E Light Safety, Training and Leadership Blog
The Importance of Daily Logs
by Ted Smith on 11/19/15
As a supervisor, or foremen, you are the crew leader on a construction job site. It’s up to you to plan, organize, and direct work in a safe, and timely, manner. All supervisors will experience conflict at some point, as well as safety violations, workplace injuries and there will be things that happen on the site that prevent you from doing your work for the day or part of the day. All of these things can lead to claims and other liabilities later on. It is important for you as a supervisor to protect yourself, your reputation and to also protect the company. By keeping a daily record of all activities, you can protect yourself and the company from arbitration and/or litigation.
What is a Daily Log?
The daily log is a book, or software program, into which a supervisor records the day’s activities. Record keeping helps ensure project organization, as well as keeps tabs on day-to-day employee happenings. The daily log is essential because it keeps a consistent record, which could be useful if you’re ever sued, and need to prove that your workers performed a safety inspection, did work to the best of their ability, made quality installations, or could not work due to site conditions or other impacts or conflict was handled immediately and efficiently.
Daily log sections include:
Date
Times of incidents
Work performed
Safety topics
Problems and delays
Employee conflict
Equipment usage
Materials purchased
General management
What is an Incident Report?
E Light has attempted to make this process as efficient as possible by using a program called iAuditor in conjunction with your tablets and smart phones. The company has multiple templates pre made for your use. There is a daily supervisors report which has boxes and questions that can answer quickly as you go and there is also a place to insert pictures. .We also have a Rapid Observation Report which allows you to document something specific. It is important that each supervisor complete a daily supervisors report each day and email it to the project engineer, the project superintendent and project manager. These reports are a great tool for the PM to use to know what is happening in the site. These reports are also to be stored on the construction drive under the project file for future use. Be sure to email yourself a copy as well for your personal records.
Daily Logs Ensure Effective Jobsite Supervision
Jobsites are typically limited to the manpower needed. The job site supervisor is typically all on his own. He needs to protect himself by keeping a daily log. This ensures that a record is kept of all conflicts, incidents, as well as records of day-to-day activities and impacts that prevented work. If a supervisor can prove that he’s consistently kept a detailed daily log, it should hold up in court, as well as with customers and business owners.
Ted "Smitty' Smith
Being Too Busy. Work Place Stress
by Ted Smith on 04/19/15E Light has made steady growth over the past few years and this is a great thing. It has provided great opportunities for advancement and new employment. It has also lead to some growth pains, which are to be expected. I was reading though my trade magazines this Sunday and I came across an article that I found very helpful and I wanted to share it with all of you.
Vice President, Sage Accountant Solutions
Spring has sprung, and while you’re cleaning the clutter from your office or house, what about your mind? Taking care of yourself should be part of your job, but many of us are suffering in silence from an emotionally and physically draining sickness called 'being busy'.
We’ve wrongly come to accept that overload is okay. Being busy often equates to success; when your business is booming you need to run a mile a minute and keep a million balls in the air at once. And being too busy is no big deal, right?
Wrong. Being busy implies stress. Three quarters of people believe there is more on-the-job stress than a generation ago. Yes, stress can be helpful and motivating but too much and too prolonged stress can be a downward spiral. But chronic stress can be very damaging.
Here are five tips to spring clean your mind and stop feeling busy all the time:
1. Eliminate the word 'busy' from your vocabulary
The Washington Post recently published some research that shows why the word 'busy' should be avoided. The research on the psychological aspects of language use explained that the words you use have more power than you think. Busy doesn’t recognize the good things you are doing. When you stop describing your life as 'busy', you can feel happier and less stressed.
2. Proper stress management
You’re going to experience stress, left unmanaged it will destroy your productivity and health. Instead of feeling even more stressed when you take 'me time' to go to the gym, take a vacation or simply get a good night’s rest, think of it as part of your job. Studies show we are 20 per cent more productive when we work from a happy state of mind. Ditch the guilt by re-categorizing your life balance as a mandatory job responsibility, and put it in your calendar.
3. Do not dive straight into work
If the first thing you do when you wake up is check your email, your phone or tackle yesterday’s lingering problem, stop. Throwing yourself into work immediately can harm your long-term productivity. It’s like going on a run without stretching first. You need to warm up first so you can better focus on work when it is time.
