The Universal Troubleshooting Process

Troubleshooters.Com^® and The UTP Subsite present:

Step 5: Do the Appropriate Corrective Maintenance

Note:

Originally, we called Corrective Maintenance by the name General Maintenance. Many older Troubleshooters.Com web pages, and some of our older books, use the phrase "General Maintenance". The two terms mean exactly the same thing, so please don't be confused. We made the name change because "Corrective Maintenance" better explains the context of the maintenance, but it means the exact same thing.

We've all felt stupid after spending hours narrowing the problem down to something that should have been corrective maintenance. The trick is to determine what is appropriate corrective maintenance. A specific action is appropriate corrective maintenance if:

Company policy is that the action must be taken before returning to the customer.
It's likely to cause the problem, easy to do, and is a maintenance item.
It's a possible cause, a not too difficult maintenance item, and the problem is intermittent.

Note that corrective maintenance is one of the few weapons we have against that scourge of troubleshooters, the intermittent problem. Often the only economical solution is to do all corrective maintenance, then tell the customer it might be fixed and to observe it for a time.

NOTE:

You can read more about Corrective Maintenance at http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/9802.htm. That article uses the older term "General Maintenance".

[ UTP page | Email Steve Litt | Troubleshooters.Com ]

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