TIPS for Diagnosis, Repair and commissioning of
laboratory instruments and equipment
This is probably obvious to experienced engineers,
but it doesn't hurt to take a look.
As when you go to the doctor, a very important part
of the treatment to follow is the correct diagnosis, interpretation of signs,
current state of the system that is being reviewed and, of course, the
patient's clinical history; in the same way it is with the equipment and
instruments, that is to say a large part of what will tell us if a repair is
simple, or if it requires a change of spare parts or a consumable, until the
fact of the need to remove the equipment from our facilities to send it to be
repaired abroad will largely depend on the diagnosis of the reported failure
That is why I present what in my opinion are
the basic steps for the correct diagnosis of failures
1.- Review the history of the reported
equipment
It is important that you have an idea of the last services performed on
the equipment, whether they are corrective maintenance or scheduled
maintenance, what was the failure and how it was solved, how long it was since
your last corrective and / or preventive service, what are the spare parts that
are commonly requires your equipment or instrument, it is always good to have a
fault statistic on hand, typify fault types, their frequency, downtime, the
area that reports the most failures, the user that reports the most failures,
etc. and all those data that you think are relevant to give a useful profile
for the diagnosis of your equipment and / or instruments
2.- Confirm Reported Failure
It is an apparently obvious step, but believe me, when
you are about to leave and they report a failure 5 minutes before your
departure time and you have the bad luck to answer the phone, or they saw you
leave the bathroom, that is, you have to stay for that you can no longer say
that you are not here, do not make the mistake of believing in what the user
reports to you, confirm the fault that they are reporting to you, this will
prevent you from leaving later
from what you will already get, how to do this ?, I for
example when they tell me that a
pH meter has variation of readings, it took the standard
solutions, which I know its condition, in which I trust, I execute the
verification of the instrument, it checked that the SLOPE is within criteria,
if it meets the specification it released the instrument at the moment and
killed two birds with one stone, left the instrument working and now without
doubt to the user that the instrument is fine and fails corresponds to an
external factor, it would be impossible to name here all the confirmation of
failures but if it happens to you at any time you can contact me and I will
gladly help you
3.- Internal or External Service
Once you confirm the failure you will have to decide what
you are going to do with the equipment / instrument, although it is within your
possibilities and capabilities to fix it yourself, or it is a repair that
You had not done and you want to learn how to do it, out
of curiosity even to waste time, make sure you do not leave the equipment /
instrument worse or have an emergency plan in case things do not go as you
expect, if on the contrary there is no way to that you do it, after confirming
the failure you realize that it is out of your reach, do not invest more of
your valuable time, put an OUT OF SERVICE label and leave it to the manufacturer
to answer for his "blessing", record in your blog what you did as
detailed as possible, and in the team's blog the status of it, never forget
good documentation practices, because at the time of the audits they are the
ones that will save your skin
4.- Verification
Whether you have
performed the service or it was performed by an external make sure to confirm
that the equipment is working within parameters, run a standard, perform
internal verification of the equipment / instrument, do a test, as who says,
you know your equipment and you know which test does not fail
5.- Delivery
Once you have
verified that everything is in order, make the official delivery of the
equipment / instrument to the user, person in charge, boss or supervisor that
corresponds, show them that they are meeting the criteria,
Show him that
you are registered in the blog, give him a service report, that is, there must
be a document that shows the signature of conformity that you left the
equipment working again, believe me this will save you from many
misunderstandings, and many bad times
In general these
what for me are the basics for the execution of a reliable service, make your
own prestige, make your word count, that they look for you to ask you for
advice, and if they ask you something that you don't really know, don't have
sorry to say you don't know, just ask for a little time and really commit to
getting a satisfying answer, maybe you do too
you learn
something new
I leave them
until the next installment, if you have any other point or think you missed the
list please
Comment;
remember that knowledge that is not shared is useless
Remember to
follow me on my networks,
twitter @
especialistain1
gmail:
especialistaindependiente22@gmail.com
