How is the Quest for Safety Like the Task of Sisyphus?

The Unending Task of Sisyphus

Do you know the myth of Sisyphus?  He was condemned to push a boulder up a hill. When he reached the top, the boulder would roll back down.  Then Sisyphus would run down the hill and push the boulder up again. (more…)

Posted July 14th, 2010 in Observations, Operational Excellence

To Call or Not to Call; To Facebook or Not – Part 1

I teach 11th graders in Sunday School and have been teaching youth for over 30 years. in the early years of teaching, I contacted the youth by mail or on their home phone or even visited their homes. Mail still works, even though it is a quaint practice. When I want to talk to a parent or a younger sibling, I call the home number. The youth give me their cell phone numbers, but don’t like phone calls as much as they do text messages. Teens do not want to talk as much as they want to text.

For a few years, e-mail worked well for communicating and it still does for me. It’s a passive channel, however, and feedback would be nice. Now the youth tell me to send a message via Facebook. That works well for them and for me.

What is the primary mode of communication in your company’s daily operations? Phone, texting, e-mail, radios, Facebook (probably not yet)

What issues will companies face dealing with preferences of different generations? I remember that a pipeline scheduler e-mailed a change in the pumping schedule to a pipeline operator. Guess what? The pipeline operator did not check his e-mail. The operator was used to schedulers calling on the phone with changes. The operator was 20 years older than the scheduler, and the scheduler used e-mail all day in his office job. When the schedule was not changed, the batch was not pumped. This error of omission caused problems.

Posted February 24th, 2010 in Human Factors, In the News, Observations

Inukshuk: Substitute for a Person

The Wall St. Journal has an article about the 2010 Olympic symbol and logo, the inukshuk. This stone sculpture(or pile of rocks) and its many derivations are present at all venues and scattered all around the country.

The original purpose of the inukshuk was to mark the location of food caches, the direction of an important trail, or the memory of an event.  In the Inuktitut language, the term means “something that substitutes for a person.”

That definition led me to think of automated systems or “distributed control systems” in pipeline operations and other process controls.  At a family reunion, there was a discussion about the early days of pipeline right of way inspection. My father and others actually walked the line with a bag of tools.  They looked for small leaks, repaired problems with valves, and cut down weeds and other vegetation at fence rows.  I guess it was about 250 miles, since I saw an aerial mile marker along the pipeline yesterday on the drive home from the reunion.

Now an airplane or one person in a truck patrols and inspects the right of way.  And most pipeline facilities have modern communication and programmable logic controllers to perform operational tasks.   These inukshuit (plural form) are substitutes for many people.   A few individuals in a remote control center monitor and control the inukshuit.

This modern practice is not good or bad; it is the way of the world. I was bemused and intrigued by the similarities and differences between ancient substitutes for a person and today’s substitute for a person.

Posted February 22nd, 2010 in Human Factors, In the News, Observations