4. Stop multitasking
It may seem efficient on the surface, but multitasking can take more time in the end and involve more error. Research shows that shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 per cent of your productive time. Unfortunately, the busier you get the more multitasking you end up doing. Instead use the 80/20 rule; identify the 20 per cent of your tasks that are really effective and do them one at a time, and start with the most important task first.
5. If you're the boss, set the example
As a manager, it’s important to show that excessive busyness is not a good business model. Too often the perception that hard work is the only way to rise in a company keeps employees working themselves into illness. Prioritize keeping your team healthy and productive. Set priorities for all work so your employees can schedule tasks over a reasonable period of time.
"Busy" is worn like a badge of honor these days. We live in a world where we have more and more to do with less time to be at ease. We’re less able to stand back and think and worker smarter. When you don’t allow the time to slow down, you not only risk your health but also your business. So the next time someone asks "How are you doing?" and you respond "busy" treat it like a stop, drop and roll moment.
Problem Solving as a Team
by Ted Smith on 04/04/15
A3 Problem Solving Overview and Refresher
Excepts from: Flinchbaugh, Jamie (2012-02-16). A3 Problem Solving: Applying Lean Thinking (Kindle Locations 272-275).
Definition of Lean Thinking The lean methodology - the practice of focusing on the processes that create the value while eliminating those that create waste - has been mostly about tools for many years. As broad knowledge of lean begins to mature, more people realize that being lean is also about applying lean thinking, principles, and behaviors - the core drivers behind A3 - at an individual, team, and organizational level to create a lean thinking culture. “Creating visible thinking is what is unique about the A3 process.” When extending the lean process to thinking, what does waste-free reporting and problem solving look like? To begin the process of thinking leaner, take a multi-page report and condense it to A3 - the international standard for a paper size approximately the same as 11”x17” paper. As you moved from the problem to the recommendation, rather than just the data. As a result of revealing the thought process, two things happen. First, when your thinking process is transparent, you can reach agreement faster. Many arguments and disagreements about recommended actions are in actually disagreements about assumptions made about either the current reality and target condition. if we can’t make our assumptions visible, then they can’t be discussed. Second, making the thinking visible enables coaching. You can’t coach outcomes. If someone just showed you that they’ve failed to achieve the outcome, you don’t know why unless you can see their thought process.
The four quadrants of A3 problem solving provide a standardized problem solving process to promote common thinking :
Problem Statement
Current Reality
Target Condition
Action
Building Blocks for Developing A3 Thinking
There is no single “right” format, but in general an A3 report flows from a problem statement or gap description, to current reality analysis, description of the target condition, and finally the plan and measurements to evaluate progress and validity. The format itself isn’t important—it won’t magically turn you into a lean thinker any more than picking up a paintbrush or a sax will magically turn you into another Rembrandt or John Coltrane. It is going through the work of developing an A3 report for your situation that starts you on the path to becoming a lean thinker. It is essential to begin with the problem statement, because it is a critical element on the path to lean thinking. There are few things more fundamental—and frequently done poorly—than the problem statement. How you structure the problem statement determines your focus. Make sure your problem statement is actually about the current observable condition, not about a perceived solution, cause or what you want. Before you jump to reactive solutions, it is essential to deeply understand the current reality. This is not a sit-down exercise, it is an activity. Go observe what is actually happening. You want the as-is, not the supposed-to-be or the my-belief-is version of reality. Before you start throwing Band-Aids at the problem, you should first develop a clear target condition—the goal of where you want to be. This is not the result you would achieve, this is how you will change the work in order to get the result. You don’t want to just uncover solutions to problems, you want to design the work to create a new and better reality. Bad systems beat good people, and your job is to change the system.
QUADRANT I: Problem Statement There is great value in developing a standard problem-solving format. Everybody can follow along by following the thinking. Once common A3 thinking is established, it can serve as a powerful business tool that can be applied across all business processes and functions. First, let’s define the problem. Capturing the resolution to a complex problem or a 20-page report on one A3 sheet of paper may seem like a daunting task. Once standardized, it will, in fact, make all points of problem solving within an organization more efficient. How do we get there? “The problem statement has a huge impact on the trajectory we take.” If you get point A wrong, the problem, then all assumptions made to get to the solution may also be incorrect and, so too, the solution.
