The Room was Cooking

well said DVader1000,

they are not the only one that does this, its pretty wide spread. It comes down to the maintenance supervision not standing up for himself.

I had designed a pizza tunnel oven (100 pies a minute) , 6 months after I installed it, they called me up because they where being locked out, to fire up the oven. turned out that there was a loose termination in the panel box on the exhaust to insure the fans were running for purge.

Anyways, when I got there, to check it out, the operators said my oven keeps on started a fire inside. The bakery room was full of acidic smoke. I said nothing is flammable inside the oven, except for the gas to the burners and product.

they shut down, when I open the access doors, there where literally wheel barrows of burnt pizza crusts inside, must have had a surge problem upstream. Any ways I cleaned it out and I found some dispensed Stainless Rivets shafts, that was used in the fabrication inside the oven, I asked the maintenance supervisor, if he was following the maintenance procedures, which included regularly shutdown, cleanup, preventive maintenance, He said yes pretty much so. I showed he the revits and said these where left over from when we built the oven, I asked him again, then his response was they were operating it pretty much 24/7 since commissioning.

phoenix911

It comes down to the maintenance supervision not standing up for himself.

Not always even when maintenance does stand up for himself he still must abide by the decisions of management, I know from experience (I am the Maintenance Supervisor) I have been on management for months to get some projects done to no avail. Ultimately it is the responsibility of management and the owners to address the issue of Preventative Maintenance. All that we can do is advice them of what needs to be done, we cannot force them to do it.

With some systems I have seen the maintance staff cut to nothing and they are reparing all the time and no time for preventive work.

The owners see it as money saving to have few people and keep them busy. They write off all the equipment they replace anyways. So the difference in the salary of 2 or 3 preventive maintence workers and a little down time mean nothing to them.

Escape Pod,

Its the maintenance supervisior that takes point of the situation. As a maintenance supervisor you have a responsibility.

I have been on management for months to get some projects done to no avail. Ultimately it is the responsibility of management and the owners to address the issue of Preventative Maintenance.

You just tried to pin it on management but you just blamed yourself.

When upper management is involved it can a diplomatic, political struggle. But you as a maintenance supervisior have to keep pushing on what you believe is right. If you get consumed by it, and give up, which does happens. you lose your drive and become more ineffective.

And maintenane supervison is part of management.

phoenix911

Point taken, however I am still just one person, and one person can only do so much, It is my responsibility to oversee all aspects of maintenance, not just PM. I can push on the mountian as hard as I want but that doesn't mean that I will be able to move it, sometimes you have to choose your battles wisely,

Escape Pod,

, sometimes you have to choose your battles wisely,

You've said it, and if given the choice pick the battles you can win.

Because it can be just one man against the company, it is hard.

The post I posted earlier, the maintenance supervisor tied to blow smoke up my butt by telling me they were maintaining the equipment, when I saw through it, he became up front and told me what was actually going on.

Once I found out, I was able work with him to streamline his maintenance, but letting him know this would come at a price down the road for him.

phoenix911

So true and I gave you a GA for saying it.

Maintenance and its costs are on the lowest rung of the budget ladder it seems, and "The room was cooking" is a perfect example. Maintenance is often viewed by upper echelon management as only necessary when their toilets overflow or when the secretary's lighting goes dim.

As you, I've also seen neglect because of lack of funding or management's disregard. I've also seen where management will hire at the lowest legal wage level and expect journeyman performance in all phases of maintenance from HVAC, plumbing and electrical to structural, building modifications and grounds keeping. Of course in that case, what isn't obvious is never maintained and ultimately fails as in the example given.

I suspect nothing will change in any company until the foreman of the maintenance department also becomes a member of the company's board of directors. Even in rigorously inspected manufacturing environments, such as FDA inspected facilities and government explosive manufacturers, plant maintenance issues have provoked product recalls and caused lethal accidents.

Until plant maintenance achieves budgetary preeminence with emphasis on skills and commensurate wages the issues will continue with the potential for catastrophic results as those which happened in Bhopal.

Well said, and you deserve a GA for it too. I once worked in a chemical plant that uses such dangerous chemicals as nitric acid and HF, and yet the management always told me that "there was no budget" every time I proposed a plant facilities upgrading. Among other things, the air-conditioning to the Class 100 cleanroom leaked, the water chiller broke down repeatedly, the production room access door kept jamming or opening every time the wind blew etc. And they were increasing output by 25% every quarter, mind you.

