Did it happen suddenly?

I was the maintenance manager in a paperboard plant in India. It was my responsibility to prevent breakdowns. A recurring breakdown was the failure of ball and roller bearings. The paper making machine has hundreds of bearings and runs 24/7. Even when one bearing fails, the complete machine stops and leads to a huge loss of production. 

When such a failure happened, I would question the area engineer why he could not prevent a breakdown by replacing the bearing during a planned shut down. He would tell that the bearing didn't show show any prior signs of failure. This is not true for such bearings. They always show symptoms like vibrations or heat before a failure.

I would dramatize this point to the Engineer sitting before me by the following demo.

The drama of the paper weight (of olden days)

I pick up a paper weight (a common item on the desk in 1980's) and place it in the middle my desk. The table is clear of any objects form the paper weight to the edge close to the person. I move the paper weight a few inches towards the edge of the table. I stop, look at the Engineer in front of me and say “Nothing happened! Right?”. Again I move it a few inches towards the edge and say “Nothing happened”, right? Again I move a few inches and say “Yes, nothing is happening”. I keep on moving the paper weight a few inches at a time, till it falls on the hard floor with a thud. Then I say in a dramatic manner “The paper weight suddenly fell down. It was OK a few seconds back!”.

The Engineer who watched the demo would smile. He would admit that some warning signs must have appeared before the failure. He might not have observed them. Or he noticed them but thought that the symptoms were harmless. Or he noticed them and thought that it is does not make sense to stop the machine to replace one bearing. He hoped that it will survive till the next planned shutdown. With this approach the defective bearing was bound to surprise one day.

Ignoring the warning signs

This concept applies to physical, mental and relationship health. We tend to ignore the early warning signs and underestimate the possibility of a crisis. The cumulative deterioration over a period of time is bound to result in a (sudden?) failure of some kind.

This could happen for many reasons. We may not observe what is happening in things and people around us. We may not know what is a healthy situation and what is an unhealthy one. 

The solution is to have clarity on a healthy and unhealthy condition, keep an eye on the creeping deterioration, err on the safer side and take corrective actions as early as possible. 

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