If you have ever chased an electrical problem at your facility you know this loop. Equipment keeps tripping so you call the vendor. He tests his equipment, finds it within spec, and points at the power coming in. So you call the utility. They check delivery at the meter, find it within spec, and point back at your building. Everyone is being reasonable from where they are sitting, and you are no closer to an answer than you were in week one.
The loop, step by step
- Equipment trips. You open a ticket with the vendor.
- The vendor tests and reports within spec.
- The vendor suggests the incoming power is the issue.
- You contact the utility and open a second investigation.
- The utility checks delivery at the meter and reports within spec.
- The utility points back inside the fence.
- Weeks pass. Nobody has looked at your own electrical system.
- The next incident starts the whole sequence over.
The cost of one more lap
Every round costs a set of calls, a set of tests and a stretch of waiting, then finishes where it started. Production takes the hits the whole way through. The loop never resolves on its own, because it is built so that everybody in it can honestly say the problem is not theirs.
The assumption holding it together
Everybody in the loop has a reason to point somewhere other than at themselves.
The vendor would rather it were not his equipment. The utility would rather it were not their delivery. Neither has any reason to go looking in the place the problem most often lives, which is your own electrical system.
Underneath it is usually an assumption that bad power has to be coming from somewhere outside. That is a natural conclusion when voltage reads out of range and equipment drops out, and it is often wrong. A large motor starting, harmonic distortion off your drives, or an imbalance across phases will produce those same symptoms from entirely inside your walls. While the working theory points outward, nobody examines the cause sitting indoors.
Breaking the loop
Another round of phone calls will not settle it. Everyone has given their opinion and everyone has cleared themselves under their own testing. What breaks a deadlock built on opinion is evidence, recorded somewhere neither party controls.