Today’s Gremlin – Sweat the Asset

Today’s Gremlin – “sweat the asset”, truly believes that running the plant and equipment as hard as possible is good for business. He couldn’t be more wrong!

This gremlin wants to produce more in a short time and runs the equipment at or even over its design capacity. In one plant in a big mine I met one of these – a production superintendent who believed he was doing his best when he ran the plant hard and just avoided tripping breakers! Running that hard  increases stress on the equipment, often ends up in overloading it, and causes it to fail prematurely.

Failing under load

Imagine having a flat tire on your car while driving at the speed limit on a highway. It’s dangerous but controllable. You pull over and the spare can be used. Now imagine the same blowout while you are well over the speed limit with a car full of people pulling a fully loaded trailer. The car will be much harder to control and stop safely and there is a good chance you’ll damage the wheel rim and possibly even flip the trailer. Failing plant equipment when heavily loaded is like that.

This gremlin, sweat the asset, causes equipment damage that is much worse than if the load is light. It’s like the difference between a fender bender and a high speed crash. The repair is more extensive and can take a lot longer. You may have produced more for a short time, but you produce nothing while the repair is being done.

Meeting a quota or deadline

Today’s gremlin – sweat the asset, is someone who is usually under pressure to meet a quota or delivery schedule. Perhaps something has gone wrong and production numbers are down, so “sweat the asset” is doing his best to make up for lost time. Sometimes this gremlin isn’t the operator, but his supervisor or the general manager who wants to beat old records and be a star. The people who do this are usually not hard to spot – they talk like they want things to run fast always. If they work on shifts, they are on the shift that over produces followed by one that is stuck doing the repairs.

Tortoise and hare

Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and hare teaches a lesson about achieving more. By going fast and hard, the hare would tire himself out, need rest and eventually fall asleep. That’s like the plant equipment running hard, having a lot of little breakdowns and then something big that needs a long time to repair. Meanwhile, the tortoise, moving slow and steadily, doesn’t tire, doesn’t suffer the little breakdowns, and doesn’t have a major failure requiring a lot of downtime. He just keeps on going and passes the sleeping hare.

Slow down and achieve more

It is less exciting to go slower and steadier, but it works. Ask your operators if the plant works any steadier at nights or on weekends than in the weekdays. It probably does. There’s no one pushing too hard, or trying little “experiments” to get more out of the asset.