Redundancy.
It's a strange word. Usually in Engineering terms it's a good thing... Redundancy of systems generally means that you have two (or in some cases more) parallel systems that are capable of carrying out the same function, meaning that you can cope with complete failure of one system and have the process in question continue.
Aircraft are a good example of this. Most commercial airliners have three, or sometimes four independent hydraulic systems for moving control surfaces. You can hence lose complete systems (be that through fluid loss, pump failure or some other catastrophic fault) and the aircraft as a whole still be flyable. It's even theoretically possible now with computer control of engine thrust for the entire hydraulics system to be redundant, as after lessons learned where a few airliners have lost all of their hydraulic systems, basic flight control can still be maintained, certainly enough to get the aircraft on the ground at least.
However, when referring to people, or in particular, job roles, the word has a slighly more unpleasant meaning: The job role is no longer needed and by inference, the person is no longer needed. It's a shitty situation to find yourself in and leads to a significant increase in uncertainty for the future. Now, don't get me wrong; the future is not certain in the first place. Risk exists in all aspects of our lives. A common statement being "you could be hit by a bus tomorrow". Equally you could be squashed by an airliner falling from the sky, possibly due to the failure of all it's redundant systems. However, announcement of personal redundancy really does make the future very much unknown and leaves people feeling very vulnerable.
It's happened to me once before. That time was of no real issue, as I had every intention of leaving the company in question anyway, had no responsibilities, no financial ties and quite frankly could not care less. I was somewhat frustrated not to have worked for the company long enough to qualify for a decent settlement, but nevertheless it didn't really affect me.
This one will.
20181023
20180723
The rise of stupidity.
I hadn't really noticed just how prevalent this issue had become until recently, but it really is quite concerning how the last few years appears to be the rise of the idiots. I suspect very much that the internet, although not "to blame" for this, is definitely an enabling technology.
You only have to look at YouTube for a few minutes to see what I mean. Videos of idiocy on the road, idiocy in the building trade, political idiocy, engineering idiocy, and factual deniers are all over that particular site. My personal favourite of these are flat-earthers. Otherwise seemingly sensible people who deny that the the planet is a sphere(ish) shape. Seriously? The aincient greeks knew that the planet was round. There are photos of the planet from space. People orbit the planet daily. People have flown due east continuously until they get back to where they started. No-one with any sense whatsoever would even remotely question that we are on a round planet. The most amusing thing about this is that flat earthers accept that EVERY other celestial object in the solar system is round, just not our planet. How do you even begin to argue with that level of stupidity?
This seems to be part of the progression of people finding other like-minded people over the internet. Just a few short decades ago, it was very difficult to find anyone else who shared somewhat more extreme/rare views or somewhat more extreme/rare interests. Because in many cases the extreme views, opinions and interests that a person might have would be somewhat socially unacceptable, they kept them to themselves. This kept extreme viewpoints and opinions out of mainstream society, and everyone just generally got on with life.
Enter the internet. Now, anyone with half-a-clue what they are doing can fairly-anonymously publish their viewpoint online, and have it read by anyone with a browser. This then leads to people finding others with a similar viewpoint, and forming groups of people, all with the same opinion or similar interests. Sometimes this is a good thing, and allows people who would otherwise live their life thinking they are the only person with a specific interest or opinion to meet likeminded people. The internet is full of forums and discussion groups like this, mainly harmless. Unfortunately, it can also bring together people with somewhat more idiotic (or possibly also illegal) thoughts and views, but that is somewhat the nature of the beast.
The worst aspect, imo, is that it gives a level playing field for opinion, despite the level of expertise in a subject area. On the internet, there is no difference between the platform offered to a PHD scientist, very experienced in their field, or joe bloggs, complete numpty with no experience whatsoever and hasn't got the first clue about what's being discussed. So you end up with a few utter morons who believe something absurd (like, for instance, that the earth is flat) getting together and publishing material. When the incredulous scientist then comes along to give clear and good evidence as to why this is obviously absurd, they are only given the same platform as the next moron who comes along and agrees with the first morons, thus allowing the initial absurdity to perpetuate.
Does it need to be addressed? Can this issue be addressed? What would possibly be done to address it? I can only answer one of these questions: The first one. Does this need to be addressed? Yes it absolutely does need to be addressed. Recent global political events have proven that if stupidity is advertised hard enough, and obviously absurd statements are made forcefully enough and repeated sufficiently, then people will believe that stupidity and accept it as reasonable.
Giving a platform to morons is a very dangerous thing. It perpetuates moronic behavior. However, it is very very difficult to remove that platform without removing it from everyone, without inhibiting free speech, without removing personal rights and without becoming the orwellian society that would be unacceptable to everyone.
So just be careful when you read an opinion. It's only that, an opinion, and the holder of that opinion could be an utter moron. Granted, they could also be heavily skilled, experienced and qualified in the particular area being discussed. On the internet, you just don't know.
But they're usually just a moron.
20180716
Downward
To coin the phrase made famous by Brittany Spears, and then turned into a folk song by Richard Thompson: Oops, I did it again! Only 2-ish years this time instead of 4. You never know, this might be the beginning of an ever-reducing series, which will eventually end up with a post on a regular basis.
Or maybe not.
Reading over my old posts is an interesting thing to do, as not only does it refresh memories of how things were, it also serves as a reminder as to how I got to where I am now, which in general is not a good place.
Having been bought out, moved, moved again and generally forced into trying to integrate the workings of an independent British SME into a large American multinational, our numbers have been so heavily reduced (through natural progression, no actual lay-offs) that we are now four people. Four, where fourteen once were is utterly unsustainable. It is often heard that companies have to "do more with less", but this level of cutback is just absurd. There's no way you can be a £3M turnover branch of a company with Four people, especially when you're in manufacuring. Specialist manufacturing, yes, but still manufacturing. That would be revenue generation of £750k per person. I know of no industry that can do that!
So of course we're not generating that. We're barely generating £300k a year, which is pathetic compared to where we were 3/4 years ago. I have been desperately waiting for the redundancy to come, but it hasn't and I don't think it ever will.
Asked to describe the effect of being adsorbed by a large multinational that hasn't the first clue about how to operate the company it's just bought, I would have to agree with the comment that it is like a Cancer. Now, that is not to belittle anyone suffering with Cancer; it's a horrid illness which I would not wish on anyone, but as a description of a disease slowly works through a system and destroys it bit-by-bit, it's a very good analogy of where we find ourselves today.
Or maybe not.
Reading over my old posts is an interesting thing to do, as not only does it refresh memories of how things were, it also serves as a reminder as to how I got to where I am now, which in general is not a good place.
Having been bought out, moved, moved again and generally forced into trying to integrate the workings of an independent British SME into a large American multinational, our numbers have been so heavily reduced (through natural progression, no actual lay-offs) that we are now four people. Four, where fourteen once were is utterly unsustainable. It is often heard that companies have to "do more with less", but this level of cutback is just absurd. There's no way you can be a £3M turnover branch of a company with Four people, especially when you're in manufacuring. Specialist manufacturing, yes, but still manufacturing. That would be revenue generation of £750k per person. I know of no industry that can do that!
So of course we're not generating that. We're barely generating £300k a year, which is pathetic compared to where we were 3/4 years ago. I have been desperately waiting for the redundancy to come, but it hasn't and I don't think it ever will.
