Designed For Disaster 2nd Part No Managent Of Change
To come soon.
Creative thinking , blessing or course ..
with poor or no management of change even good ideas can be bad , as bad as they come.
Marco ■
Designed For Desaster , The Indian Project
We went further within the same no accountavility scope , we built a plant in India , a large plant, again the organisation played the "I am smater than you game , only to see it backfire , even though the problems were foreseen 2 years before construction started , the manager in question descided not to do anything argumenting that we were covered by a very smatr contract .
Well, the customer was smarter they sued us for 300 million dollars and charged our President with criminal negligence , then action needed to be taken .
Again the main problem (solids flow in the reactor was solved ) a 3 million dollar excercise in procastination, but managers were selected by their familiarity not their capacity and were in general well covered and defended by the president
Some problems with sticking valves remained , that were again a product of the Engeneering VP procastination (expanion joints in the wrong leg), but the plant operated and the customer was happy , again the startup team was commended by its dedication to the job .
Safe at home the managers fixed an acceptable story for the stock holders. the customer made a repeat purchase , again the story is , you achieve more customer satifaction when you have a problem and solve it than when everithing works fine .
details in a following article.
Marco ■
Note On The India Project
There is a reason for everything, the Plant in India was originally designed , lets say before thye concept stage by Hector Mendez , who left the company shortly after to work on a large cement conglomerate , the drawings had been copied , scaled from the pilot plant , that was a single exit 1 ton per hr plant designed largely by me, the Indian plant was a large 4 bricketting machines with three running and one planned , so there were sloped lines all arrownd , the pilot plat was straight down so we installed telescopic expansion joints made at home , the origninal engenering copied the location and type of the expansion joints .
Useles to say that the lateral expansion of the sloped lines went unchecked , also it has to be noted that the Engeneering VP and the manager were both electronic engeneers, so steessses and expansions were not their field , politics was where they were at their best.
when I found out by chance the design of the plant in India i immediastely went to see the engeneering Vp to tell him of the mistake . i could see his face go pale , then he said that the expansion joints were bellows type, this is even worse, the lateral expansion was of such magnitude that a bellows would have been destroyed as it happened later. When he decided to change the expansion joint type
The facts of life were that the association agreement had been modified , so that any changes to the conceptual engeneering had to be paid by the entity making the change (us) so no mention was made of this issue and he let time gon by in a hope that somebody will do their homework do a steess analysis and install the 4 required expansion joints .
The engeneering VP descided to check the stresses and the result was so large that the pipelines would go into the platic flow region , of course the plug valves will get stuck before, he apparently kept this resuilts secret , even from the companies president , his (compadre, I believe), we were all compadres .
Years later when the plant finally started up , the valves siezed and he was called for answers , of course he could not find the answer (it was a mistery), he was finally sent to India after all his team failed to find solutions, and he tried everything except installing the expansion joints where they were needed, at the end a more robust valve was installed and a even stronger valve designed and built .
So I learned a new lesson , In this compny when you are a childhood friend of the president everything is forgiven and forgoten. I also learned that it is importanta to keep records , even of informal conversations and have a copy filed and another sent to at least one more of the stakeholders a project manager for instance.
Later the plant found a more profitable product than brikettes and ended up with a single output line. And everybody was happy.
Later technological changes were done to this plant to improve its efficiency and reduce maintenance costs . I believe he is now purchasing anew plant. Again it comes to prove that you acheve more when you make a mistake and solve it than when everything goes smoothly. ■
Re: Designed For Disaster
Marco, what kind of robust, stronger valve was implemented in this system you described in you last post?
Greetings, Roy ■
Super Valve
Roy,
There were three valves used for the same purpose, after the failure of the first option.
The first one, was a modified Everlasting Valve, that was called, after a time, the "Neverlasting Valve". We had to recognize that the valve worked.
This is a floating seal that is riding on a metallic rotating arm. This a metal-to-metal seal and, approximately every 6 months, the valve has to be re-built, to fix the seals. It is an expensive operation. The same comment can be said about the grease seal valves.
The second valve that was tried was a modified Homestead Valve, largely modified. This valve was called the "Superplug Valve". This was a heavy, very heavy body, grease seal, plug valve. It was water-cooled and, after a number of trials, it was either Nitrate harden or fit with a removal wear jacket, made of nodular iron, if I recall well.
The heat transfer on this jacket is tricky. The same thing has to be said about the cooling circuit in the plug.
This valve was capable of resisting 18 Tons-meter torque. Still not enough for the requirements in the plant.
