“Unnecessary noise is the most cruel absence of care that can be inflicted on the sick or the well.” — Florence Nightingale I grew up in an age of loud rock ‘n roll. I, like one in six people of my generation, suffer some hearing loss. To save the hearing that I still have, I [...]
“Ideas nearly always seem brilliant when they’re hatched, so we never act on a new idea for at least twenty-four hours.” — Steven D. Levitt Batch processes often rely on additions through open hatches for ingredients that don’t lend themselves to being pumped in through a pipe. These include liquid ingredients used in small quantities [...]
“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.“ -Martin Luther King, Jr. Many events and activities in life require planning, like saving up for a vacation or setting aside time to catch up with friends and colleagues. Industrial processes are no different. Blueprints, technical manuals, and procedures lay [...]
“A camel is a horse designed by a committee.” — Alec Issigonis Good process design results in a process that is more likely to work. Great process design results in a process that is even less likely to not work. Great process design is not the result of compromise and trade-offs, but of a singular [...]
“At the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall.” — Optimus Prime, Transformers: The Movie I have never been to a process plant that could continue running without electrical power. So, it is not uncommon to see a plant with two separate electrical feeds, each with their own transformers. On most days, [...]
“Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.” — Edsger Dijkstra For most of my life, I have struggled to keep down to a healthy weight. It didn’t help when someone told me, “Losing weight is simple. Eat less.” When I protested, they replied, “I said it was simple. I didn’t say it was easy.” The safest plant [...]
“I have always fancied that the end of the world will be when some enormous boiler, heated to three thousand millions of atmospheric pressure, shall explode and blow up the globe… They [the Americans] are great boiler makers.” — Jules Verne I was recently asked about using hot oil instead of steam to heat process [...]
“When I was young, I would sit in the bath and ideas would come to me. But I’m not young anymore, so now I just sit in the bath.” — Aki Kaurismaki “We’re installing a safety instrumented system in our existing process. Do we have to pull out all the existing instruments and replace them [...]
“Minimizing your exposure to pathology goes a long, long way.” — Dr. Susan Biali Haas When a sensor faults, it doesn’t stop providing information. It’s just unreliable information. It may be correct, it may not, but it is not to be believed. Like a clock that has stopped but is still correct twice a day, [...]
“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 [...]
