May of us have heard the anecdotal tale of the old man who was called in to fix a complicated machine that had broken down. It goes something like this: Upon looking over the situation and thoughtfully stroking his beard, the old man opens his tool box, removes a small hammer, and smartly taps on a specific area. The machine roars back to life. The old man quietly writes out his bill for $1,000 and the astonished customer is taken aback. "You're asking a $1,000 and all you did was tap the machine?". The old man took back the bill and wrote, "Cost of a small hammer: $10; knowing where to tap: $990."
As with our protagonist repairman, we as Consultants are often paid for knowledge rather than the cost of our toolbox. Our customers depend on us to quickly get to the root of the problem, ask the right questions, and provide the knowing "tap" that gets their process back in order. Such was the case with a recent engagement.
I received a tense call from a local specialty chemical producer, for whom I've done a lot of work for over the years. Their main boiler could not be restarted after a prolonged outage for retubing. The controls engineers were frantically digging into our combustion control code looking for the culprit that kept tripping the boiler shortly after light-off. It was agreed that I would report to site early the next morning to further investigate. By calmly stepping through the exact series of events during attempted light-offs, asking about the mechanical history, including recent hardware changes, suspicion quickly fell on the natural gas regulator. This mechanical regulator is used to step down fuel pressure to the burner. It was revealed that the gas regulator had been removed from the boiler in question and was used to support a rental boiler during repairs. The regulator was returned to service without being readjusted to the original supply pressure. This had the effect of providing nearly three times the amount of gas to the burner than expected thereby causing the burner to quickly trip on low excess O2 (as designed). The regulator was properly adjusted, burner air and fuel light-off positions were reviewed, and the boiler was quickly returned to normal operation.
Addressing customer problems sometimes involves asking "tough" questions in a calm, professional manner. This is our job. Sometimes the outcome may shed light on areas of inexperience or needed improvement. Asking targeted, diagnostic questions is essential in getting to the area of focus while not spending excessive time down a blind path (e.g. "No, the DeltaV code does not just change itself"). Ask! Be engaged! Question a suspicious statement from Operations or Maintenance. I've found that in doing so, my customers feel my care and concern for their operation and urgency to fix the problem. For my own part, learning to "tap" a little smarter every time is never a bad thing, either!
Andrew J. Verdouw, P.E. | Professional Services Organization