At 2:37 a.m. one Tuesday morning, an electrical fault inside a motor control center (MCC) room caused roughly ten hours of downtime. The E&I supervisor was called in and the maintenance manager was notified. The following day during the routine maintenance meeting, it was discussed that the incident was caused by a corroded connection on the load side of a breaker that burned up both the wiring and the breaker. This was the third such incident that occurred so far that year.
The maintenance manager, who was new to the position, decided we would become world-class and proactive in dealing with such electrical incidents due to the excessive downtime and obvious safety risks. The maintenance manager had the E&I supervisor buy an infrared thermal imaging camera based on a conversation with a vendor who stated it would solve all of these problems. The E&I supervisor ordered the camera as he was instructed and once it was received, the maintenance manager declared the facility had a robust infrared thermography program and electrical faults are a thing of the past.
Fast forward about three years. Not only were electrical faults still happening, they got worse. Every time an incident occurred, the maintenance manager would ask the E&I supervisor if the infrared camera was being used. The answer was, “Yes, sir.” By this time, a reliability engineer position was created and was tasked to perform a root cause analysis on the latest electrical fault.
The latest event was a motor started in a bucket that burned up due to an overheated loose connection. The reliability engineer looked through the CMMS and didn’t find any kind of routine PM or CbM work orders for inspecting electrical switchgear. When interviewing the electricians who performed the emergency work, the reliability engineer suggested the facility should get an infrared camera and set up a program and train personnel to catch these kinds of faults before they cause downtime. The electricians informed the engineer that such a camera was already on-site. Up until that moment, the reliability engineer (as well as everyone else outside the E&I department) didn’t know an infrared camera was around. When asked to see the camera, the electricians presented the reliability engineer with a case caked with no less than half an inch of dust from the back of the bottom shelf of a storage cabinet. After determining the camera was in working order, the reliability engineer asked how often it was used. Two out of the three electricians present stated they had never used the camera before and the other said it was used a couple of times when it first arrived.
“Why did we stop using it?” asked the reliability engineer. The electrician replied, “Because every time we would use it, everything was cold and the wiring would just burn up again anyway. It didn’t help us find anything.” After a couple more probing questions, it was uncovered that the electricians never used the camera to inspect energized switchgear. The camera was used to look at repaired buckets that had just faulted before going live. Essentially, the camera was used only on dead switchgear. The only training the electricians received was a thirty minute visit from the vendor who sold the camera going over the basics of how to turn it on and take a picture. No process or procedures were put into place, no one had been sufficiently trained to use or interpret infrared thermography, no additional safety considerations (e.g., additional personal protective equipment (PPE) or infrared windows) were evaluated, and nothing was put into the CMMS to routinely perform infrared (IR) scans of the switchgear to be proactive. Both the E&I supervisor and maintenance manager truly believed the simple possession of the camera was enough to have a successful infrared thermography program.
The reliability engineer’s RCA report had to be adapted to become a financial justification for completely overhauling the infrared thermography program. It had to be based on available standards that would have a focus on training and safety, with developed routes, reporting structure, and work order feedback loops for repaired equipment. The maintenance manager would take it under advisement.