Asked to describe the effect of being adsorbed by a large multinational that hasn't the first clue about how to operate the company it's just bought, I would have to agree with the comment that it is like a Cancer. Now, that is not to belittle anyone suffering with Cancer; it's a horrid illness which I would not wish on anyone, but as a description of a disease slowly works through a system and destroys it bit-by-bit, it's a very good analogy of where we find ourselves today.
20160803
Comissioning
Well then...
Yet again I find myself at a customer site trying to hide from the customer just how un-prepared we are to actually get their £250k piece of equipment working. How has this happened? It's a remarkably convoluted situation, but it is primarily due to the absurdity of having just one sensibly qualified and competent Enginer for all of the fault-finding, modification, development, process control and programming work required by a three-ish million pound-per-year turnover company. There is, after all, only one of me, and there is only so thinly I can be spread. Consequently, the particular piece of kit on this customer's site, which is a major develpment over our normal systems, was never properly developed, tested, fault-finded (found?) and made ready in the factory before it was shipped, so the customer expects to have a bit of kit that simply requires commissioning, but in actual fact, it needs finishing.
So here I am, in a hotel room, still writing code at 23:00hrs, when I should be asleep. Or even better should have finished the commission two weeks ago and be at home.
Yet again I find myself at a customer site trying to hide from the customer just how un-prepared we are to actually get their £250k piece of equipment working. How has this happened? It's a remarkably convoluted situation, but it is primarily due to the absurdity of having just one sensibly qualified and competent Enginer for all of the fault-finding, modification, development, process control and programming work required by a three-ish million pound-per-year turnover company. There is, after all, only one of me, and there is only so thinly I can be spread. Consequently, the particular piece of kit on this customer's site, which is a major develpment over our normal systems, was never properly developed, tested, fault-finded (found?) and made ready in the factory before it was shipped, so the customer expects to have a bit of kit that simply requires commissioning, but in actual fact, it needs finishing.
So here I am, in a hotel room, still writing code at 23:00hrs, when I should be asleep. Or even better should have finished the commission two weeks ago and be at home.
20160711
Safety.
Safety is generally (and rightly) now considered as one of the most important, if not THE most important aspect of modern engineering. People should not be killed, maimed, injured, or even slightly hurt by bits of kit, or indeed by any of the processes of those bits of kit.
Safety comes in a lot of different guises: It can be a piece of kit designed to fail safe, a bit of kit added to another bit of kit to allow you to use it more safely, a way of working, or various other things. These all boil down to fall into one of two categories: Primary safety and Secondary safety. Primary safety is providing equipment or design to ensure that a dangerous occurance does not happen. Secondary safety is providing equipment or design that keeps people safe should something dangerous occur.
A good example of this is on a Car: Headlamps are a Primary safety item, allowing the driver to see where (s)he is going, and hence drive without crashing into things at night. Seatbelts are a Secondary safety item, reducing the severity of the damage (injury) should a collision occur, possibly because the primary safety system has stopped working (although not always.. people still crash at night even with their headlamps on.)
The issue with Safety is that it makes no allowance for the individual. In the above example, this is perfectly reasonable, as every driver needs to see in the dark, and every driver needs restraining in the event of an accident. Within the engineering industry, the lines are much less defined, and a Safe method of working is not always as obvious as "it's dark, so we need lights". The way that more subtle risks, and their mitigation are calculated is with a Risk Assessment. These are formal documents and are the outcome of a skilled person assessing a task/process/event etc. and working out what needs to be done to ensure that this can be completed in a safe manner. Once a Risk Assessment has been completed, people completing the task *(note, generally not the person who completed the risk assessment) then follow the instructions in the Risk assessment to carry out the task safely.
There are two issues with this. The first one is that a Risk Assessment makes no allowance for the skill or intelligence level of the person who has to follow it, and (partially as a consequence of the first issue) there is a belief that if a Risk assessment is followed, then clearly you are working safely, as "that's what the document says, I'm doing, it, it must be safe."
One of the things that is regularly misused in Risk Assessments as a way of mitigating risk is the use of Personal Protective Equipment. PPE is, and always has been, the last resort of Engineering to make sure a person is kept safe while carrying out a process. If possible, the risks should always be engineered out at the design stage, and only if this is completely impossible or impractical should Personal Protective Equipment be specified. The reason for this is clear... the danger in the process is still very much present, and only an item of clothing or equipment being worn by the operative is keeping them safe. Theoretically, if the PPE fails the operative in some way, they are then immediately exposed to the risk. If the risk is designed out at the design stage, then no PPE is needed, and it matters not what the operative is wearing or using, the risk is not present. Far better.
Unfortunately, the use of PPE is generally much cheaper and easier than engineering out a risk, so it gets used excessively. So much so that there is now and expectation for the use of PPE, and the lack of PPE in certain environments is more noticeable than it should be. This is very true on certain sites that I visit. There is a minimum PPE requirement simply to gain access to site, these being High-Visibility clothing, Steel Toecap Boots, Hard Hat, and in extreme circumstances, Gloves and impact-resistant glasses.
This is, quite frankly, absurd. The requirement for these items stems from incidents that have occured on sites, and the knee-jerk reaction is to implement PPE. This is bad in many ways, as it clearly indicates that the risks have not been correctly assessed and simply a blanket rule has been applied, and it (as I mentioned above) makes no allowance for the individual, their skill levels, or indeed what they are planning to do on site. What it also does is make working on site much more uncomfortable than it needs to be. Anyone who has had to endure a hard-hat, steel boots, gloves and glasses on a baking-hot summer's day will know what I mean.
Recently, I have experienced this absurd belief that "PPE makes everything safer" turned up to Eleven. How? On the shop floor that we, as a company, are now part of, there are painted walkways, and "working areas". The walkways are painted green, and the working area orange. The decree is that if you are in an orange area, thou shalt wear a high visibility jacket and steel toecap boots. This, like the implementation of PPE above, is absurd. Absolutely no allowance is made for the activity being carried out, and from a true risk assessment point of view, there is no discernable difference between the walkway area and the shop floor area. So, you have to ask, what is the point? Not least because there is no physical difference, but also the PPE specified is pointless..
High Visibility wear was designed to ensure that people working outside, near vehicles, in low light levels were visible to the drivers of vehicles. Prior to the implementation of high-vis, people wearing dark or dirty clothing could become invisible against a dark background, and hence were at high risk of being hit by a vehicle. Introduce high visibility clothing, and suddenly the invisible person in low light levels becomes very visible, as the high visibility clothing actually converts ultra-violet light into visible light, thus making the wearer glow. It's very effective, and has saved many many lives. However, in a well-lit workshop, in daytime hours, where there are no vehicles moving, there is absolutely no benefit whatsoever.
Steel toecap boots were designed to protect the wearer from falling debris. The cap over the toe has a rating, measured in joules, as to the maximum energy item that it can withstand (very crudely, the weight of the object multiplied by the height it's fallen from). Now, in a workshop environment, there may be a benefit to wearing steel toecap boots, as an item falling from racking or someone dropping something they are carrying could easily damage a foot. However, the implementation of steel toecap boots is somewhat pointless when there is no requirement to have covered legs, meaning people wear steel boots, and shorts. Ah good, my toes are protected, but the huge gash in my leg from the falling item, ah well, never mind. On top of that there is newer reasearch showing that steel toecaps can (and often do) make certain circumstances worse, as if the energy of the falling item significantly exceeds the rating of the shoe, or if the toe is placed under something heavy enough to just deform the steel cap, the cap can end up severing the toes, whereas had the steel toe not been present, it may have been a simple crush injury. Painful, yes, but at least you still have your toes! Not only that, the weight of steel toecap boots is not insignificant, and it can make the wearer much more clumsy.