Problem Statement Development Consider the difference in impact from two very similar problem statements: Joe is a jerk, or how do I develop a working relationship with Joe? The first problem statement is all about the other person. Let’s reword the problem statement: “How can I develop a working relationship with Joe?” The conditions are very much the same but the problem statement is different. While one whole set of solutions rested entirely in Joe’s body a whole new set of possibilities includes us and other people. The second problem statement includes the problem owner, giving that person infinitely more power to solve this problem.
Here’s another example: We don’t have enough manpower or, we don’t have enough production from our manpower. The first problem statement only leads you to add more manpower. The second helps focus on how you might be wasting the efforts of your current manpower.
Pitfalls to Avoid Consider the impact on the problem statement if you send two people off on different trajectories of just five degrees. You will get far apart pretty quickly. The problem statement establishes our trajectory. If two people depart from the same location on a trip, and only five degrees separates their trajectory, they will be in drastically different places in a matter of hours. ”We underestimate how powerful the problem statement can be, and that is pitfall number one.”
The second pitfall is getting locked into the problem statement as though it is written on a stone tablet. You must be willing to adjust your problem statements. This doesn’t mean your original problem statement was wrong. Writing a problem statement is an iterative process—problem statements are changed because you learn stuff through the process of examining the problem. In my experience coaching executives on lean thinking, you have to modify a problem statement at least 50 percent of the time.
The third pitfall in problem statements is jumping the gun on too many assumptions before the problem statement is created. You insert unexamined causes and solutions into the problem statement, closing yourself off to many possibilities. The earlier example of “we don’t have enough manpower” is an example of putting the solution in the problem statement. There is only one solution to that problem—get more manpower. It immediately closes you off to many possibilities.
QUADRANT II: Current Reality It is important to directly observe the problem before you can fix it. The objective is not about going to see but about going to understand. A process tour can be enjoyable but it is not about industrial tourism. It is necessary to not just see but actually study and understand the problem. There is a big difference.
QUADRANT III: Developing a Target Condition Once a team has developed a clear problem statement and understanding of the current condition, they also must develop a tangible vision of the target. Quite frankly, it is easier to skip this step than to spend time on it. What makes it easy? Our first flawed assumption is that the target condition is simply the absence of the problem, or the inverse of the current condition. This is not a useful assumption. The second reason that we skip over such an important step is that we assume this is the same thing as developing the action plan.
The target condition should describe what you would see, feel or experience. The target condition is what “good” looks like. “The coaching question to use with yourself or others is exactly that: What would ‘good’ look like?”
Quadrant IV: The Action Plan. Now the team needs to take everything they have learned in the process and develop an action plan that will reach the target condition. Two things are critical:
The plan is clear and has objectives, deadlines and champions
The plan has a clear metric so the team and champions can determine if it is working.
Flinchbaugh, Jamie (2012-02-16). A3 Problem Solving: Applying Lean Thinking (Kindle Locations 272-275). . Kindle Edition.
Lessons from the Past
by Ted Smith on 01/05/15An idiot is one that never learns from his mistakes. A smart man learns from his mistakes and a wise man learns from other peoples mistakes.
"The Fifth Avenue Association was ever vigilant in keeping
roadways and sidewalks clear; and the association went further than the rules
laid down by the borough president’s office in maintaining standards of
decorum. The association regarded the
sacks of cement, gravel heaps, and mounds of brick as nuisances, and they
requested builders and contractors to store as much material as possible on the
site itself. Like so many miracles, the miracle of construction that was the
Empire State Building did not take place for all to see. It took place on the first floor and
downstairs in the basement, where the builders did just what the Firth Avenue
Association wanted. All the building materials,
except structural steel and the facing for the first five floors, were received
and unloaded within the building and hoisted to the workers within the
building. Nothing sat outside in piles
to created eyesores, nothing was hoisted outside except the structural steel
and stone facing for the lower five floors.
Traffic was not blocked, and the ever-constant hazard of falling
materials was minimized.
Truck entrances on Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth Streets
led to twenty-five-foot-wide driveways extending around the first floor. Drivers only had to drive through a gate to
the appointed docking area, unload, and drive off. Eken said that they “ran trucks the way they
run trains in and out Grand Central. If
a truck missed its place in the line on Tuesday, it had to wait until Wednesday
to get back in”. The building materials
were all hoisted within the building in four shafts that would later
accommodate passenger elevators. In the
early stages, the hoists traveled at 80 feet a minute, but they were soon
replaced by mine skips that zipped along at 1,300 feet a minute.
