In edition 6 I penned a piece entitled “Don’t lose your bearings”. Since then I have been engaged in a discussion with a fellow ex industry engineer who takes the stance that a lack of or poor maintenance is not foreseeable. I completely disagree but want to clarify my position is about maintenance and not necessarily condition at this stage. We all know lift or escalator owners who don’t want to spend any money on their assets, what I am talking about is where the requirements of even a basic maintenance contract are not met by field operatives. We all know the fact that a lift on a basic contract that breaks down attracts an invoice to the end user. What the end user doesn’t know is whether the breakdown was as a result of a lack of maintenance or indeed, poor maintenance. The basic contract requires a unit to be cleaned, adjusted and lubricated so when you see a heavily begrimed shaft, a gearbox sounding like a back of nails because it has a low oil level or an inductor missing a signal because the guide shoes are out of adjustment. Note I say out of adjustment there and not so badly worn that the end user needs to put their hands in their pocket for new guide shoes. I would happily stand in the witness box and argue that a lack of or poor maintenance is reasonably foreseeable.