So, given all the above, it is no surprise that while working in an area of the workshop that I am completely familiar with all the risks, and had assessed that PPE was completely un-necessarry, when I was approached by a different member of staff who does not know the risks in my area, and was told "safety!! put your high vis and boots on", my reply was fairly curt and was not positive. Yes, well done you, you've just walked into a production area that you are not familiar with and don't know the risks of, distracted me from my task, to tell me to wear two items of PPE that are both completely un-necessary for the task in hand, and in the case of Boots would have made me MORE likely to come to harm.
I fully expect quite a bit of fall-out from that incident, as clearly I wasn't working safely, was a danger to myself and others, and should pay more attention to company health and safety rules. It's a lose-lose situation.
All in the name of Safety.
Safety comes in a lot of different guises: It can be a piece of kit designed to fail safe, a bit of kit added to another bit of kit to allow you to use it more safely, a way of working, or various other things. These all boil down to fall into one of two categories: Primary safety and Secondary safety. Primary safety is providing equipment or design to ensure that a dangerous occurance does not happen. Secondary safety is providing equipment or design that keeps people safe should something dangerous occur.
A good example of this is on a Car: Headlamps are a Primary safety item, allowing the driver to see where (s)he is going, and hence drive without crashing into things at night. Seatbelts are a Secondary safety item, reducing the severity of the damage (injury) should a collision occur, possibly because the primary safety system has stopped working (although not always.. people still crash at night even with their headlamps on.)
The issue with Safety is that it makes no allowance for the individual. In the above example, this is perfectly reasonable, as every driver needs to see in the dark, and every driver needs restraining in the event of an accident. Within the engineering industry, the lines are much less defined, and a Safe method of working is not always as obvious as "it's dark, so we need lights". The way that more subtle risks, and their mitigation are calculated is with a Risk Assessment. These are formal documents and are the outcome of a skilled person assessing a task/process/event etc. and working out what needs to be done to ensure that this can be completed in a safe manner. Once a Risk Assessment has been completed, people completing the task *(note, generally not the person who completed the risk assessment) then follow the instructions in the Risk assessment to carry out the task safely.
There are two issues with this. The first one is that a Risk Assessment makes no allowance for the skill or intelligence level of the person who has to follow it, and (partially as a consequence of the first issue) there is a belief that if a Risk assessment is followed, then clearly you are working safely, as "that's what the document says, I'm doing, it, it must be safe."
One of the things that is regularly misused in Risk Assessments as a way of mitigating risk is the use of Personal Protective Equipment. PPE is, and always has been, the last resort of Engineering to make sure a person is kept safe while carrying out a process. If possible, the risks should always be engineered out at the design stage, and only if this is completely impossible or impractical should Personal Protective Equipment be specified. The reason for this is clear... the danger in the process is still very much present, and only an item of clothing or equipment being worn by the operative is keeping them safe. Theoretically, if the PPE fails the operative in some way, they are then immediately exposed to the risk. If the risk is designed out at the design stage, then no PPE is needed, and it matters not what the operative is wearing or using, the risk is not present. Far better.
Unfortunately, the use of PPE is generally much cheaper and easier than engineering out a risk, so it gets used excessively. So much so that there is now and expectation for the use of PPE, and the lack of PPE in certain environments is more noticeable than it should be. This is very true on certain sites that I visit. There is a minimum PPE requirement simply to gain access to site, these being High-Visibility clothing, Steel Toecap Boots, Hard Hat, and in extreme circumstances, Gloves and impact-resistant glasses.
This is, quite frankly, absurd. The requirement for these items stems from incidents that have occured on sites, and the knee-jerk reaction is to implement PPE. This is bad in many ways, as it clearly indicates that the risks have not been correctly assessed and simply a blanket rule has been applied, and it (as I mentioned above) makes no allowance for the individual, their skill levels, or indeed what they are planning to do on site. What it also does is make working on site much more uncomfortable than it needs to be. Anyone who has had to endure a hard-hat, steel boots, gloves and glasses on a baking-hot summer's day will know what I mean.
Recently, I have experienced this absurd belief that "PPE makes everything safer" turned up to Eleven. How? On the shop floor that we, as a company, are now part of, there are painted walkways, and "working areas". The walkways are painted green, and the working area orange. The decree is that if you are in an orange area, thou shalt wear a high visibility jacket and steel toecap boots. This, like the implementation of PPE above, is absurd. Absolutely no allowance is made for the activity being carried out, and from a true risk assessment point of view, there is no discernable difference between the walkway area and the shop floor area. So, you have to ask, what is the point? Not least because there is no physical difference, but also the PPE specified is pointless..
High Visibility wear was designed to ensure that people working outside, near vehicles, in low light levels were visible to the drivers of vehicles. Prior to the implementation of high-vis, people wearing dark or dirty clothing could become invisible against a dark background, and hence were at high risk of being hit by a vehicle. Introduce high visibility clothing, and suddenly the invisible person in low light levels becomes very visible, as the high visibility clothing actually converts ultra-violet light into visible light, thus making the wearer glow. It's very effective, and has saved many many lives. However, in a well-lit workshop, in daytime hours, where there are no vehicles moving, there is absolutely no benefit whatsoever.
Steel toecap boots were designed to protect the wearer from falling debris. The cap over the toe has a rating, measured in joules, as to the maximum energy item that it can withstand (very crudely, the weight of the object multiplied by the height it's fallen from). Now, in a workshop environment, there may be a benefit to wearing steel toecap boots, as an item falling from racking or someone dropping something they are carrying could easily damage a foot. However, the implementation of steel toecap boots is somewhat pointless when there is no requirement to have covered legs, meaning people wear steel boots, and shorts. Ah good, my toes are protected, but the huge gash in my leg from the falling item, ah well, never mind. On top of that there is newer reasearch showing that steel toecaps can (and often do) make certain circumstances worse, as if the energy of the falling item significantly exceeds the rating of the shoe, or if the toe is placed under something heavy enough to just deform the steel cap, the cap can end up severing the toes, whereas had the steel toe not been present, it may have been a simple crush injury. Painful, yes, but at least you still have your toes! Not only that, the weight of steel toecap boots is not insignificant, and it can make the wearer much more clumsy.
So, given all the above, it is no surprise that while working in an area of the workshop that I am completely familiar with all the risks, and had assessed that PPE was completely un-necessarry, when I was approached by a different member of staff who does not know the risks in my area, and was told "safety!! put your high vis and boots on", my reply was fairly curt and was not positive. Yes, well done you, you've just walked into a production area that you are not familiar with and don't know the risks of, distracted me from my task, to tell me to wear two items of PPE that are both completely un-necessary for the task in hand, and in the case of Boots would have made me MORE likely to come to harm.
I fully expect quite a bit of fall-out from that incident, as clearly I wasn't working safely, was a danger to myself and others, and should pay more attention to company health and safety rules. It's a lose-lose situation.