Almost all the work was performed during the normal
workday. About all that took place after
hours was the removal of construction debris.
If the debris was heavy, it was taken down by hoists; if light, it was
sent down metal chutes (wood chutes would not have been strong enough to
withstand the weight and velocity of even light debris). The debris went into a hopper on the first
floor; it was transferred to trucks and out it went.
Just as Paul Starrett had told the corporation that all
equipment would be new, it was also novel.
An industrial railway system was used to distribute the material at the
site --- a first for an office-building construction job. It was not as if there were four-by-eight
locomotives up there. The railway cars
were handcars with not motive power other than human push power; but they
rolled along at a merry clip, and each car was the equivalent of eight
wheelbarrows. Narrow-gauge tracks that
were designed to reach every work site were laid on the floors of every floor
of the building and the hoists, with twenty-four double-side-rocker dump cars
and twenty-four platform cars serving the building. Sheet iron, metal parts, bales of wire, coils
of cable, sand and cinders and lumber and pipe would arrive; each would be
unloaded in a special corner of the first floor, loaded onto a car; and sent
shooting to the floor where it was needed.
Mortar could be delivered at the rate of twenty-one cubic feet per trip
in cars, compared with seven cubic feet per trip in barrows. It saved labor by decreasing the number of
handlers, hoists, and hoist men, and it saved time and that meant money.
At the ordinary construction site, materials such as bricks
were dumped in a pile in a cordoned –off area of the street, then delivered to
the workers by wheelbarrow, and admittedly backbreaking, labor-intensive, and
not terribly efficient method. Starrett
did something different. The building
required and enormous quantity of bricks – about 10 million and the bricklayers
had to keep pace with the stone setters who worked on a schedule of one story a
day. The contractors constructed two
brick hoppers, each with a capacity of twenty thousand bricks, in the first
basement. They built chutes leading into
the hoppers near the entrances on the main floor. Trucks only had to back up to the chutes, tip
their bed, dump their bricks through the chute into the basement hopper; and
move out. These hoppers, with inclined
bottoms, allowed the bricks to slide through gates and drop into the dump
cars. The cars were then taken “up
hoist,” and the bricks were deposited alongside the bricklayers, without having
been handled from the time they came into the building until they were picked
up and placed in the wall.
Cement was delivered in bags, unloaded, and was likewise
dumped into a floor opening to a basement hopper; which fed a large mixer. A rather ingenious method of handling the
bags that minimized back strain and hand injuries was devised by the superintendent
and fashioned by the house blacksmith.
It was a pair on tongs that was round on the end to prevent tearing the
bags.
All the limestone from the sixth floor up was delivered in
an equally brilliant fashion (the limestone for the first five stories was
raised by stiff-leg derricks that operated from the sixth-floor setback). A truck drove into the building’s loading
area with the crated stone keyed for the appropriate section of the
building. The stone was made in such
dimensions that it could be handled on ordinary material hoists within the
building, so electric hoists, which were like small cranes that operated from
an overhead monorail, lifted the stone from the truck, swung the stone along
the monorail, and deposited it on the platform car. The stone would be trundled by platform car
to the perimeter of the floor where it was to be installed, and from there it
was dropped by cable into its place in the wall between the steel jambs pieces
already set. Two hoists handled all the
stone for the building, not only eliminated a large number of hoisting derricks
and engines, but since the hoisting was inside the building, doing away with a
grave source of danger to the public.
An unexpected perquisite came with the site. The Waldorf’s architect, Henry J.
Hardenbergh, had taken advantage of the right to extend the basement to the
curb line when he designed the hotel.
Starrett, seeing the opportunity to add to his work space, made sure
these vaults were shorted up during demolition.
He then installed storage and supply rooms in the vaults for subcontractors
during construction, freeing that much more space in the interior of the
building.
The masonry wall consisted of an eight-inch backing of brick
faced with either limestone or aluminum spandrels. The bricklayers put on the walls with a
precision of operation that allowed for the least possible wasted motion. Suspended on a covered scaffold, they picked
up bricks from the piles that their helpers placed in easy reach, set them in
place, spread the mortar; turned, and put in the next brick in a model of
time-and-motions studies.
