Installed spares are dangerous, no matter when they are installed.  It is best never to have installed them in the first place, but if you have them, it makes all the sense in the world to take them out.

The problem with installed spares has nothing to do with when they were installed, it has to do with their existing at all.

Installed spares create a false sense of security. Just because they exist.

The fallacy of installed spares is the idea that they are ready to be turned on at a moment's notice.  If you have worked in a pulp or paper mill for more than a week, you know this is not true.  They have parts robbed from them, they have seized up or corroded, something is wrong.

Installed spares give you a false sense of security and cause one not to pay attention to the primary installed unit, no matter what it is.  

If I have a spare, I would rather have it in a properly managed storeroom than out on the operating floor subject to water, temperature and careening fork trucks.  It has a better chance of being ready to use in the storeroom than anywhere else.

We would like to hear from you. Please send an email to [email protected] 

with "LGMI Frontiers" in the subject line.  

Comments from last week's column about the redundancy of pipe and rebar:

Jim: One of your most interesting articles...

George Mead

Wisconsin Rapids, WI

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The BelBaie and some Fourdriniers used their cantilever beams to convey couch vacuum to the drive side.  There were some corrosion issues with early examples, but the concept worked.  We need better pin-seamed wires and felts to really dump a lot of weight off machine wet ends.

Bryan Creagan

KSH Consulting