Step 4 in Action

Step #4 in Action

Tough Issue: Intermittent Breakdowns Cost Millions

The team at a forty-year-old power plant faced a multi-million-dollar problem. "Twice in the last three weeks," explained Mike, the plant manager, "the 37-ton rotor on one of the turbines has fallen out of alignment. Both incidents required an emergency shutdown. Spinning at 3,600 revolutions per minute, an out-of-alignment rotor can destroy tens of millions of dollars of equipment in minutes. But taking the unit out of service will cost our company a million dollars a day to purchase the power elsewhere."

The maintenance supervisor for the unit felt confident that he had the solution. "We know this machine," he commented. "I want to take the unit down and start work immediately."

Mike wasn't so sure. It was a tricky problem because it occurred intermittently. Since the metal expanded as the temperature rose to 1,000 degrees and no one could look inside the rotor enclosure while the turbine operated, everything was speculation. With millions of dollars riding on any decision, everyone needed to understand what was going on and to consider their options carefully.

A Great Decision Solution

Mike began by inviting a broad range of people to a meeting (Step #1). In addition to the maintenance supervisor and members of his department, the group included operators for the unit as well as plant engineers.

Next, all the participants reviewed the hopes they had previously developed together (Step #2). They recalled their commitment to teamwork and their hope of being the benchmark plant in their industry. This step reminded them that they wanted to avoid the interdepartmental rivalries that had plagued them in the past.

Then the operators described the operating conditions during which the problems occurred, what the gauges showed, and how the vibrations felt. The maintenance personnel discussed what they did at the last maintenance cycle for the unit and how the rotor looked at that time. The plant engineers showed schematics for the unit and printouts of the diagnostic tests they'd run. (This completed Step #3.)

Now they put Step #4 into practice. Since nearly twenty people participated and had widely varying levels of knowledge and experience with the unit, everyone wrote down solution options on sheets of paper and posted them on the wall. The participants were told they wouldn't have to defend any particular idea; they just needed to get them out.

In a short amount of time, the group had spread more than forty sheets of paper across the wall and clustered them into about a dozen different alternatives—ten times more possibilities than had surfaced before this step. The ideas ranged from an immediate shutdown and replacement of a suspected subassembly to a complete overhaul of the rotor unit. The team also included the status quo approach (close monitoring of the turbine but not yet making repairs) so that they could assess whether or not to make a change.

In the course of the two-hour meeting, the team accomplished several important tasks concerning the options:

1. They discussed each one so that everyone was clear about what it meant.

2. They checked how the options fit with the information they had and agreed upon a list of four key options.

3. They identified sources of information to evaluate the options further.

This step got the team working together to find a more effective solution than the maintenance supervisor's original idea. The ultimate solution turned out to be a totally new approach—one that they hadn't considered before taking this step. The insights they shared identified ways to operate the unit that lessened the likelihood of breakdowns. Thus, they kept the unit in operation while planning a targeted repair at a less critical time. Proud of his team, the plant manager reported, "Our investment in exploring new options got us on a path to a superior result that saved us a significant amount of time and money."