When the framework was about six stories, high the lower floors became scenes of increasingly complex activity, with movement everywhere. The work was fully synchronized, all done in unison. While the skin was being set outside, plumbers and electricians started to install the building’s veins, arteries, nerves and alimentary systems – the ganglia- that fleshed in the skeleton. When the window framers were in place and glass had been installed, plastering and woodwork and painting could begin. All the finishing trades followed in such a rapidly moving but orderly parade, said Shreve that the plasterer might appear in the lower floors even before the roof was made tight."
Let;s strive every day to find better ways to plan our work and to find safer and more efficient ways to perform our work.
Ted " Smitty" Smith
Director of Renewable Energy
E Light Electric Services, Inc
Troubleshooting Process
by Ted Smith on 11/06/14
To expertly
troubleshoot electrical equipment, problems must be solved by replacing
only defective equipment or components in the least amount of time. One of the
most important factors in doing this, is the approach used. An expert
troubleshooter uses a system or approach that allows them to logically and
systematically analyze a circuit and determine exactly what is wrong.
The approach described
here is a logical, systematic approach called the 5 Step
Troubleshooting Approach. It is a proven process that is highly effective
and reliable in helping to solve electrical problems.
This approach differs
from troubleshooting procedures in that it does not tell you step by step how
to troubleshoot a particular kind of circuit. It is more of a thinking process
that is used to analyze a circuit’s behavior and determine what component or
components are responsible for the faulty operation. This approach is general
in nature allowing it to be used on any type of electrical circuit.
In fact, the principles
covered in this approach can be applied to many other types of problem solving
scenarios, not just electrical circuits.
The 5 Step
Troubleshooting Approach consists of the following:
Preparation
Step 1 Observation
Step 2 Define Problem Area
Step 3 Identify Possible Causes
Step 4 Determine Most Probable Cause
Step 5 Test and Repair
Follow-up
Let’s take a look at
these in more detail.
Preparation
Before you begin to
troubleshoot any piece of equipment, you must be familiar with your
organization’s safety rules and procedures for working on electrical equipment.
These rules and procedures govern the methods you can use to troubleshoot
electrical equipment (including your lockout/tagout procedures, testing procedures
etc.) and must be followed while troubleshooting.
Next, you need to gather
information regarding the equipment and the problem. Be sure you understand how
the equipment is designed to operate. It is much easier to analyze faulty
operation when you know how it should operate. Operation or equipment manuals
and drawings are great sources of information and are helpful to have available
Step 1 – Observe
Most faults provide
obvious clues as to their cause. Through careful observation and a little bit of
reasoning, most faults can be identified as to the actual component with very
little testing. When observing malfunctioning equipment, look for visual signs
of mechanical damage such as indications of impact, chafed wires, loose
components or parts laying in the bottom of the cabinet. Look for signs of
overheating, especially on wiring, relay coils, and printed circuit boards.
Don't forget to use your
other senses when inspecting equipment. The smell of burnt insulation is
something you won't miss. Listening to the sound of the equipment operating may
give you a clue to where the problem is located. Checking the temperature of
components can also help find problems but be careful while doing this, some
components may be alive or hot enough to burn you.
Pay particular attention
to areas that were identified either by past history or by the person that
reported the problem. A note of caution here! Do not let these mislead you,
past problems are just that – past problems, they are not necessarily the problem
you are looking for now. Also, do not take reported problems as fact, always
check for yourself if possible. The person reporting the problem may not have
described it properly or may have made their own incorrect assumptions.
When faced with
equipment which is not functioning properly you should:
o Be sure you understand how the equipment is
designed to operate. It makes it much easier to analyze faulty operation when
you know how it should operate;
o Note the condition of the equipment as found.
You should look at the state of the relays (energized or not), which lamps are
lit, which auxiliary equipment is energized or running etc. This is the best
time to give the equipment a thorough inspection (using all your senses). Look
for signs of mechanical damage, overheating, unusual sounds, smells etc.;
o Test the operation of the equipment including
all of its features. Make note of any feature that is not operating properly.
Make sure you observe these operations very carefully. This can give you a lot
of valuable information regarding all parts of the equipment.
Step 2 – Define Problem Area
It is at this stage that
you apply logic and reasoning to your observations to determine the problem
area of the malfunctioning equipment. Often times when equipment malfunctions,
certain parts of the equipment will work properly while others not.
The key is to use your
observations (from step 1) to rule out parts of the equipment or circuitry that
are operating properly and not contributing to the cause of the malfunction.
You should continue to do this until you are left with only the part(s) that if
faulty, could cause the symptoms that the equipment is experiencing.