All in the name of Safety.
20160630
Wow.
I left this blog alone a long long long time ago, and somewhat forgot about it. I've since started and forgotten about 2 other blogs as well. It would appear that I have the attention span barely longer than a goldfish when it comes to keeping things updated. I can also never remember the details of an account I've signed up for, so after forgetting about it, and then remembering it, I can never find the details. Hell, one of them I can't even find, even with the power of Google.
Actually, it was quite nice to read back things I wrote nearly five years ago. Most of it is still very relevant (the fridge-freezer is now 44 years old!), and I still work in the same environment that I did five years back. It's changed a lot in periphery ways, but the basic work is the same. Which makes me wonder if it's time to move on. It should be. Over 5 years in one working enviroment is quite long these days. That said, the company I used to work for has since been taken over, so my employer has gone from having 10 employees (I was number 6 in the entire history of the company, a fact I quite liked) to having over 50 thousand employees, of which I have no idea what number I am and no-one cares anyway.
I realised that working for this larger entity might not be for me when we had to move out of our shed and join a much larger location. Not because we had to move out, but because the person who moved into our shed is a one-man-company. He deals in classic cars, but more importantly works in a similar way to how we used to: If something needs to be done, or he wants to do something, he can just do so without needing approval from a dozen faceless people in a different country. Yes, it means he is at higher risk, as he cannot take holiday and cannot be sick without it affecting the business, but with that higher risk comes the benefit of massively greater flexibility. Something I am mourning the lack of somewhat at the moment.
I left this blog alone a long long long time ago, and somewhat forgot about it. I've since started and forgotten about 2 other blogs as well. It would appear that I have the attention span barely longer than a goldfish when it comes to keeping things updated. I can also never remember the details of an account I've signed up for, so after forgetting about it, and then remembering it, I can never find the details. Hell, one of them I can't even find, even with the power of Google.
Actually, it was quite nice to read back things I wrote nearly five years ago. Most of it is still very relevant (the fridge-freezer is now 44 years old!), and I still work in the same environment that I did five years back. It's changed a lot in periphery ways, but the basic work is the same. Which makes me wonder if it's time to move on. It should be. Over 5 years in one working enviroment is quite long these days. That said, the company I used to work for has since been taken over, so my employer has gone from having 10 employees (I was number 6 in the entire history of the company, a fact I quite liked) to having over 50 thousand employees, of which I have no idea what number I am and no-one cares anyway.
I realised that working for this larger entity might not be for me when we had to move out of our shed and join a much larger location. Not because we had to move out, but because the person who moved into our shed is a one-man-company. He deals in classic cars, but more importantly works in a similar way to how we used to: If something needs to be done, or he wants to do something, he can just do so without needing approval from a dozen faceless people in a different country. Yes, it means he is at higher risk, as he cannot take holiday and cannot be sick without it affecting the business, but with that higher risk comes the benefit of massively greater flexibility. Something I am mourning the lack of somewhat at the moment.
20120127
Why don't people do as they are asked.
5 hours driving to get to site.
Pissing down with rain. Cold, windy and generally hateful weather.
64 layers of "PPE" including high-vis (actually quite reasonable) Steel toe boots (ah yes, essential for walking on a pavement), Hard hat. (essential when there is nothing overhead) Gloves (soaking wet, and horrible) and glasses (misted up so I can't see where I'm going.. hence the need for the hard hat and steel-toecap boots perhaps?)
all to look at a bit of kit and realise that what was asked to be done to it has been done in such a half-arsed way that the customer has quite rightly rejected it.
I love delegation. Delegation of work means you describe what is needed to someone else, to allow them to go off, do a half-arsed job, and then you have to spend three times longer clearing up the mess they have made and then doing it properly.
Pissing down with rain. Cold, windy and generally hateful weather.
64 layers of "PPE" including high-vis (actually quite reasonable) Steel toe boots (ah yes, essential for walking on a pavement), Hard hat. (essential when there is nothing overhead) Gloves (soaking wet, and horrible) and glasses (misted up so I can't see where I'm going.. hence the need for the hard hat and steel-toecap boots perhaps?)
all to look at a bit of kit and realise that what was asked to be done to it has been done in such a half-arsed way that the customer has quite rightly rejected it.
I love delegation. Delegation of work means you describe what is needed to someone else, to allow them to go off, do a half-arsed job, and then you have to spend three times longer clearing up the mess they have made and then doing it properly.
20120117
People read what they want to, not what is written.
This is a new phenomina to me. I had always known that people skip-read through things, and don't necessarily read in any depth something that they are reading because they have to, rather than because they want to, but I had always believed that even if something is skip-read, it could not be too badly mis-interpreted.
How wrong I was. The afforementioned heavily-over-budget project that I am currently involved in is a case in point. All communication with the "client" is done electronically, so there is generally an audit trail (or should that be trail-of-destruction?) to follow. The current argument I am having with the client is well documented, and absolutely unbelievable.
A little background information: the "bit of kit" that we are providing requires compressed air. We provide a compressor for that. In this case the client had decided that they wished to have an "all singing all dancing" compressor. Not content with a single-head air compressor, they determined that they needed a double-head compressor. Not just a twin-piston compressor, but two completely independent compressor heads, feeding one reservoir. Now this is where it gets a little more techy.... the arrangement we have on this twin-head compressor is called Duty/Duty, which means that both compressor heads turn on and off at the same time. An alternative (and common) arrangement is Duty/Standby, whereby the duty compressor works most of the time, and the standby head works only if the duty head cannot keep up with demand, or if it breaks or similar. Duty/Duty is simpler, as Duty/Standby requires some form of additional sensor/switch for the standby head to be independently energiesed.
All good so far.
As part of the customers list of "shit they expect us to do for free", one of the items was to provide a means of detecting if the teeny-tiny little foam air filter on the inlet to these compressors had blocked. Now, this is a fairly ridiculous thing to ask for, as any fool would know that these air filters never block solid, and they are just a means of keeping crap out of the compressor head, nothing more. The very idea of them blocking is somewhat ridiculous, and to be able to detect that is even more absurd. A while back we responded to the customer along the lines of "you'll never measure anything to do with these filters." The following conversation went something along the lines of:
Cust: "we want to detect if a filter is blocked to initiate a duty/standby changeover"
Supplier "You'll never detect it. Just check them every month. Also, it's Duty/Duty, not Duty/Standby.
Cust: "If we cannot detect a blocked filter, how will we initiate a Duty/Standby changeover?"
Supplier: "It's Duty/Duty, not Duty/Standby, so no changeovers. Just check the filters regularly.
Cust: "How will the Standby head operate then?"
Supplier: "It's NOT a Standby head, the unit is Duty/Duty"
Cust: "but how can we detect a blocked filter?"
Supplier: "open the damn cabinet and look at it."
Cust: "so how does that change the unit over to the standby head?"
Supplier: "there is no F*****g Standby head, it's a Duty/Duty unit."
Cust: "If there is no standby unit, how will we have redundancy?"
Supplier: "the Duty/Duty heads are individually redundant. If either fails, the other continues.
Cust: "So how does that initiate a Duty/Standby changeover?"
Supplier: "Dear customer. You are an idiot."
And so the long day continues.
