SMRT - still Sotong Monitoring Rail Tracks

I'm now at Hong Kong airport, awaiting a connecting flight to China. I couldn't resist logging in to comment on what I read in the papers on the plane.

This morning's papers reported some development on the investigation of the train service disruptions. The best that could be given was that the claws on the third rail gave way, causing a disruption of power supply to the trains. SMRT had to start train service at affected areas much later than usual yesterday to facilitate a full inspection of affected train tracks. Instead of 5.30am, train service resumed intermittently from 10am and fully at 11.30am. It caused much grief to a lot of people. People were late for work despite making effort to get up hours earlier than usual.

I'm very puzzled. Maintenance is supposed to be an on-going thing. For the claws to be worn off and drop off would have taken time. Why was it not discovered prior to the disruptions? Was someone sleeping on the job? A humorous guess would be that the lighting in the tunnel was not sufficient enough for a proper inspection. Passengers who had to evacuate the trains reportedly walked through dark tunnels which had very little lighting. So imagine trying to inspect the rail tracks in the same condition. A more serious guess would be a lack of clear standards laid out for the people carrying out routine checks to follow. If there were people carrying out checks in the first place.

This episode brings to mind two words - Corporate Governance. How does a corporation govern itself in terms of operations and accountability? There has to be Standard Operating Procedures in place. However, execution is a totally different issue altogether. You can have all the best laid plans but fail with a poor execution. All the smart people in the world can make an ingenious plan but if you have an irresponsible person execute without a check and balance in place, you can still fail.

I feel that this might be what went wrong with SMRT. Delegation to the lower ranks without report back or checks and balance. At work, a classic joke was when a VP delegated a Director to attend a meeting on his behalf. The Director delegated to a Manager who in turn delegated a Supervisor. So a Supervisor attended a meeting on behalf of the VP. Obviously the meeting was postponed due to lack of authority level present. Luckily the Supervisor did not delegate to a clerk.

We obviously cannot expect Ms Saw to inspect the train tracks but it is fair that we expect someone from higher management to routinely check reports and occasionally conduct spot checks personally. All the investigation findings up to this point in time (as of yesterday's press time) is inconclusive. The lack of concrete information is adding a lot more fuel to the fire.

I don't support the resignation of the top brass at this moment because they should stay behind to clean up the mess. Resigning now is not much better than just sweeping their hands clean and having someone else pick up after them. Clean up the mess for crying out loud. Pacify the people. Give us the answers.