2. Documenting “As Found,” “Work Performed,” and “As Left” data. This takes so much time! “We can’t have people doing paperwork while equipment is down” seems to make perfect sense. But ask why that equipment is down, and you may find it’s because nobody documented the cause the last time it went down.
3. Performing multiple tests on the same equipment. So you perform an insulation resistance test and find no problems with a cable. Great. But no single test can tell you the actual condition of the cable. Sure, you might “waste time” by also performing that hi-pot test, but what if you don’t perform it and subsequently put a damaged cable back into service?