In my mind, the proliferation of consultants, and lack of general overall knowledge in the field is proportional to the disappearance of the maintenance superintendent..
Consultants are basically doing what was once the supers job. Surveying the jobs!!!
It used to be a black mark against a mechanic to have a consultant get called in on your job. Now it's an everyday occurence, with some of these guys getting annual contracts to make sure elevator work is being done..
The reliance on field engineering to fix problems is also a direct result of the loss of the maintenance superintendent. Long gone are the days when the super was the smartest cat in the office, and could come help you fix a problem. You might not like it when the crotchety old SOB showed up, fixed it in about 5 minutes and told all your close friends what you did in the next meeting in the bar....But..They were people locally you could count on to have your back, and teach you.
Now you have people manning that position that have NO field experience, no way to help you except to complain about lack of engineering support, and no way to actually survey a job, except to read a consultant report.
And remember the good old days when a guy retired and was immediately replaced, or you had a roamer that would perform vacation relief, or maintenance helpers, or multi mechanic residental jobs, where a junior mechanic could spend a couple of years seasoning under an old pro, or the maintenance repair crew...Long gone...
And a lot of this stuff is the buildings fault as well. Basically paying the SAME money for a contract that they were paying 30 years ago, and if you try to up the price a dozen others will be there to take if from you..
And in my opinion it's going to become more and more streamlined manpower and financial wise, with the advent of newer controls. There was a reason why you had 4 maintenance hours a week on a gearless car with a mechanical selector. Now that same car has no selector, about 10 relays, usually hooked to some sort of remote monitoring at headquarters, and gives you a pretty good idea what the problem is before you get there.
I fear one day, and in the not too distant future, we will go the way of the local Television repair shop. When's the last time you saw one of those?..
I could go on but that's enough for now..
My 2 cents..
Next..