Just how bad was it there really? Let's just say that you can actually see brown NOx fumes being vented out of the acid scrubber everyday, the alkaline plant room stank of ammonia because production had increased but the scrubber remained unchanged, and every time concentrated HF wastes was dumped into the WWTP, the whole plant would flood up because the plant was badly undersized. I wonder just how many of the staffs there will develop long-term health problems because of all these.

As you can guess by now, I didn't stay there long.

I am happy you chose to leave because with any extended exposure, we might not be able to enjoy your posts.

Are there any regulatory agencies where you worked? The reason I ask is most governmental regulatory agencies use this kind of information to justify their existence and reward (with cash) the "whistle blowers". You might be able to profit from your discoveries and save the health of many workers as a result.

From your description of the chemicals used and the necessity for a Class 100 Clean Room leads me to guess this plant manufactures silicon wafers used in producing integrated circuits.

I'm sure your proposed upgrades would have returned their investment almost immediatly upon implementation because under the existing conditions the scrap rate must have been extremely high.

This appears to be a classic case where management has little or no technical training and therefore fails to understand the need to maintain failing equipment. Usually this results in a plant shutdown at some point in time. Blame will be placed on the maintenance staff because management will never point that finger at themselves. Replacements will be made, new staff will be hired, prices will be less competitive and the plant will once again be operated until the next (forcasted but not funded) failure occurs.

This reminds me of a friend who bought estate vehicles from wealthy owners in Beverly Hills California. These vehicles were mostly less than a year old but were sold cheaply because they ran so poorly. The reason for their poor performance was the fact they were driven perhaps as little as once a week to the grocery store two miles away solely by the maid who never warmed the engine.

My friend would buy these station wagons. He had little mechanical training and his fix to make them run better was to drive them to Las Vegas (about 300 miles) as fast as they would go. After about a hundred stuttering, stumbling miles, the sparks and smoke would begin to clear from the exhaust and all eight cylinders would begin to contribute to the motive force. He called it "blowing out the cobwebs". By the time he returned the car would be running near perfectly and he would always make a handsome profit on the resale.

Some factory owners run their factory until it is unable to manufacture profitably and sell it. The new buyer usually funds the maintenance necessary to restore efficient operation and either keep the plant in operation or sell it at a much greater profit.

Why didn't the original owners do the maintenance? The answer is deliberate ignorance. The owners see only a 25% increase in production in spite of your evidence.

In a way it is similar to the ignorance of the Beverly Hills owner who only concern is that meals are served in those 365 days and ignores the smoking exhaust and the maid's complaints about the station wagon.

I would be careful and a litle diplomatic about the whistleblower thing. A goosd example is OSHA complaints. OSHA is relatively understaffed and overburdened, so they do not particularly want to take and serious actions. Plus political officials frequently look unfriendly upon what they perceive as excessive fines that adversely effect whatever industries happen to have strong lobbyist and are supporters of their campaigns, and OSHA doesn't want their funding or staffing to become a political issue in the future because of an alienated politician. Additionally, many state agencies wish to refrain from any actions that could bring about litigation with a deep pocketed violator who doesn't mind the potential press coverage. I know a number of people at various agencies in the Cal EPA who have in the past elaborated to this same issue coming down from more senior staff. Litigation cuts into their budgets, which could mean cut backs in a few years.

On the other side of the ball, the company almost always finds out who the complaint was filed by. So you must be prepared to risk termination in the near future, along with the possible under the table word of mouth references about you being a problem employee or not a team player. I believe that first you must try to get some resolution to the issue from with in the company, but this is what usually kills your anonymity. The guy who complained about the problem to his bosses, and did not get resolution, is likely the guy who complained to the regulators. There are laws to protect whistle blowers, but these can be circumvented just by finding some other acceptable reasons for termination or they make your job so unpleasant you must quit or die. Maybe it will take them a few months longer than just firing you when they find out, but same result just after all the potential press dies down. Though it sounds like it wasn't worth remaining employed with that company anyways, unless they paid you much more than any other employer and you were in debt up to your ears with mortgages and such.

Sounds like you cocina-ring on the cocina in the cocina, how about allowing for a percentage of natural ventilation in or at the design stage. The best percentage is the difference between the summer and winter 100% utilisation figure, then facture in a regular steam clean of your system, if you can.