Four Grand and about 3 solid days work this stupid compressor has caused me so far. It supplies about 30 Cu ft FAD per day, and a £99 cheap-'n'-nasty compressor from the market would be just as fit-for-purpose. Unbelievable.
How wrong I was. The afforementioned heavily-over-budget project that I am currently involved in is a case in point. All communication with the "client" is done electronically, so there is generally an audit trail (or should that be trail-of-destruction?) to follow. The current argument I am having with the client is well documented, and absolutely unbelievable.
A little background information: the "bit of kit" that we are providing requires compressed air. We provide a compressor for that. In this case the client had decided that they wished to have an "all singing all dancing" compressor. Not content with a single-head air compressor, they determined that they needed a double-head compressor. Not just a twin-piston compressor, but two completely independent compressor heads, feeding one reservoir. Now this is where it gets a little more techy.... the arrangement we have on this twin-head compressor is called Duty/Duty, which means that both compressor heads turn on and off at the same time. An alternative (and common) arrangement is Duty/Standby, whereby the duty compressor works most of the time, and the standby head works only if the duty head cannot keep up with demand, or if it breaks or similar. Duty/Duty is simpler, as Duty/Standby requires some form of additional sensor/switch for the standby head to be independently energiesed.
All good so far.
As part of the customers list of "shit they expect us to do for free", one of the items was to provide a means of detecting if the teeny-tiny little foam air filter on the inlet to these compressors had blocked. Now, this is a fairly ridiculous thing to ask for, as any fool would know that these air filters never block solid, and they are just a means of keeping crap out of the compressor head, nothing more. The very idea of them blocking is somewhat ridiculous, and to be able to detect that is even more absurd. A while back we responded to the customer along the lines of "you'll never measure anything to do with these filters." The following conversation went something along the lines of:
Cust: "we want to detect if a filter is blocked to initiate a duty/standby changeover"
Supplier "You'll never detect it. Just check them every month. Also, it's Duty/Duty, not Duty/Standby.
Cust: "If we cannot detect a blocked filter, how will we initiate a Duty/Standby changeover?"
Supplier: "It's Duty/Duty, not Duty/Standby, so no changeovers. Just check the filters regularly.
Cust: "How will the Standby head operate then?"
Supplier: "It's NOT a Standby head, the unit is Duty/Duty"
Cust: "but how can we detect a blocked filter?"
Supplier: "open the damn cabinet and look at it."
Cust: "so how does that change the unit over to the standby head?"
Supplier: "there is no F*****g Standby head, it's a Duty/Duty unit."
Cust: "If there is no standby unit, how will we have redundancy?"
Supplier: "the Duty/Duty heads are individually redundant. If either fails, the other continues.
Cust: "So how does that initiate a Duty/Standby changeover?"
Supplier: "Dear customer. You are an idiot."
And so the long day continues.
Four Grand and about 3 solid days work this stupid compressor has caused me so far. It supplies about 30 Cu ft FAD per day, and a £99 cheap-'n'-nasty compressor from the market would be just as fit-for-purpose. Unbelievable.
20120113
Complacency
Which appears to be how many people regard piloting 1-2 tonnes of metal at sufficient speed to easily kill someone, just a few feet from unprotected people.
First properly frosty day of this season, and as per usual, the idiocy begins. That's not to say that idiocy isn't in existance for the rest of the year, it's just that when we have frost or snow, the idiocy is much more visible.
First properly frosty day of this season, and as per usual, the idiocy begins. That's not to say that idiocy isn't in existance for the rest of the year, it's just that when we have frost or snow, the idiocy is much more visible.
20120111
Environmentalism and engineering.
Engineering, in general, is responsible for the situation the world finds itself in at the moment. Rising CO2 levels in atmospheric air, pollution, damaged land, industrial illness and numerous other ills of this world can point at "Engineering" (in very broad terms) and rightly point a finger.
That said, Enineering in general has done an awful lot for the world, and has improved quality of life in many ways. It's hard to imagine a world without electricity, motor vehicles, and other engineered products.
Now that we find ourselves in the situation that we do, the world looks to Engineering to get us out of this situation. "Green Technologies" are all the rage, "Environmentally friendly" ways of doing things are wanted, and in general people are receptive to making some alterations to the way they live their life in order "not to damage the planet".
Which, to be quite frank, is utter crap. Given the way that the western world lives at the moment, the slight changes of fitting energy saving light bulbs and driving fuel economic cars is not only a drop in the ocean, but also fails to recognise the real issues.
Yes, fuel economic cars are exactly that, fuel economic, but they have to be built, and the older less-economic car has to be scrapped. This uses huge amounts of energy. Huge stonkingly massive amounts of energy, and causes further pollution. It has been proven time and time again that the "environmentally friendly" thing to do is to maintain the older vehicle and prevent a new one being built. But does this happen? No, of course not. Why? Because the western world wants to have nice new things, and wants to try to justify doing so by calling it environmentally friendly. Actually, if you really wanted to be environmentally friendly, you could just not drive. Or heat your home. Or light your home. Or indeed even have a home, as building houses consumes huge amounts of energy, and causes massive amounts of pollution.
So where do you go from that argument? The answer is that people themselves by their very nature are not environmentally friendly, as they require homing and feeding and transport and the like. The percentage improvement that a person can possibly achieve by being genuinely environmentally friendly is completely irrelevant to the difference it would make if that person simply didn't exist.
Ironically, the reason that the world population is as high as it is and continues to grow is because we have an Engineered life. Having homes with central heating, decent healthcare and comfortable transport means that mortality rates are exceedingly low, along with life expectancy being the highest it has ever been. Compare life today with that of 300 years ago: Infant mortality was very high, and life expectancy was very low. Despite being at the top of the food chain, we had natural predators, they were things like food supply, bad weather and illness. These days we have all-but eliminated these predators, and so the population increases massively.
This could be taken into further detail, but it's fair to say that because of the engineered world we live in, there are many millions of people alive today who would not be otherwise. Many millions of people who now believe that living in an engineered world is a right (which it clearly is not) and who all take their toll on the planet by using said engineered world. It's a self-perpetuating situation that is a bit like the sourcerers apprentice. Now that we have started and perpetuated this situation, how on earth do we stop it?
The answer is that we won't. People in general are selfish, and want to have heated homes, nice vehicles and a generally comfortable lifestyle. What will stop it is the fuel supply for this engineered life we have. Practically everything we do and every bit of energy saving technology that we have is powered (at some point) by fossil fuel. And the cost of that is rising. And not just by a little bit. It's rising by a lot. Eventually oil will cost $1000 a barrel, and then $5000 a barrell, and so on. Natural Gas will be similarly expensive, and consequently electricity will cost £1 a unit, and then £10 a unit.
So what of "green technologies"? Surely they can save our way of life, by generating cheap clean electricity, allowing our engineered world to continue? Well, maybe they can, but the infrastructure of the world as it is at the moment is simply not set up for that to happen. Our reliance on fossil fuels to power our engineered world is still absolutely massive, and there doesn't appear to be any major change on the horizon... and yet again.. The reason for this lack of visible major change? People in general are selfish and greedy, and place too much importance on having new things. A case in point:
I recently discovered that many people change their white goods on such a regular basis that they never get a chance to wear out. A washing machine, for instance, for many people is something that is changed every few years, for "the latest model". This is done under the guise of it being environmentally friendly to have the latest model, with the best energy rating. Again, utter crap. The energy used to manufacture the new machine is massively more than the new machine could possibly save over its lifetime. What is actually the environmenally sound thing to do? Keep the old one working of course. Keep it going for as long as you possibly can, thus preventing the manufacture of a new one, and the disposal issues of the old one. Same is true for things like refrigerators, ovens, etc. etc.
