Last week my car brakes started giving problems; they only worked sometimes. I drive a 25-year old classic Volvo, which has power steering and brakes.
Therefore, when it does not work, one can only imagine the physical energy needed to try and stop the car with only the mechanical system working!
But, what if I needed to make an emergency stop?
Therefore, I took my car to the younger mechanic whose mentor was my favourite mechanic for about 25 years.
Appoo was then only about 17 years old when I first met him. Today Appoo owns his own small place and I still go to him. I trust him 100 percent and he has never cheated me.
Neither have I ever asked him to review his billing or questioned his costs. It is a mutually trustworthy business relationship.
He and his mentor even attended my eldest son\’s wedding celebration, as family friends.
Therefore, after he fixed the problem by changing the 25 year old brake pump system, I assumed that the problem was fixed. Therefore it was a real heartbreak for me to find out that the same symptom repeated even with the new brake pump was installed.
Consequently, I was there with Appoo again, completely flabbergasted trying to figure out what might be the problem.
He now thought it was the hose leading from the brake pump to the \”electrical suction system.\”
I hope he is right, otherwise he may have to further check to see if there are any other leaks to the brake drums on the wheels or whatever else, as my knowledge of these electrical and mechanical systems is limited.
Recurring floods
Therefore, when I read in the front page of the NST in the Streets Central section on Dec 6 about the Taman Palm Grove floods, I reached the point of giving my fourth child a free lecture about what is good problem analysis.
He had helped me take the car to Appoo. This column is also my reflections and consideration from the lecture I gave my son.
Obviously, the 30 directly affected residents or their Local Authority or their Residents Association had not done a good problem analysis; at least by my definition.
It is reported that they did a drain cleaning ‘ gotong royong \’ but surely that does not even constitute good problem analysis.
That is rather what is called symptom recognition. Of course we can also miss the symptoms and to be unable to see any cause and effect relationship too, but that is an even more serious problem.
We used to teach the fish-bone analysis technique at Intan under our Quality Circles Programme.
If we assume that the fish-head is the problem to be analysed, there can be usually three to five categories of potential causes that could potentially contribute to the perceived problem-effect.
A problem can be simply defined as any gap between the ideal and the actual situation preferred in a situation or circumstance. These potential sources make for the fish-bone symptoms which help explain the cause and effect relationship of the problem.
A good problem analysis can break all potential symptomatic problems into the main and subsidiary causes.
In the field of management, this is taught as the 5-Ms of man, machine, methods, moments and money. Actually one could use any coherent framework to ‘explain the causes of the problem\’ and break them down systematically.
Pareto Principle
The next step after the potential problem analysis is the evaluation of the occurrence of the problem and their symptoms. The symptoms as potential causes of the problem need to measured and evaluated in terms of their incidence or occurrence.
Once they are fully evaluated for the potential causes these can be prioritised for problem resolution.
The Pareto Principle states that if we address the 20 percent of the causes of the problem that 80 percent of the problem can be resolved.
Obviously my friend Appoo did not undertake a good or thorough enough analysis for the Round 1 of the problem analysis and therefore it took two trips to resolve the issues and solve the problem with a root cause analysis.
The problem will only be resolved when the root cause is well addressed; never otherwise.
In the Taman Palm Grove case obviously the problem analysis was also not complete or thorough enough. The clogged drains are not the main cause of the floods.
My hope and prayer with the residents is that someone would read this column and undertake a good problem analysis and thereby be enabled to go to their Local Authority with a good problem prognosis and give them what would be a good resolution.
A good analysis would be a welcome solution by all concerned.
My potential cause problem analysis would say that the major cause may not be just their residential drains but rather upstream from their area and possibly linked to the source of the water. If it is rain water, then the potential cause may also be the quantity of water flow and drainage which may be linked to yet other causes.
But, then again I am no water engineer like my brother so I will not make any more hypotheses except that anyone knowledgeable about this field of knowledge can surely help the residents undertake a thorough analysis.
If the residents association is open for this, we at UCSI through our think and action tank can help moderate a public policy process for this.
God bless Malaysia.
