What would you say of a Chief Engineer instructing a trainee to secure a motor mounted upside down to machine frame with plastic cable ties to reduce machine down time? The mounting plate had 2 broken bolts that is why someone used cable ties before and every time the operator notices the motor hanging awkwardly he alerts the Chief Engineer who instructs his trainees to use cable ties.
I would ask Chief Engineer, did he get his diploma out of a box of Cracker Jacks? 
What would you say
I’m more or less speechless.
Some thoughts come to mind, but I have found that people with standards as low as that Chief Engineer, often do not accept sarcasm graciously.
At the very least, call him the chief engineer. He doesn’t deserve capitalization.
How long was the electric motor run while secured with cable ties before it was properly repaired?
I guess they didn’t have any duct tape or chewing gum?
tndemera,
How big and heavy is this electric motor?
If bolts are breaking, what makes this engineer think cable ties will work?
In my Dad’s service station (Shell) about 50 years ago, we’d see a lot of cars held together with duct tape and baling wire.
Once I saw Dad use a coat hanger and oxyacetylene set to stick weld a muffler to a tailpipe, which was a great improvement, because the duct tape and baling wire had already give out.
The electric motor is about 30 to 40 kg. They use cable ties every 2 or 3 weeks as standard practice.
The motor comes undone every 2 or 3 weeks.
This (ie. before the accident happens) would be a good time to take a critical look around the factory to see which processes or machines depend on good maintenance for their continued safety and whether there’s actually a much bigger problem than the one you’re asking about.
If the “Critical look around” does find a much bigger problem, there may be a sign on the door:
"CHIEF ENGINEER"
Sometimes it is very difficult to convince people of a bad idea.
I have seen car batteries used as storage batteries, and people who don’t know the difference.
I would question how much I could learn from this person.
Good knowledge is like gold. Bad knowledge is like a penny.
NEMA has mounting standards for a reason!
Not a chance a cable tie or even multiples are capable of properly mounting a running motor. Dead one…ok. Live one…no.
Cable ties holding an electric motor? Don’t make me laugh! See what Jack Reacher thinks of cable ties . . . at 0.19
It seems the cable ties are under-rated, you need to increase the cable ties by a factor of at least 2.
Woah woah woah. No one even asked what machine this motor is a part of. Perhaps it is some sort of Rube Goldberg Machine where the motor is meant to fall, scare some small animal who then runs on a wheel, powering a bicycle wheel pully, which spins a fan, to blow feathers off a seesaw end, which then drops an anvil off the other side, onto a spatula which then flips a pancake.
Cable ties seem pretty legit when you look at the whole picture.
But seriously OP, that chief engineer needs to stop training people.
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I use cable ties for a lot of stuff, but this ain’t one of them!
Even my dancing pool pump motor gets tied down!..but not with cable ties 