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At my birthday this year, I put an email around to the office to say the traditional cakes were at the coffee area.  I made some comment in it about being that age that was "the answer to life, the universe and everything".  A number of the young people in the office didn't get the reference at all.  Some of the others knew that it was a reference to something or other, but didn't instantly know it was the "Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy".

I guess each generation has it's reference points, and Hitchhikers certainly informed mine.  I vaguely remember the TV series, but the books were the main source for me.  In my teens, they were required reading, along with "The Lord of The Rings", and I've re-read them often enough in the times since then to be broadly able to quote them at will.  They've come to mind recently for a number of reasons, one due to the fact that one of clients replaced a decent coffee maker with a modern version "Klix" machine, which does a good job of producing a hot liquid almost completely unlike coffee when you want a coffee.  Add the fact that with some of the work we are doing at the moment, it does feel that the designs have more than a touch of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation about them, in that the fundamental design flaws are being hidden by the superficial design flaws. 

And also that the archive of "Desert Island Discs" has now gone back as far as when Douglas Adams was on.  (see here).  It was a little strange hearing him talking about the future of computers, where they would all be linked together in a global network, but the bit that resonated with me was that his book was the "Omnibus of Golfing Stories by P G Wodehouse", which only one other person had chosen (a personal favourite of mine, and along with the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and the Diaries of the Right Honorable James Hacker MP, one of the three contendors as my book if I was ever on the programme).

The generation before mine seemed to always go on about Monty Python, and "you were lucky....!".  We quote Douglas Adams.  What's come in behind that?  Terry Pratchett?  Or more scarily "The Office"?  What do you think?

Reducing Hydrocarbon Releases

Location:Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre

Last Thursday, I attended the Hydrocarbon Release Seminar, organised by Oil and Gas UK at AECC.  Details of the event are here.

It was a particularly interesting event, I found.  I hadn't done any significant work in the area since the days it was my job to fill in the OIR12 reporting forms and calculate/estimate/guess the release amount.  The mix of people attending was quite diverse, quite a few offshore operations personnel, OIMs, technicians, team leaders, etc., as well as a good mix of operations and maintenance people.  I was a bit surprised that there were not many consultancies such as Atkins represented, actually.

What was described to us was a classic problem.  The industry has targeted a 50% reduction in the total number of leaks (reportable or higher) since the 2010 figure of 187 by March 2013.  For an individual installation, in any given year, the target number of releases is zero.  The expected number of releases if you do the stats probably works out at less than 1 per year.  And apparently 60% of releases are attributable to human error during maintenance or operations, with 40% to technical factors. As we are looking at relatively low frequency events, it is easy to lose focus, or become complacent that the release won't happen on my watch.

The presenters were in many ways frank and honest.  The HSE delegate described an industry with a "history of failure and a memory of success".  The incidents described were in many ways repeats of what we have seen before: failures to isolate from high pressure sources; not following procedures; inadequate checking; loss of the ability of the pressure envelope to handle pressure.  A number of speakers talked about there being no silver bullet to solve the problem (as an aside, if I'm correct, silver bullets are required for killing werewolves: in this case, there was no need to kill exotic creatures, the normal monsters are enough to cause the problem!).  There were some complaints that the industry did not know its own standards.  A rather cool high-tech camera was presented which could see gas clouds down to some grammes of flow per hour. 

Some of the language was very success-oriented: "Lesson's Learned Bulletins" were circulated, but there was not much evidence that the learning opportunities were really sinking in.  A lot of people talked about bringing people to Spadeadam to see the real fires and explosions, but as we are very good at understanding consequences, and rubbish at understanding risk, this might just be scaring people for scaring's sake.

What worried me a bit was that we might be chasing the wrong monsters, or at least too many of the small ones.  When I presented at All-Energy last year, one of the other presenters, Guy Boyd, had talked about how in injuries to personnel, only 21% of minor incidents could have the potential to be any worse than that (see http://www.all-energy.com/Health_and_safety_across_the_sectors.html).  I don't know for sure, but I don't imagine valve seepage leads to a major accident event very often, if ever.  It looked to me like the approach being taken was the classic "shrink all the triangle and we'll be fine" approach, but maybe that's why the numbers are stubbornly higher than wanted.  I'll need to read a bit more into this, but it would be nice to have an array of approaches to predict and find the real big ones BEFORE they happen, and permanently drive the release frequency down.

The consensus seemed to be that the target is achievable, but not easy.  I hope they're right.

Maths, Physics, Chemistry and a career to combine them all.

(in homage to thisisindexed.com)

Part of my role this year has been to interview undergraduates for my company's scholarship scheme, and also interviewing graduates for our graduate positions.  It reminded me a lot of being back in college, and the fact that when I was asked "Why Chemical Engineering", my stock answer was as in the title.  It felt a bit lame, and as I said it, I would always wish I had been brave enough to give the correct answer: "I can't remember now, as I chose it before I ever knew what the course was like, but if I had a time machine, I'd go back and tell 17 year old me to do the same".

So after talking to 15 undergraduates for the scholarship, and interviewing another 10 or so graduates, every single one of them had picked Chemical Engineering as they really liked Maths, Physics and Chemistry, and found that Chemical Engineering combined them all.  It's only just occurred to me that I've never asked "why"?  Is there something about chemical engineering that makes it uniquely placed for those of us who liked maths, physics and chemistry?  What happens to those who just like Maths and Physics?  Or Maths and Chemistry?  Is it possible to end up in Chemical Engineering because you liked Maths, chemistry and biology, and wanted a career to combine them all?

