Problems Experienced with Modern Generators Article

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JK
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Problems Experienced with Modern Generators Article

Post by JK »

This article was sent to me by a co-worker while we were discussing the reality of today, as to what we experienced in our professional seagoing career, him as an electrician. Since I have been in the position of actually repairing the large electrical machinery either in-situ or taking them out through the top of the ship, what is written in the article came as no big surprise. However, the writer ties it to government involvement and competition. We generally think of government involvement as leveling the purchases across the industry to ensure that the funding isn't directed to one segment. I never considered the implications in this manner though:
In the early 1970s, government began forcing the industry in the direction of increasing competition. The cost pressures associated with this transition have had significant negative impacts regarding generators, including: (1) Increasingly lower quality of new machines and (2) increasingly lower capability of technical support for addressing the inevitably high rates of in-service problems.
Quality has suffered as new designs pushed duties to higher and uncharted levels and as these designs incorporated less costly materials and procedures to allow faster manufacturing. Technical capability has suffered as OEMs have greatly reduced the number of engineers in their organizations and as institutional knowledge has been lost to retirements.
Further on the writer talks about
Failure to pass on this know-how in an organized and effective manner repeatedly has led to the “reinvention” of old problems.
I see this every day in my position. Issues that we put to bed years ago are cropping up with new staff and the slow movement to professional engineers over experienced marine engineers in key positions.

https://www.ccj-online.com/4q-2013/gene ... enerators/
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