So how do we convince people that they should keep older "kit" in working order? The only way to do so is through cost. Campaigners can "bang on" about anything they wish, but the only way you can effectively ensure that people value and look after pieces of engineering is to make them expensive. Very expensive. A washing machine should not be able to be bought for £150. A washing machine should cost £2000. If it did, not only would people not buy a new one every year, but older models would still be valued. Same is true of other equipement, it is all mainly too cheap. A new car for instance should cost £50'000 for a basic model, and £200'000 for an expensive one.
This didn't used to be the case. Modern Engineering methods have allowed cheaper "kit" to be available, which is what has lead to the very blase attitude we now have to engineered products. Anyone who knows me will know the story that I love to trot out when I get on my soap-box about this subject: I still have a fridge-freezer that my parents bought new in 1972. It cost my father £120 when it was new, which is fairly meaningless to most people (IE what is that in current money?) until you add the fact that it was £120 for the unit, and £1 to be delivered about 20 miles. It was (very) expensive, and consequently it was looked after. It still works perfectly some 39 years later, and I intend to make it last a lot longer. In that period, many people would have probably bought anywhere between 5 and 10 new fridge-freezers, and whilst those newer units would absolutely have used slightly less electricity in their life, they would have caused a much larger environmental burden by having to be manufactured and then disposed of.
My Message to anyone who actually wants to "do their bit" to be environmentally friendly? Stop buying new stuff when you don't need to. Stop throwing stuff away that works, and start re-using things that can be re-used. The motto of the environmentally concious is "re-use, re-cycle, re-place", in that order. Given that we barely ever "re-use" properly, there's an awful lot that can be done BEFORE re-cycling or re-placement of an item should even be considered.
That said, Enineering in general has done an awful lot for the world, and has improved quality of life in many ways. It's hard to imagine a world without electricity, motor vehicles, and other engineered products.
Now that we find ourselves in the situation that we do, the world looks to Engineering to get us out of this situation. "Green Technologies" are all the rage, "Environmentally friendly" ways of doing things are wanted, and in general people are receptive to making some alterations to the way they live their life in order "not to damage the planet".
Which, to be quite frank, is utter crap. Given the way that the western world lives at the moment, the slight changes of fitting energy saving light bulbs and driving fuel economic cars is not only a drop in the ocean, but also fails to recognise the real issues.
Yes, fuel economic cars are exactly that, fuel economic, but they have to be built, and the older less-economic car has to be scrapped. This uses huge amounts of energy. Huge stonkingly massive amounts of energy, and causes further pollution. It has been proven time and time again that the "environmentally friendly" thing to do is to maintain the older vehicle and prevent a new one being built. But does this happen? No, of course not. Why? Because the western world wants to have nice new things, and wants to try to justify doing so by calling it environmentally friendly. Actually, if you really wanted to be environmentally friendly, you could just not drive. Or heat your home. Or light your home. Or indeed even have a home, as building houses consumes huge amounts of energy, and causes massive amounts of pollution.
So where do you go from that argument? The answer is that people themselves by their very nature are not environmentally friendly, as they require homing and feeding and transport and the like. The percentage improvement that a person can possibly achieve by being genuinely environmentally friendly is completely irrelevant to the difference it would make if that person simply didn't exist.
Ironically, the reason that the world population is as high as it is and continues to grow is because we have an Engineered life. Having homes with central heating, decent healthcare and comfortable transport means that mortality rates are exceedingly low, along with life expectancy being the highest it has ever been. Compare life today with that of 300 years ago: Infant mortality was very high, and life expectancy was very low. Despite being at the top of the food chain, we had natural predators, they were things like food supply, bad weather and illness. These days we have all-but eliminated these predators, and so the population increases massively.
This could be taken into further detail, but it's fair to say that because of the engineered world we live in, there are many millions of people alive today who would not be otherwise. Many millions of people who now believe that living in an engineered world is a right (which it clearly is not) and who all take their toll on the planet by using said engineered world. It's a self-perpetuating situation that is a bit like the sourcerers apprentice. Now that we have started and perpetuated this situation, how on earth do we stop it?
The answer is that we won't. People in general are selfish, and want to have heated homes, nice vehicles and a generally comfortable lifestyle. What will stop it is the fuel supply for this engineered life we have. Practically everything we do and every bit of energy saving technology that we have is powered (at some point) by fossil fuel. And the cost of that is rising. And not just by a little bit. It's rising by a lot. Eventually oil will cost $1000 a barrel, and then $5000 a barrell, and so on. Natural Gas will be similarly expensive, and consequently electricity will cost £1 a unit, and then £10 a unit.
So what of "green technologies"? Surely they can save our way of life, by generating cheap clean electricity, allowing our engineered world to continue? Well, maybe they can, but the infrastructure of the world as it is at the moment is simply not set up for that to happen. Our reliance on fossil fuels to power our engineered world is still absolutely massive, and there doesn't appear to be any major change on the horizon... and yet again.. The reason for this lack of visible major change? People in general are selfish and greedy, and place too much importance on having new things. A case in point:
I recently discovered that many people change their white goods on such a regular basis that they never get a chance to wear out. A washing machine, for instance, for many people is something that is changed every few years, for "the latest model". This is done under the guise of it being environmentally friendly to have the latest model, with the best energy rating. Again, utter crap. The energy used to manufacture the new machine is massively more than the new machine could possibly save over its lifetime. What is actually the environmenally sound thing to do? Keep the old one working of course. Keep it going for as long as you possibly can, thus preventing the manufacture of a new one, and the disposal issues of the old one. Same is true for things like refrigerators, ovens, etc. etc.
So how do we convince people that they should keep older "kit" in working order? The only way to do so is through cost. Campaigners can "bang on" about anything they wish, but the only way you can effectively ensure that people value and look after pieces of engineering is to make them expensive. Very expensive. A washing machine should not be able to be bought for £150. A washing machine should cost £2000. If it did, not only would people not buy a new one every year, but older models would still be valued. Same is true of other equipement, it is all mainly too cheap. A new car for instance should cost £50'000 for a basic model, and £200'000 for an expensive one.
This didn't used to be the case. Modern Engineering methods have allowed cheaper "kit" to be available, which is what has lead to the very blase attitude we now have to engineered products. Anyone who knows me will know the story that I love to trot out when I get on my soap-box about this subject: I still have a fridge-freezer that my parents bought new in 1972. It cost my father £120 when it was new, which is fairly meaningless to most people (IE what is that in current money?) until you add the fact that it was £120 for the unit, and £1 to be delivered about 20 miles. It was (very) expensive, and consequently it was looked after. It still works perfectly some 39 years later, and I intend to make it last a lot longer. In that period, many people would have probably bought anywhere between 5 and 10 new fridge-freezers, and whilst those newer units would absolutely have used slightly less electricity in their life, they would have caused a much larger environmental burden by having to be manufactured and then disposed of.