To help you define the
problem area you should have a schematic diagram of the circuit in addition to
your noted observations.
Starting with the whole
circuit as the problem area, take each noted observation and ask yourself
"what does this tell me about the circuit operation?" If an
observation indicates that a section of the circuit appears to be operating
properly, you can then eliminate it from the problem area. As you eliminate
each part of the circuit from the problem area, make sure to identify them on
your schematic. This will help you keep track of all your information.
Step 3 – Identify Possible Causes
Once the problem area(s)
have been defined, it is necessary to identify all the possible causes of the
malfunction. This typically involves every component in the problem area(s).
It is necessary to list
(actually write down) every fault which could cause the problem no matter how
remote the possibility of it occurring. Use your initial observations to help
you do this. During the next step you will eliminate those which are not likely
to happen.
Step 4 – Determine Most Probable Cause
Once the list of
possible causes has been made, it is then necessary to prioritize each item as
to the probability of it being the cause of the malfunction. The following are
some rules of thumb when prioritizing possible causes.
Although it could be
possible for two components to fail at the same time, it is not very likely.
Start by looking for one faulty component as the culprit.
The following list shows
the order in which you should check components based on the probability of them
being defective:
o First look for components which burn out or have
a tendency to wear out, i.e. mechanical switches, fuses , relay contacts, or
light bulbs. (Remember, that in the case of fuses, they burn out for a reason.
You should find out why before replacing them.)
o The next most likely cause of failure are coils,
motors, transformers and other devices with windings. These usually generate
heat and, with time, can malfunction.
o Connections should be your third choice,
especially screw type or bolted type. Over time these can loosen and cause a
high resistance. In some cases this resistance will cause overheating and
eventually will burn open. Connections on equipment that is subject to
vibration are especially prone to coming loose.
o Finally, you should look for is defective
wiring. Pay particular attention to areas where the wire insulation could be
damaged causing short circuits. Don't rule out incorrect wiring, especially on
a new piece of equipment.
Step 5 – Test and Repair
Testing electrical
equipment can be hazardous. The electrical energy contained in many circuits
can be enough to injure or kill. Make sure you follow all your companies safety
precautions, rules and procedures while troubleshooting.
Once you have determined
the most probable cause, you must either prove it to be the problem or rule it
out. This can sometimes be done by careful inspection however, in many cases
the fault will be such that you cannot identify the problem component by
observation and analysis alone. In these circumstances, test instruments can be
used to help narrow the problem area and identify the problem component.
Please remember that the
best instrument to test if a circuit is de-ernegized before working on it is
the wiggy or solenoid type tester. In recent years many electricians and even
meter manufacturers have forgotten the purpose of the solenoid tester. It was
always intended to be a magnetic solenoid operating tester that vibrated when
current was passed through the leads. This is a simple, NON-ELECTRONIC, method
of testing current flow that does not rely on a possibly faulty electronic
package. An electrician came up with
this idea a long time ago to help protect himself and his fellow electricians.
Unfortunately, we have begun to abandon this great practice in favor of electronic
packages which can fail.
There are many types of
test instruments used for troubleshooting. Some are specialized instruments
designed to measure various behaviors of specific equipment, while others like
the multimeters are more general in nature and can be used on most electrical
equipment. A typical multimeter can measure AC and DC Voltages, Resistance, and
Current.
A very important rule
when taking meter readings is to predict what the meter will read before taking
the reading. Use the circuit schematic to determine what the meter will read if
the circuit is operating normally. If the reading is anything other than your
predicted value, you know that this part of the circuit is being affected by
the fault.
Depending on the circuit
and type of fault, the problem area as defined by your observations, can
include a large area of the circuit creating a very large list of possible and
probable causes. Under such circumstances, you could use a “divide and
eliminate” testing approach to eliminate parts of the circuit from the problem
area. The results of each test provides information to help you reduce the size
of the problem area until the defective component is identified.
Once you have determined
the cause of the faulty operation of the circuit you can proceed to replace the
defective component. Be sure the circuit is locked out and you follow all
safety procedures before disconnecting the component or any wires.
After replacing the
component, you must test operate all features of the circuit to be sure you
have replaced the proper component and that there are no other faults in the
circuit. It can be very embarrassing to tell the customer that you have
repaired the problem only to have him find another problem with the equipment
just after you leave.
