Did it happen suddenly?
As a maintenance engineer and manager in a paperboard plant in India, I was faced with sudden stoppages of continuous running machines due to failure of a mechanical part like a bearing. I had to answer the management for the consequent losses to the company. The persons responsible for avoiding the unplanned stoppages would tell me that the machine was running fine yesterday and even a little while back and it failed suddenly. They claimed they could not have detected and prevented the failure which was their most important role. Of course, this is not true for mechanical parts which invariably give some symptoms of malfunction like unusual vibrations, heat etc. But how to drive this point home to my juniors without arguments? I used to demonstrate what might have happened by a practical domo.
The drama of the paper weight (of olden days)
I pick up a paper weight (common item on the desk in those days) and place it in the middle my desk. The table is clear of any objects form the paper weight to the clear edge. I move the paper weight intermittently, in steps of a few inches. towards the edge. After the first move, I stop, look at the Engineer in front of me and say “Nothing happened! Right?”. Again I move it a little 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 loudly and excitedly “The paper weight has fallen suddenly. It was OK a few seconds back!”.
The Engineer watching this demo would invariably smile and admit that something adverse or unusual was happening gradually before the failure that was not observed or they saw some unusual symptoms but felt they were harmless, not worth any corrective action as the running machine can't be stopped just for this defect and hopefully the machine will run OK till the next planned process shutdown. The gradual deterioration from the healthy condition has to lead to failure some day, from which there can be no escape.
Ignoring the warning signs
This could apply to many aspects of life – relationships with people close to us, health crises, etc. We ignore the warning signs indicating that somethings are deteriorating incrementally and underestimate their potential for ending in a crisis. The cumulative deteriorations over a period of time will result in a (sudden?) failure of some kind.
If we keenly observe what is happening around us, in things and people and know what is a normal and healthy situation and what is a significant deviation from healthy, we can predict where this gradual negative change will ultimately lead to and what could be it’s consequences.
If we keep an eye on the small adverse movements taking place and take timely corrective actions early on, the major adverse event can be aborted. The so called 'sudden' developments are more likely to happen when we close our eyes and minds to what is happening gradually or choose to underestimate or ignore their significance.
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