What subjects influenced your career choice?

Why Stormtroopers fall into a classic process mistake

I watched Star Wars with my daughters at the weekend for their first time.  I first saw it when I was seven, and can still remember the excitement of seeing it with my uncle, cousins and older brothers.  34 years later, it is still a great film, even though the Imperial Forces were heavily armed all the way around the Death Star but never managed to get a shot onto any of the heroes/heroine.

All very interesting, but in terms of Process, so what? 

There was one scene that really stuck with me on this viewing.  Princess Leia is rescued from her cell on the Death Star, but then she, along with Luke, Han Solo and Chewbacca are stuck with no way out other than through where the Stormtroopers are firing at them from.  So they shoot their way into the garbage disposal system.  [Note, this is a utility system].  Now the stormtroopers don't bother going to investigate even though the shooting has stopped and the only place the escapees could go is into a closed system.  Instead, they reckon that they are now in a system they understand, and just initiate the compact intruders operation in the garbage chute, and assume that the problem has gone away. 

So the lesson as far as I am concerned is not just the obvious - if you are designing a foolproof process, don't forget all the potential hazards.  No point in having a system that can destroy entire planets if it can't handle small fighters, especially as based on the first film, there was no evidence of the rebellion having many big fighters, at least not at their rebel base.  And it would be good to train your staff to deal with the hazards, and not let 5 intruders wreak havoc in your system.

But also, don't forget the utilities systems, even the drains.  And don't assume that they just work, because for all their lack of glamour, it is generally regarded as bad if you can't keep production going because you have a blocked drain. Or that the pump system emptying the drain has failed and you didn't notice.

New Year

I've always liked the Christmas holidays, and although I reckon the pressure of New Year's eve to be at the best party, I quite like New Year as well. This year I've matched my holidays to the girls school break, and it feels like a good long holiday.

Returning to work after New Year is often a thought, but when you start a new diary, a blank to-do list, it feels like the possibility of being more organised, more productive, more present for people, is not far away.

Resolutions are not effective for me, but I'll do my best to blog a bit more often, and have a good year.

Leave the technology in your pocket.....

My wife challenged me to try my holiday with no email, no Facebook, no messing around on the internet, no playing games on the phone.  She didn't think I could manage, and I wasn't that sure either.  However, I'd had a vehement conversation with a friend of mine, who said she was still going to check her email on the blackberry while her family had an end-of-an-era holiday in California, before her daughter goes to college.  My argument was that if you keep checking your email, you are not on holiday, and you never really relax.  So I was now going to have to live up to my side of the argument.

Like many people I know, I use the technology to answer questions, figure out what that song is, who was in that movie, or just to break the boredom.  Facebook is built around that fact that we all like to feel liked, and that it's nice to get a reply or a "like" to something you've said.  I have found myself checking back when I'm bored to see if anyone has liked my wit and wisdom, and to encourage them to do so, I'm glad to share my "like"s as well.  Turning to the gadgets becomes a habit if you are facing a bit of downtime, and what harm does a wee game of Angry Birds do?

So while I watched my daughter's latest riding lesson, which was just a bit different to the last riding lesson, I could easily have been solving a puzzle, composing a witty update to Facebook.  But as she rode around the arena, would she have felt I was present?  And what will she remember of the holiday?  In this case, what she won't remember is her Dad being distracted.  She might remember him watching.  And she might canter one of these days, and I'll see her do it. 

And surprisingly, work managed well without my intervention.  I lasted the week without even cheating.  Maybe I should avoid email during work time as well (actually, maybe not).  Someone might notice.  Or worse, no-one might notice.

Dealing with information overload

It's often been said that we have so much information available to us these days that we are overloaded. So many emails to read, so much on the web, TV, radio, press, magazines, whatever. And I far prefer to go somewhere a friend has recommended as good for information, rather than hope that my selection of key search phrases on Google gets me there.

And with that in mind, these are the main items in my current web-toolbox.


www.mindtools.com
A treasure-trove of easy to digest information about business, management, and self-enhancement. Subscribe for free to the newsletters.


http://blogs.hbr.org.

Recommended by one of my colleagues on the Poyry Business Academy, it's like the business pages of your favourite paper, but better.


http://msdn.microsoft.com.
For all your detailed queries on things microsofty, especially programming and development.


For news:


http://news.bbc.co.uk, obviously
http://www.facebook.com for news particular to me.
http://www.linkedin.com for news particular to my business side
http://www.irishtimes.com (or whatever your "quality newspaper" is). Read it as a student at home in Ireland as they had a clever policy of charging less than a tabloid to buy it in college, hoping to get you hooked. Now reading on the ipod touch!
http://www.dilbert.com, etc. because it's not all work.


And how do I keep track of the useful articles, information, advice etc? I can't keep it all in my head, so I use Microsoft OneNote (which is part of the licenses from Microsoft for Office Professional Plus) and send the relevant pages into the notebook, straight from Internet Explorer with a single button click. It's searchable, and shareable, so that the information can be gathered and shared within teams or elsewhere. Probably the best new programme from Microsoft in decades, but not too many folk seem to know about it. Ask your IT people why you haven't got it on your desk. And if you have, try it!


What would you recommend to me?