Maintenance Technology July 2017 - 9

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movement by upper management
to begin incipient training in the
reliability field or leverage valuable
training from experienced reliability
technicians that will retiring from
industry within the next decade (and
taking their knowledge and skills with
them). This is my personal experience,
knowledge, and general observation of
the industry.

College Electrical Lab Manager/
Instructor/Consultant, West. . .

Companies can't find skilled technicians that have the values and ethics
to stick to maintenance functions.
Many techs don't seem to want to learn
continuously and tend to jump from
one employer to another for a few
dollars more. 
Many colleges teach theory with
little hands-on training and troubleshooting skills. I'm 72 years old and
still working. I'm educated, skilled,
have degrees, licenses, all that stuff
you earn after 50 years in the field. The
people entering the maintenance field
today want to solve everything with a
computer and not get dirty.

Maintenance Leader
Discrete Mfg, Midwest. . .

This is a pretty easy question to
answer, using another question: How
do we replace our aging tradesmen
and tradeswomen? At our facility, the
average age of our trades force is in
the mid-fifties. Within the next five to
seven years, close to two thirds of our
workforce could retire. Given the lack
of young people interested in skilled
trades over the last two decades, we
really are in a bad situation. Having to
hire a retired tradesman who is in his
early sixties to fill a position goes to
show you how much trouble we're in.

Maintenance Manager,
Food Processing, South. . .

To sum up the top challenge that will
be affecting industry for years to come,
we've basically lost at least two generations of maintenance technicians.
Those that we (our operations) get
JULY 2017

If you're interested in becoming
an MT Reader Panelist, email
jalexander@maintenancetechnology.com.

that just keeps getting bigger, with no
end in sight. About 50% of my current
maintenance staff has less than three
years seniority, and 75% of these have
about a year to year and a half. We are
challenged to say the least.

now are what I call "gamers." They've
done nothing but play video games.
When I "signed up" for maintenance, everyone knew weekend work
was part of it. Most newer maintenance
workers seem to be against working
weekends, the time maintenance really
has to do their PMs and project work.
Our turnover is very high, which
has really taken a toll on experience in
my department. Having lost most of
the senior techs, we are finding that the
younger generation takes no ownership of equipment or shows much
dedication. They will call in [take off
work] regardless of our plans, knowing
we'll be in a jam. What's worse, they'll
show no concern [for putting us in a
jam] when they return.  
Over the past couple of years, we've
been anywhere from 10 and 12 to
20+ short in maintenance (from a
67-person total staffing). This leaves
us with 20% to 30% of our workforce
open, which creates a backlog of work

Industry Consultant,
International. . .

MT

Any and/or all of the points Bob
Williamson discussed are of concern.
As a consultant, I would say one challenge that has developed over the years
involves almost all of them.
Senior management used to plan
budgets with maintenance managers,
plant engineers, maintenance superintendents, and others, on at least an
annual-budget basis, with five-year
plans furnished as estimates. These
days, senior management frequently
is tied to quarterly bottom-line results
that tend to push quarterly financial
results as a high priority.
The overall result is that maintenance asset management is often
short-changed for the short-term goal
of maximizing the quarterly bottom
line. While this is basically a corporate
management problem, it continues to
interfere with good asset-management
practices. MT

Tip of the Month | JULY 2017

Use a cable tie when trying to determine
if a running motor is turning in the right
direction. Hold on to the large end of the tie
and slowly insert the skinny end into the back
of the motor where the fan is located until it
makes contact with the fan. (Just insert the
tip; don't go any further!) The direction in
which the cable tie moves will tell you the
direction in which the motor is turning.  Once
you've determined that, draw an arrow on
the motor to show normal direction.

What about you?
Tips and tricks that you
use in your work could be
value-added news to other
reliability and maintenance
pros. Let us help you
share them. Email your
favorites to MTTipster@
maintenancetechnology.com.
Like this month's featured
Tipster, you might see your
submission(s) highlighted in
this space. (You don't need to
be an MT Reader Panelist.)

Tipster: Michael Maccarone
Plant Engineer/Maintenance Manager
Jadcore, Terre Haute, IN
MAINTENANCETECHNOLOGY.COM | 9
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