THEORY OF TROUBLE SHOOTING

GLIMPSES OF THEORY OF TROUBLE SHOOTING

I AM GIVING BELOW SOME GLIMPSES OF "THEORY OF TROUBLE SHOOTING" WHICH MAY BE USE FUL TO MAJORITY OF OUR TECHNICAL COLLEAGUES. ANY ONE WHO IS INTERESTED FOR FURTHER DELIBERATIONS CAN CONTACT & INVITE ME FOR A PRESENTATION / DISCUSION. MY MOBILE NUMBER IS +919431126892.

SYNOPSIS:

After observing many critical troubles in some system or the other over the period of time in various units & systems, it had occurred to me that most of the time we are not having any exact methodology for analysing troubles in the machines / systems & we are relying upon past experience & trial & error approach.

During decision-making lectures in MDI Gurgaon, the important concept of “Trouble shooting is decision making in reverse.” was conceptualised by me. Since in decision-making, we are trying to alter various inputs for any desirable output from the system but in case of trouble shooting, some undesirable output is before us for which we are trying to find out the real reason or root cause.

Later on, based on various other inputs & concepts, I have tried to make a comprehensive methodology for thinking for any root cause analysis & I have used it many no. of times to get technically verifiable root causes for many troubles. One aspect which occurred to me was that we are mostly asking about “What has happened?” & How much is the quantity of trouble parameter?” but these questions can not give any answer to “Why the trouble has appeared?” which is the most important question.

I am sure that this attempt will help all concerned in not only in Operation & Maintenance field of Power Plants but for all others as well. I have seen good Doctors using these concepts for diagnosing critical ailments inadvertently.Even all our elaborate schemes for transmission lines & Transformers protections are based on the philosophy of this “theory of trouble shooting”.

FIRST TWO SENTENCES OF THE THEORY :

Any man made or natural device, system or sub system can be defined as a means by which movement, flow or transmission of any form of living being, material, mechanical component, any form of energy, money or information is enabled or controlled in desirable directions or is prevented in undesirable directions।

Whenever any trouble appears, the words desirable & undesirable get interchanged in above definition, from observer’s perspective.

CONCLUSIONS BASED ON THE THEORY :

1. Any machine or mechanical system only behaves logically & logical reasoning is the only language by which a human mind can get inside information about any machine. Hence, if we develop our minds properly in this direction, we shall be able to TALK or CONVERSE with the machines.

2. At any particular time, any particular trouble will be caused by only one root cause just as any tree can have only one seed as its origin. There can never be two seeds, which have grown in to one tree, & similarly, there can never be two root causes for a particular trouble. In case there are apparently two root causes for a particular trouble, then there are chances that one is either an effect of another or is not really causing the trouble.

3. When ever any machine is having trouble, the trouble is the only measured and monitored parameter of the machine but it will definitely have some unknown effects due to root cause which are not so critically monitored.

4. Any non-conventional and peculiar trouble is the ultimate result of its “Genetic” circumstances and hence each and every peculiar trouble is one of it’s own kind. The data bank the manufacturers have can at best lead to statistical probability / possibility of some what similar reason in cases of troubles which appear very frequently in the over all population.

5. All the tests, checks and allowable deviations or tolerances, which are done & measured by manufacturers, indicate only the health or status of the individual part at that time, but they can NOT give the exact cause and effect relationship of why a problem had arose without intervention of human mind. (Tests only show us how is it at present but can not directly tell why a particular trouble or peculiar observation has happened at all).

6. Apart from the healthyness of components and parts being assembled of a troubleful machine, for deciding about Run / Repair / Replace, the biggest problem for the operating agency or user, who runs the machine is why exactly the critical trouble had occurred in the first place, so that same kind of trouble must not recur again in the same or similar other machines in future.

7. The theory of trouble shooting can directly take the analyst’s mind to the root cause of the problem just like a guided missile reaches its target on its own.

8. One of the most outstanding features of this theory is that it can give the analyst’s confirmatory checks about correctness of the analysis during the analysis itself.

9. Any root cause analysis successfully done by any one any where so far IN THE WORLD is the result of INADVERTENT application of the same mental way of thinking which I have systematically researched & have laid down procedures & rules regarding same.

10. Any analysis made using this theory will lead to the solution to the trouble which will be most economical to implement since we can attack the root cause of the trouble directly without any trial & error. I am sure many concerned people will like to discuss the topic further.