More fun at work...

[marvinsc]

Last week we had a problem with a piece of equipment at work. the issue was thought to be a directional air valve. The part was ordered but no one said it needed to be a rush. Friday afternoon about 4:00 pm the Plant Manager asked my Co worker if he could get one delivered on Saturday. He made some calls and for a large up charge he got one delivered mid day on Saturday. When the Maintenance tech went to install it the problem was found to be a broken wire in the control cable, the valve was fine............ Now we have two spare valves that we may or may not ever need.........

[Nessism]

This story sounds like something that happens quite often in plants around the USA, and maybe even, the world.

A piece of equipment goes down, but the people, who's job it is to figure out what's wrong, didn't do their job. So production stopped, needlessly, which means the plant isn't making money.

The plant manager sees that there isn't a proper sense of urgency to get the equipment up and running again, so they step in and force something to happen, in this case, they force the purchasing team to bring in a spare part, at extra cost, that will supposedly, will fix the problem. As it turns out, the part isn't needed, at that moment anyway.

This is why plant managers go crazy. The maintenance team not only didn't have spares on hand, but they misdiagnosed the problem, shutting down production. I wouldn't want to be the maintenance department manager in that shop.

[rphillips]

Has always happened, just seems way more often than in yrs. past. I could look at it as insurance, in my world, if I have a spare part, on the shelf, odds are the orig. will probably never give trouble.

[Redman]

Ha!
since I have enjoyed your other work stories,
as soon as I saw your thread title I thought three things: 1) I am gonna enjoy the story cuz will be familiar to what I experienced for decades of industrial equipment troubleshooting 2) I am gonna say “that is what I don’t miss about work” , and 3) probably another story about what Marv is not gonna miss about work.

seems that someone tracked the problem to the proper device, the signal left the control panel and the device didn’t respond. What someone didn’t check was if the signal got to the device.

[Baatfam]

Ha!
as soon as I saw your thread title I thought three things: 1) I am gonna enjoy the story cuz will be familiar to what I experienced for decades of industrial equipment troubleshooting 2) I am gonna say “that is what I don’t miss about work” , and 3) probably another story about what Marv is not gonna miss about work.

Hahaha....Exactly what I thought.....

When I hear stories like this these days, I just chuckle and enjoy not having it be my problem.
Just like when I hear a kid acting up in a restaurant, I just smile and remember back when mine did that.

[gustovh]

Quite often we have have become a remove and replace system instead of evaluate, test, and prove first. But that said with systems being run by chips and computers, that one sometimes where to start if you can’t talk to the dam thing.

V

[dorkburger]

As an hvac tech I've worked in a variety of different facilities. It seems that the in house mechanics at manufacturing facilities in particular are always very busy with a long to do list. It doesn't necessarily forgive a quick and incorrect diagnosis, but things happen. My go to question at work is "why?" As in why did this part fail, why isn't it working , etc.

I had a call yesterday. Per the building maintenance work order -"the compressor is broken and needs to be repaired".
Hermetic refrigerant compressors are.... well.. hermetic, and cant be opened up. Nor did it need repair. The system was, however, completely out of refrigerant due to a hole in a pipe from a screw rubbing on it. I'm often wary of previous diagnoses, especially if its by someone I've never even met. Heck, I got burned last week by a lazy diagnosis from one of our newer greener techs...

[bccap]

Me to the deckhand after we put out the fire ...... " Let me get this straight ...... You didn't report smoke coming out of the engine room door to me or the Chief because you figured smoke where an engine is was a normal thing ..... Have I got that right ? " ......

[marvinsc]

Me to the deckhand after we put out the fire ...... " Let me get this straight ...... You didn't report smoke coming out of the engine room door to me or the Chief because you figured smoke where an engine is was a normal thing ..... Have I got that right ? " ......

Aye, Aye Captain..............LOL