My Message to anyone who actually wants to "do their bit" to be environmentally friendly? Stop buying new stuff when you don't need to. Stop throwing stuff away that works, and start re-using things that can be re-used. The motto of the environmentally concious is "re-use, re-cycle, re-place", in that order. Given that we barely ever "re-use" properly, there's an awful lot that can be done BEFORE re-cycling or re-placement of an item should even be considered.
20120103
New Ear
.. Which is what I could do with.
Why is it that when an Engineer comes back to work after a break, rather than a gentle get-back-in-the-swing-of-things that many other professions enjoy, we get hurled straight back in at the deep end, with seemingly more to be done now than ever before.
Actually, that's probably unfair, as I've no doubt many professional people find that to be the case, but it does seem to me that Engineers get the worst of it. Phone call today to one of our subcontractors was very clear in that respect. Speak to the sales guys: not a care in the world. Speak to the contracts manager: fresh and breezy and insisting on telling me what a wonderful christmas he had in barbados (ohjustbuggeroffwillyou), but speak to the Engineer (which is who I wanted to speak to in the first place: absolutely run off his feet already, and unable to make a meeting for the next 3 weeks. Three bloody weeks? His diary was empty before christmas.
Mind you, so was mine, and it's rapidly filling up....
Moral of this story? either don't be an Engineer, or don't go on Holiday.
Why is it that when an Engineer comes back to work after a break, rather than a gentle get-back-in-the-swing-of-things that many other professions enjoy, we get hurled straight back in at the deep end, with seemingly more to be done now than ever before.
Actually, that's probably unfair, as I've no doubt many professional people find that to be the case, but it does seem to me that Engineers get the worst of it. Phone call today to one of our subcontractors was very clear in that respect. Speak to the sales guys: not a care in the world. Speak to the contracts manager: fresh and breezy and insisting on telling me what a wonderful christmas he had in barbados (ohjustbuggeroffwillyou), but speak to the Engineer (which is who I wanted to speak to in the first place: absolutely run off his feet already, and unable to make a meeting for the next 3 weeks. Three bloody weeks? His diary was empty before christmas.
Mind you, so was mine, and it's rapidly filling up....
Moral of this story? either don't be an Engineer, or don't go on Holiday.
20111230
relentless
We often hear in the news that projects have run over budget by several million / billion / gajillion pounds, and that various people are trying to apportion blame as to why it has gone over-budget, and that "lessons have been learned" etc. etc. This happens on an all-very-regular basis, and people don't seem to learn the lessons.
Why? The main reason that this happens (as far as I can see, being involved in a project that is waaay over-budget) is that the initial estimate of budget is done by someone who is being sensible and reasonable, and the people who are involved further down the line are far less sensible and reasonable, and are only interested in protecting themselves. This means that the initial estimate is generally fairly accurate, and if the project were managed properly, it would probably stay roughly on budget.
But it doesn't.
When the customer is more than just one person (or even a small team of people) but a large company, every single person in that larger company will want to stick their oar in and rock the boat. What's more, once the contractor has replied to every single idiot within the customer organisation, the customer will probably come back for another bite. And another. And probably several more.
Example: Fit a light bulb in a cupboard. (please note, not "change" a lightbulb.. that one is slightly too simplisitic!)
If I were doing this myself, I'd be looking at a light fitting (tenner) a light switch (fiver) some cable (couple of quid) a junction box to tap into the existing live supply (quid) and a couple of hours work. Even if I got a sparky (electrician) in to do the work, I'd still expect a fair bit of change from £100.
Now try doing that on a large installation as part of modern industry.
First: Design drawings, both mechanical and electrical need to be submitted to the customer. This will probably include schedules of components being fitted, and manufacturers data sheets for all items to be fitted. The customer will then mark these drawings with "comments" that they will expect to be incoporated into the drawings, and will issue a set of drawing numbers that need to be used on their drawings. Re-submit drawings. Rinse and repeat as necessary (usually two or three times)
Next: receive an email from the customer, indicating that they are not happy with the location of the lamp, and that they believe it will cast shadows where they are not wanted. Also, the customer is not convinced about the ability of the cupboard to dissipate the heat generated by the lamp, and would like some vents to be fitted to the cupboard. Reply to this email, asking the customer where they would like the lamp fitted, and assuring them that the lamp will be fine in the cupboard. Receive reply from customer showing another marked up drawing of where this person would like the lamp fitted, and that he is still not happy with the heat output of the lamp, but if we could provide some calculations to show that it is safe, then he will accept it. He also now insists that the switch is labeled to show which lamp it operates, "in case of confusion".
Then: Representative for the customer on site is desperate to have the lamp fitted, and insists that work commences, despite not having approval from office-based part of the customer. So, you go to fit the lamp on site. This involves:
Construction Skills safety course to attend. (2hours) Customer site induction to attend (3hours) Checks to be made to confirm you are a skilled electrican. All persons on site have to wear high-vis jackets, safety boots, hard hats, gloves and glasses. Arrive on site to then discover that "lone working" is not allowed, and so you need someone with you at all times. Bring along another person, who has to go through the same procedure again (inductions etc)
Finally get on site, and install the lamp. (about 1h work) Customer then inspects your work and complains that the cables you have used are not to his standard, and that he expects you to use a different type of cable. Customer also complains that access to the lamp for bulb-changing is not acceptable, and the lamp will need to be moved to a location that allows someone to change the bulb without using a stepladder. You remove the initial installation, order replacement cable, and start re-working the installation.
At this point, the original person you were dealing with sends back your drawings with further mark-ups on them to show that they also need a neon on the light switch (which was not part of the original specification). You then inform him that you have had to change the location of the lamp fitting due to the need to access the bulb. Customer then throws a wobbly that you have installed something not-to-drawing. Drawing changes are then made, and sent off to the customer (see paragraph 1).
Commissioning engineer then contacts you from the customer to ask about your test and inspection plan to be implimented before the equipment is put into use. "It's a bloody light-bulb, how many tests can you do on it?" is the curt reply. Commissioning engineer then shows you a specification for a 15-page test plan that must be followed by all subcontractors before their equipment is energised.
Customer then contacts you, asking for a copy of the operation and maintainence manual for the installation you have fitted. You produce one, which is then bounced back and forth from yourself to the customer several times to address their "comments".
Commissioning plan is finally approved, and the installation is tested. Several queries about the location of the lamp are brought up at the commissioning by persons who were not in the loop previously, one of whom also cannot reach the lamp, and questions the ability of anyone to change the bulb. You bite your lip, but actually want to tell the customer to shove off.
All drawings and documents are then revised to an "as built" status, to show exact installation. Customer also "comments" on these drawings, wanting more detail, more labels, more cross-references and more nformation about the junction box terminals.
Commissioning engineer then comes back to you to ask for copies of all your calibration certificated for every single item of equipment used in the installation.
.......... and on and on and on it goes.
Total cost for this cupboard lamp? Probably about ten grand. And I'm not joking.
The root cause of this is subcontracting. All too many large companies no longer employ their own engineers, rather they are an office-based organisation who subcontract out everything. These subcontractors then further subcontract out some work, and so on and so on. If companies actually still employed their own engineers, and did the installation work themselves, the world would be a far less expensive place.
Why? The main reason that this happens (as far as I can see, being involved in a project that is waaay over-budget) is that the initial estimate of budget is done by someone who is being sensible and reasonable, and the people who are involved further down the line are far less sensible and reasonable, and are only interested in protecting themselves. This means that the initial estimate is generally fairly accurate, and if the project were managed properly, it would probably stay roughly on budget.
