Posts By: John

As I write this, I am amazed at how nature is distributing water around the world + Western Europe has just been hit with a very large snowfall that has crippled aviation and transportation + At various times in December, parts of North America also received very large snowfalls, and aviation and transportation has also… Read more »

I am sure you have experienced them … the short periods of time where you really do have too much work, and you need to delegate some in order to meet all of your deadlines. If you are like most organisations, your co-workers are also fully loaded with their own obligations, so the only way… Read more »

Recently I was listening to the musical comic Allan Sherman sing “Good Advice”. It is a silly song about how he (Allan Sherman) travels through history, and gives advice to some of the greats of the past – which results in the greats of history achieving their destiny. Here is one verse about the great… Read more »

I have been observing many debates about “industry going green”, but one I have not heard is … “what is the more green basic cooling utility – air or water?” Anecdotally, I think the current (overly simplistic) answer is … if you have steam, it is probably better for you to have cooling water. If… Read more »

One quotation from the great physicist Albert Einstein has become embedded in my training practices: + “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” And this is especially true when explaining subtle technical issues to management. Here in Australia we recently had a federal election, and I had the opportunity to… Read more »

A colleague was telling me about her recent rise in work commitments. She was saying that, even though she is normally a well organized person, the ability to manage her schedule over the next few weeks would be much more difficult than normal, but at the same time it was much more critical than normal…. Read more »

Last month we spoke about how the oil spill in the US Gulf of Mexico will mean the laws will change. This month we are going to talk about how court rulings (not new laws, but interpretations of existing laws) will impact us. And that is by tort. What is a “tort”? We like this… Read more »

On July 10, 1976, the engineering world changed. There was an industrial incident in Seveso, Italy, when dioxin (the chemical that causes chlorache, and can be lethal in small quantities) was released by accident. About 600 people were evacuated from their homes, and about 2000 people were treated for dioxin exposure. That was the day… Read more »

One of the more high profile bad management decisions is playing out as I write this … a professional rugby league team here in Australia has been found to have systematically abused and violated the league’s salary cap rules for the past 5 years. During that time, they won 2 premierships. The fallout has been… Read more »

Years ago I learned about the concept of “industrial ecology”. In involves industrial facilities constructively working together with neighbouring industrial facilities to better manage local resources and issues. Not only does it make good economic sense, it makes good community, social, and environmental sense. And it is very applicable today – just like it was… Read more »