“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.” — C.S.Lewis We all learn from experience. When it comes to brutal lessons, though, it is better to learn from someone else’s experience. In the course of our work, clients have shared some experiences with us that everyone can learn from. [...]
“Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them…They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.” — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts A call about doing a PSM audit usually begins with a question from the caller about whether [...]
“How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can’t even trust his own pants.” — Henry Fonda as Frank, in Once Upon a Time in the West There’s a cliché in the movies that involves a paranoid urban apartment-dweller with a dozen or more locks, deadbolts, chains, and [...]
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” — H.K.Williams On July 18, 2019, two people were injured after a chemical fire broke out at Diamond Chemical Company in East Rutherford, New Jersey. At least one of the chemicals involved in the fire was chlorine, which is poisonous, especially as a gas. When it [...]
“A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” — Francis Bacon There are about a gazillion “best” ways to do HazOps. What they all have in common, however, is that they use worksheets that are set up as tables that look at deviations in a node. For each deviation, a HazOp team considers “Causes”, “Consequences”, “Safeguards”, [...]
“If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we…” — Nearly Everyone Fifty years ago, humans first walked on the moon. It was and remains a remarkable and courageous feat of technology and determination. Having achieved it, though, most of society lost interest and moved on. Humans haven’t been back on the [...]
“Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Universita Committeeatum E Pluribus Unum, I hereby confer upon you the honorary degree of Th.D.,… er, ‘Doctor of Thinkology’.” —The Wizard of Oz Most of our readers understand that for a Safety Instrumented Function—a SIF—to have a particular Safety Integrity Level—a SIL—its Average Probability [...]
“I hated being pregnant, but I never minded being in labor. I knew I would get a prize at the end.” — Chris Schmidt, mother of four Things have been a little crazy in Saint Louis for the past week. Founded in 1967, the Blues Hockey Club has finally won a Stanley Cup. Everyone feels [...]
“Contrary to what many parents tell their children, talent and hard work are neither necessary nor sufficient for economic success.” —Robert H. Frank We are all guilty of telling tales we know to be untrue in order to encourage virtuous behavior. Parents tell their children to be good so Santa Clause will come. OSHA tells [...]
“Watching two engineers argue is like watching pigs wallow in mud. Eventually you figure out that they do it because they like to.” — Anonymous I’m still learning better ways to do HazOps. And since there are better ways, then what I am doing now couldn’t possibly be the best. So, what is the RIGHT [...]