But it doesn't.
When the customer is more than just one person (or even a small team of people) but a large company, every single person in that larger company will want to stick their oar in and rock the boat. What's more, once the contractor has replied to every single idiot within the customer organisation, the customer will probably come back for another bite. And another. And probably several more.
Example: Fit a light bulb in a cupboard. (please note, not "change" a lightbulb.. that one is slightly too simplisitic!)
If I were doing this myself, I'd be looking at a light fitting (tenner) a light switch (fiver) some cable (couple of quid) a junction box to tap into the existing live supply (quid) and a couple of hours work. Even if I got a sparky (electrician) in to do the work, I'd still expect a fair bit of change from £100.
Now try doing that on a large installation as part of modern industry.
First: Design drawings, both mechanical and electrical need to be submitted to the customer. This will probably include schedules of components being fitted, and manufacturers data sheets for all items to be fitted. The customer will then mark these drawings with "comments" that they will expect to be incoporated into the drawings, and will issue a set of drawing numbers that need to be used on their drawings. Re-submit drawings. Rinse and repeat as necessary (usually two or three times)
Next: receive an email from the customer, indicating that they are not happy with the location of the lamp, and that they believe it will cast shadows where they are not wanted. Also, the customer is not convinced about the ability of the cupboard to dissipate the heat generated by the lamp, and would like some vents to be fitted to the cupboard. Reply to this email, asking the customer where they would like the lamp fitted, and assuring them that the lamp will be fine in the cupboard. Receive reply from customer showing another marked up drawing of where this person would like the lamp fitted, and that he is still not happy with the heat output of the lamp, but if we could provide some calculations to show that it is safe, then he will accept it. He also now insists that the switch is labeled to show which lamp it operates, "in case of confusion".
Then: Representative for the customer on site is desperate to have the lamp fitted, and insists that work commences, despite not having approval from office-based part of the customer. So, you go to fit the lamp on site. This involves:
Construction Skills safety course to attend. (2hours) Customer site induction to attend (3hours) Checks to be made to confirm you are a skilled electrican. All persons on site have to wear high-vis jackets, safety boots, hard hats, gloves and glasses. Arrive on site to then discover that "lone working" is not allowed, and so you need someone with you at all times. Bring along another person, who has to go through the same procedure again (inductions etc)
Finally get on site, and install the lamp. (about 1h work) Customer then inspects your work and complains that the cables you have used are not to his standard, and that he expects you to use a different type of cable. Customer also complains that access to the lamp for bulb-changing is not acceptable, and the lamp will need to be moved to a location that allows someone to change the bulb without using a stepladder. You remove the initial installation, order replacement cable, and start re-working the installation.
At this point, the original person you were dealing with sends back your drawings with further mark-ups on them to show that they also need a neon on the light switch (which was not part of the original specification). You then inform him that you have had to change the location of the lamp fitting due to the need to access the bulb. Customer then throws a wobbly that you have installed something not-to-drawing. Drawing changes are then made, and sent off to the customer (see paragraph 1).
Commissioning engineer then contacts you from the customer to ask about your test and inspection plan to be implimented before the equipment is put into use. "It's a bloody light-bulb, how many tests can you do on it?" is the curt reply. Commissioning engineer then shows you a specification for a 15-page test plan that must be followed by all subcontractors before their equipment is energised.
Customer then contacts you, asking for a copy of the operation and maintainence manual for the installation you have fitted. You produce one, which is then bounced back and forth from yourself to the customer several times to address their "comments".
Commissioning plan is finally approved, and the installation is tested. Several queries about the location of the lamp are brought up at the commissioning by persons who were not in the loop previously, one of whom also cannot reach the lamp, and questions the ability of anyone to change the bulb. You bite your lip, but actually want to tell the customer to shove off.
All drawings and documents are then revised to an "as built" status, to show exact installation. Customer also "comments" on these drawings, wanting more detail, more labels, more cross-references and more nformation about the junction box terminals.
Commissioning engineer then comes back to you to ask for copies of all your calibration certificated for every single item of equipment used in the installation.
.......... and on and on and on it goes.
Total cost for this cupboard lamp? Probably about ten grand. And I'm not joking.
The root cause of this is subcontracting. All too many large companies no longer employ their own engineers, rather they are an office-based organisation who subcontract out everything. These subcontractors then further subcontract out some work, and so on and so on. If companies actually still employed their own engineers, and did the installation work themselves, the world would be a far less expensive place.
20111229
First post and all that Jazz
Tomorrow I will be old. Well, clearly I will simply be one day older than I am today, but in numerical terms I will suddenly become closer to forty than thiry. This is not too much of a concern to me, as I was never particularly interested in being 20-something, and the increase in years means that essentially I am the same as I was when I was 20, just with more experience, and I am now taken seriously. I think it's the streak of grey hair that does it. If you're trying to present information to a group of jaded engineers / project manager or similar, having at least some grey means you're either old enough to have sufficient experience, or have dealt with sufficiently stressfull projects to make you turn grey, that you are then treated with a level of confidence not afforded to the still-wet-behind-the-ears university (or worse still, college) graduate.
I dislike my birthday. Not because I get a numerical year older, and not because other people do not care... Quite the opposite; they do care and I don't want them to. Making a fuss over someone just because our planet has orbited our sun by an integer value of cycles since their birth does not seem like good sense to me. Yes, it may be nice to be especially lovely to someone on a paricular day, but can I just choose when that is and it not have to be during the chaotic week between Christmas and new year please?
... and I don't know whether this will show as being written on the 28th or the 29th. I've left it overnight and haven't finished it yet. Having never used blogging software before, my understanding of it and it's functionality is limited. Being a mechanical engineer, rather than an electronic or software engineer, I have every intention of using someone elses html coding rather than trying my own. Tried that about 8 years ago, and despite having spent many many hours as a teenager hand-coding B.A.S.I.C. into my spectrum +3, and expecting to be not-too-bad at using a programming language, I was utterly crap at it. Another lesson learned with age and experience: know your limitations! Or at least know your knowledge level. I'm fairly sure I could learn HTML if I could be bothered, but I can't: There's far too much cake to eat.
I dislike my birthday. Not because I get a numerical year older, and not because other people do not care... Quite the opposite; they do care and I don't want them to. Making a fuss over someone just because our planet has orbited our sun by an integer value of cycles since their birth does not seem like good sense to me. Yes, it may be nice to be especially lovely to someone on a paricular day, but can I just choose when that is and it not have to be during the chaotic week between Christmas and new year please?
... and I don't know whether this will show as being written on the 28th or the 29th. I've left it overnight and haven't finished it yet. Having never used blogging software before, my understanding of it and it's functionality is limited. Being a mechanical engineer, rather than an electronic or software engineer, I have every intention of using someone elses html coding rather than trying my own. Tried that about 8 years ago, and despite having spent many many hours as a teenager hand-coding B.A.S.I.C. into my spectrum +3, and expecting to be not-too-bad at using a programming language, I was utterly crap at it. Another lesson learned with age and experience: know your limitations! Or at least know your knowledge level. I'm fairly sure I could learn HTML if I could be bothered, but I can't: There's far too much cake to eat.
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