Ave ductor, erraturi te salutant…*

Most people think that this was the gladiators' customary greeting to the emperor before they entered the amphitheatre to fight to the death. In reality, this statement was made only once, by a group of gladiators who had to perform for Emperor Claudius in 52 AD. Nevertheless, chances are that 'Morituri te salutant' is one of the few words in Latin that you know. And by now you are no doubt wondering what this long-forgotten Latin phrase is doing in the preface to your beloved maintenance magazine.

Emergency cry

In the last issue of 2016, in my foreword 'Errare Humanum est' I talked about the fact that, despite all the attention to safety, in maintenance work a small mistake can have fatal consequences. After all, to err is human. A reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, reacted as follows: "Safety in Seveso companies is a tough job and administratively very tough for subcontractors. Sometimes even to the point of absurdity, where the excess of requirements even leads to dangerous situations. It probably can't get much better administratively. Documents sometimes clearly only serve as an umbrella in relation to external companies.
The real cause of accidents: Those financially responsible put too much pressure on maintenance works to reduce time (and costs). That pressure comes from the management over everyone to the worker-executioner who has no choice but to execute (quickly). Especially if he works for an external company. This pressure is not measurable and does not get a return because suppliers also have competition and do not dare express this pressure for fear of losing the customer.
The only returns are accidents, and because nobody dares to write this, the real people responsible are not caught and the responsibilities are never taken. With my 20 years of experience in Seveso companies, I think this is the danger that technicians will never tame."

Powerlessness

Although the situation described here is undoubtedly not the case in every company, I wanted to add this point of view to the debate around safe maintenance. Many companies have the adage 'Safety first' or 'We do it safely or we don't do it'. They expect the same from their suppliers and maintenance contractors. On the other hand, we need to be increasingly efficient and productive in order to survive in a global economy. This quickly translates into cost cutting, also for maintenance works. A performance pressure that is often experienced by the maintenance technicians on the work floor as a task to 'not lose time'.  It should therefore come as no surprise that in some operations (slightly) more risk is taken. When all this is flanked by purely administrative or impossible-to-apply safety instructions, I can well understand the feeling of powerlessness expressed in the reader's reaction.

Can you?

Anyone who has studied the modern insights into safety and safety culture will know that this feeling of powerlessness is particularly pernicious and leads to mistakes and incorrect actions, which may result in safety incidents. It is therefore the duty of everyone responsible for maintenance to do something about this. Or do you think it is OK to send technicians knowingly and willingly into the work arena, while they silently shout: 'Ave ductor, erraturi te salutant'?

Wim Vancauwenberghe
Maintenance Evangelist
* Greetings, manager, those who will do something wrong, greetings to you.