Blame maintenance: Manufacturing’s favorite strategy for operator and engineering errors

Key takeaways

• When chaos strikes, maintenance gets the blame—even if they weren’t in the room.
• Insufficient operator training often leads to avoidable breakdowns, yet maintenance bears the blame.
• Design flaws increase maintenance burdens—practicality must guide engineering decisions.
• "Fix it fast—with no budget, no parts, and plenty of blame" is the maintenance motto.

Ah, the maintenance department—those unsung heroes of industry who somehow find themselves wearing more hats than anyone else in the plant. They fix, they patch, they perform miracles with duct tape and baling wire, yet they are the first ones under fire when things go wrong. Because, naturally, every machine breakdown and every missed production target can be traced back to maintenance. After all, isn’t it their fault the equipment wasn’t built to withstand the operator’s unique “interpretation” of procedure, or the design quirks of our stellar engineering team?

When operators get reckless then maintenance will pick up the pieces

Let’s start with operator training—or, as it’s sometimes known, the “creative chaos” approach. Why waste time and resources on comprehensive training when we can simply give operators a brief introduction to the machine and call it a day? Surely, they’ll figure it out on their own, and when they don’t, maintenance will be right there to pick up the pieces (literally). Who could forget the classic scenario of an operator confusing the “Emergency Stop” button with “Do Not Touch Unless Absolutely Necessary,” or running a machine in a way that the original manual explicitly warned against? But if it breaks, don’t worry—maintenance should have prevented this by…well, somehow.

It’s maintenance’s fault that these operators don’t know the difference between routine and reckless operation, right? Apparently, if the machine was designed to handle 100 lbs., and the operator loads it with 150 lbs., that’s a maintenance problem. Why wasn’t maintenance there to wave a magic wand and make the machine more durable? Surely, maintenance should have the foresight to know that operators might occasionally need to “improvise” a little with loading limits and safety protocols.

Design flaws in the asset? Let maintenance adapt! 

Now, let’s talk about engineering design—the gift that keeps on giving. Who needs practical, field-tested designs when you can have sleek, theoretical innovations that look good in a CAD model? And if the machine happens to require a maintenance team of contortionists just to reach a critical bolt, or a complete teardown just to replace a tiny gasket, well, that’s just “part of the challenge.” Because, clearly, it’s maintenance’s job to adapt to engineering’s unyielding genius.

And when a piece of equipment inevitably succumbs to fatigue under the weight of its design flaws, who’s to blame? Why, maintenance, of course! They should have anticipated the stresses and strains caused by the latest engineering masterpiece. So what if the design makes it nearly impossible to maintain without a custom tool kit and a Ph.D. in quantum mechanics? It’s maintenance’s fault for not having the “foresight” to keep this gleaming paragon of inefficiency running flawlessly.

One of the best parts of this whole setup is the eternal “fix it faster” mantra. The equipment goes down, and all eyes turn to maintenance. But there’s always a fun twist: the time and resources they might need to do proper repairs? Limited or, better yet, non-existent. “Why are we spending so much on parts?” management will ask, as they pressure maintenance to work with whatever remnants they can salvage from the scrap bin. In the end, maintenance is expected to turn water into wine—just don’t let them ask for a bigger budget to do it.

And, oh, the ingenuity of corporate accountability. When production grinds to a halt due to a mixture of undertrained operators and convoluted design choices, who gets to take the fall? Not the engineers—they’re too busy moving on to their next “groundbreaking” design. Not the operators—they’re simply “following protocol.” No, the blame lands squarely on the maintenance team’s shoulders. Clearly, they should have been mind-readers, psychologists, and mechanical wizards, all at once.

In the world of modern manufacturing, maintenance is the universal scapegoat—the perfect catch-all for issues that originate far beyond their control. After all, someone has to be responsible for the equipment not being “idiot-proof” enough to survive the daily gauntlet of creative misuse, and it certainly won’t be the folks designing or operating it. Maintenance exists to catch those falling anvils, to fix the unfixable, and to be held accountable for the lapses of others.

So here’s to the maintenance department, the eternal scapegoat. Long may they shoulder the consequences of operator ingenuity and design eccentricities, forever expected to patch, polish, and repair—not just machinery, but the egos of those who would rather look anywhere else when the wheels come off. 

Cheers to the maintenance heroes, the unsung fixers of everyone else’s follies!