Five Fast Things for April 13, 2007
April 13, 2007

And a happy Friday the 13th to everyone. Nothing to be superstitious about. Avoiding ladders and breaking mirrors is a good thing, and you should never pet a strange black cat. Allow it to walk across your path freely.

1. Plant Success in Houston: I just returned from a one-day seminar in Houston produced by Plant Success and got to hear about some of the key issues in manufacturing, especially in the petrochemical space. But the issues there aren't much different than the issues in any manufacturing space in a global economy. Brett Able, vice president of supply chain management for Dow Corning, pointed out during the keynote that the Dow Corning manufacturing supply chain – Plan, Source, Make, Deliver – is at the core of their goal to be an international manufacturer. “It's getting people to understand the value of the process,” Able told the Plant Success meeting. “It's speaking with one language when talking with global customers.”

2. And speaking of globalization… The ARC Advisory Group is gearing up to talk about globalization at its June Forum in Boston. “Winning Strategies for Global Manufacturers” will discuss the kind of innovative strategies best-in-class manufacturers have put into place. ARC delivers the kind of information manufacturing experts need today, and that's why Plant Engineering is a media sponsor of this event. For more on the ARC Boston Forum, click here.

3. Scary, but true: There is this quote from David Strobhar, chief executive of Beville Engineering: “Companies are spending millions of dollars on technology to enhance operator performance with little understanding of what makes a good operator and without the means to quantify the impact of their expenditures.” In order to do something about that, Beville Engineering and Wright State University have formed the Center for Operator Performance, an consortium of academic and process companies to how human factors play a role in process control and to design systems that overcome human error and share that information with members.

While designed for the petrochemical industry, this consortium has two broad-based initiatives that everyone can benefit from. One is the study of the process industry and human error. The other is a stronger tie between academia and manufacturing. Both are crucial if manufacturing is going to continue to move forward.

4. Did YOU get a letter? It's much worse than getting a letter for an IRS audit. The annual letters that go out from OSHA to companies whose occupational injury and illness rate is higher than the national average should scare employers into compliance. There is no workplace cost more preventable than worker's compensation claims. It is real money that disappears every year simply because employers don't care enough to make workplace safety their top priority. There's no excuse. OSHA has consulting services, workplace inspections designed to fix problems, not fine them, and a desire to make workplaces, already the safest in the world, even safer. When OSHA fines a company, it's too late. My experience is that someone is usually dead or badly injured by then, and there's no fine in the world that covers those losses. INSIST on a safe workplace.

5. Finding the next generation of plant engineers: One of the discussions we had at Plant Success’ pre-event Texas barbecue was over the issue of finding and recruiting new engineers and skilled workers for manufacturing. The long form of that discussion continues two familiar themes – 1) we should have done something a long-time ago and 2) it's as much a marketing and PR effort as anything. But companies such as Sunoco are reaching into their communities. The Academy of Process Technology is a high school in Philadelphia that reaches students early and gives them a solid understanding of what modern process manufacturing is all about. We'll write more about this program in the magazine in the coming months, but understand this: more than globalization, more than outsourcing, more than any other issue, the continued vitality of U.S. manufacturing depends on finding bright minds wherever they are and putting those minds to the task of making better things and making things better.

Posted by Wolseley on April 13, 2007 | Comments (2)