Several months ago, the electrical services firm you work for hired Tony. Tony is supposed to be a real hot shot — very impressive resume, and he nailed the interview. Consequently, he was assigned as the new crew leader for seven electricians who provide contract maintenance to a client for which your firm also does significant project work.
Tony has found many problems that apparently his team and their previous supervisor lacked the expertise to discover. So far, Tony has convinced the plant engineer to purchase replacements for eight motor drives. That is 15% of what is installed, so your boss asked Tony about it.
According to your boss, Tony claimed, “That brand is no good, and the problems have been solved by replacing those drives.” That reply worried your boss. He wants you to investigate without alerting the customer or alarming Tony. How can you do that?
Your boss is right to be concerned. If the client concludes they have been misled into unnecessarily replacing equipment simply because Tony is not familiar with the brand they were using, your company can kiss the maintenance contract goodbye.
Get the manuals for the Brand X drives and study them. If this brand is at another plant, see if you can do a dry-run tuning job. Then, have your boss assign you as a trainee with Tony as the instructor. Your job is to have him walk you through tuning and troubleshooting the “bad” brand of drives as if you need to learn how to work on them. Make a note of any discrepancies, especially if he fills his knowledge gap with a lot of hot air. Ask for his insight on other equipment, noting anything unusual.
