Pro-tip: Ghosts in the machine

Pro-tips are all dedicated to making you a more effective automation professional. A perfect example is "ghost hunting" inside of your system.

When I say "ghost hunting," I do not mean that you should go around with a UV-camera to check for spirits. (Using an IR camera to inspect your gear is a better idea.) No, I mean finding and removing intermittent failures that the operators know and managers do not.

A few years ago, I was working in a water treatment plant that occasionally had a failure of the backwash sequence. I came in a few times and could find nothing. The system had a few older pumps that had been used decades ago. The current pumps are the third generation, the first two sets had been removed.

After trying a number of reasonable ideas that went no-where, I tried removing the logic from each of the older pumps. Suddenly, all the backwash failures disappeared! I suspect the discrete inputs on the pump status (run or fail), got voltage induced on it, causing the backwash sequence to believe it had two pumps on at once OR a failure occurred.

Ask your operators. I bet they have something that others have noticed or told you about. Who knows how much equipment uptime you can improve? Or overtime you might be able to save?