Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:
The major cause of natural gas pipeline rupture is not corrosion or material defect but external damage.
External damage is the damage to pipeline during digging, pilling, ground work, etc. by heavy equipment such as anchor, bulldozer, excavator, or plough. Moreover typically the external damage is from third party construction activities and not the pipeline owner-operator.
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We are in an interesting time in history, when transformative digital disruptions have their foot on the gas and are accelerating at exponential rates. Every industry is facing disruption in a multitude of ways, and it is now up to business leaders and their organizations to implement my Anticipatory Organization® Model and understand and identify the future certainties of Hard Trends and how to leverage them to become the disruptor before someone else does.
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According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), there were 11 deaths every 100,000 workers in India in 2005. This number was two in the US and 0.01 in Japan. What is scary is that the number of fatalities may be significantly underestimated because of absence of a formal accident tracking system. I suspect the situation in other developing nations isn’t significantly different.
Why is the fatality rate in the industrial sectors in the developing nations so high?
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Humble, personal, professional, expert or even uninformed; opinions are just opinions when the facts aren’t fully known or understood. Opinionators are merely stating their belief as to the what, why, when, where and the how something has happened and who was responsible, who is culpable and who has to do something. This belief is believed, at least by them, and, for the most part, they expect other people to believe it as well.
Agreement brings harmony, collaboration and progress while disagreement brings confrontation, debate and procrastination while each party attempts to convert the other to their oftentimes sanctimonious viewpoint.
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Evaluation of reactive chemical hazards can range from simple paper-based calculations to highly complex testing and modeling. This post is aimed at helping you formulate a systematic strategy for evaluating reactive chemical hazards in your facility. I will divide the various approaches in three tiers – simple to complex.
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How does Earn Value Management (EVM) reduce project risk? To answer this question, you have to understand what EVM is.
EVM is the tool used to measure progress against the PMB. (Performance Measurement Plan). EVM identifies poorly performing WP (Work Packages) and problem trends early in the project allowing maximum time to identify the root cause of the problem and identify an action plan to fix the problem.
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OSHA inspected 42 refineries between June 2007 – February 2009. Below is a summary of violations for 30 refineries. A bit of history.
[Read more…]There are numerous papers and documents on the internet regarding a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). The question is how do you create one for a new project. This paper explains how.
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An existing equipment in a refinery may display flaws/damages that either existed during manufacturing or were induced during service. Let us briefly look at pre-service flaws and service-induced deterioration.
[Read more…]I have some experience with the Enneagram personality method. I found it to be accurate and useful. I suggest it is a good method to consider using to select your project team. The paper starts with a brief description of the Enneagram basics and then explains tips that can be used to select your team. Two figures are included to help explain the basics. You can go online and get a lot more detail information about the Enneagram method.
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During process development or plant operation it is often necessary to estimate energy of reaction based on chemical formulae representation alone. This heat of decomposition represents the potential energy that can be released and is therefore a measure of explosion potential. One can therefore envision that estimation of heats reaction based on chemical similarities should be possible similar to Benson’s group additivity for estimating heats of formation.
[Read more…]I am a curious about some of the new project team theories or methodologies that have arisen in the past 20-30 years that are undergoing a resurgent today primarily due to COVID -19 effect on the workforce. These theories are designed to improve performance and functioning of a project team by making people feel comfortable about speaking up and being creative without the fear of repercussion. Google and other Agile companies are in the process of implementing these methods.
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Recently, members of Congress sent a letter to OSHA chief, Jordan Barab, to expand PSM standard to address reactive chemicals.
Reactive chemicals have gained increasing attention since the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) released its report on reactive chemicals in 2002. Now I have been working in the area of reactive chemicals since 1999 and let me assure you that one cannot say let us regulate chemical A because it is a reactive chemical.
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Employers don’t hire people – or assign them a project or task – in the hopes they will fail. And employees don’t take on a job, project, or task in the hopes they will fail. On the contraire, the expectations all around are that the outcome will be successful.
Certainly, sometimes the outcomes are not successful. But these unsuccessful outcomes are generally more tolerated – even expected – in companies that are in their early stages or have a company culture that is more entrepreneurial and not so risk adverse. And when an unsuccessful outcome in such companies occurs, it’s usually a disappointment (and you certainly don’t want to make being unsuccessful a habit), but it’s not usually a negative mark on the employee.
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A process is described as inherently safer if it reduces or eliminates one or more process hazards and this reduction or elimination is accomplished through changes that are permanent and inseparable.Below are strategies for achieving inherent safety:
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