The third valve, is a modified Clyde Dome Valve. Also very much modified, with a silicone inflatable seal that worked very well.
You can check the patents on the Super Plug Valve and on the Inflatable Seal Valve in the Patent Office. This was done a long time ago.
A similar Valve, a third generation valve, was installed in Australia, in a large hot pneumatic conveying system. If you want more details drop me a line by e-mail.
Regards,
Marco ■
The Russian Project
A large Iron Ore mine in Russia installed one of our plants , right along the side of severall pelletizing units .
The reactor of this plant presented a strange form of flow channelling , one that has not been present before , after severall startup runs we were called in .
the problem was simple enough , the loading chutte was off center , andf the top bin had been segmented into four sections , so during the initial load , the load impacted only in one side of the cone , polishig it , then once the reactor had filled to the level of the wall impact , a column of compacted fines built inside the reactor.
The result a low irrigation zone , an assimetrical fines distribution inside the reactor andf assymetric internal and wall friction angles .
the solution , a simple central distibutor . Now it was a question of holding tight untill the bottom cone was polished to a somewhat degree as the rest.
The problem ,,,,, a plunge in the price of scrap that impacted the porice of sponge iron and briquettes to the point that it would not cover the cost of the gas used for its manufacture , and the plant was to be paid with the sale of sponge iron.
The client would have been in very bad shape with this arrangement. The apparent solution..... Make everything in your hands to stop the plant , first produce a softer pellet...
Then burn a a heater , that way the isurance will pay foir the repairs , you win time until the price recovers and if you are lucky the isurance will also pay for the lost production, a win win scenario.
And then it might had been an accident ... just at that time a convenient one .
to be continued..... ■
The Australian Adventure
An interesting case of Designed or Disaster can be exemplified by an Australian endeavor. The piping system was specified to resist earthquakes, the actual magnitud I don't remember. Unfortunately this specification never reached the valve manufacturer and, if it reached them, it was after they had quoted their components. The result was that the weak link in the conveying system is now the valve. The Engineering Manager was soon informed about this issue, the response was, "why are you telling me this".
This comes to show that, even incompanies that praise themselves for being preventive oriented, the individuals or the individual Managers put their image before safety regardless of the consequences. ■
Too Late .
Being late can mean being out.
Not long ago.
An innovative steel-making process, which promised to be able to use waste products to produce steel was closed down. They took far too long to start. The project was, as they stated,"well planned".
Development projects are unique and they cannot be dealt with, with the same practice as a normal start-up project. You need to be in a hurry. There are many things that have not been considered. Scaling-up, even the simplest component, can produce and will produce surprises that have to be dealt fast an effectively.
Five years ago we mentioned, to the Project Manager, that they were going far too slow for this type of project. The individual, being an American, immediately felt insulted and required a public apology. The only apology he got was: "the comment was made in good faith. It is up to you if you want to act upon it."
When you are starting a technology development project of that magnitude, you need to learn fast and to change fast, otherwise you are the weakest link in the productive chain. Who do you believe will be cut-off first? The least reliable supplier,of course.
They made another mistake, they hired people from far away, needy countries. These people wanted to obtain nationality, so they were going to drag their feet until they finally got what they wanted.
Changing a valve in Mexico, which is not considered to be a fast moving county took from 1-6 hours; in this place it took 1 week! Talking about dragging their feet!
You need to have at least 2 crews. One to start and one to finish. With different goals set-up from the very beginning, that way you will finish on time. Remember, the stockholders do not have infinite patience and you should be always in a hurry. You do not know what the future has in stock for you. ■
Publications And Sales . Procedures And Remote Maintenance As D…
Not long ago I was faced with two particular situations that generated lessons learned that might be good to share.
never never allow sales to publish numerical data or anithing that will compromise the operational parameters and jeopardize your process safety .
never ever Diagnose an equipment performance difficulty without talking to the equipment, the equipment will feel neglected and react accordingly, just like a girl friend or a mother in law .... go visit her talk to her , hear her complains , give her the required medicine ,, remember neglect and violence have no place in equipment trouble shooting , although sometimes they react well to a well placed robust pat in the back..
marco ■
Designed for disaster
Designed for Disaster
Safety factor or Doom factor?
Or “ No me ayudes compadre “
With these friends I'd rather have enemies.
Not long ago there was this small Latin American company that made a breakthrough in gaseous metallurgy.
The success was not only the product of need, will, and luck, but was also product of the vision of a smart manager that could see the big picture .
Their discovery was so important that a large international company, that was at the time providing equipment on site, became aware of the market potential of the invention and rushed to ask for permission to sell the process internationally.
After some hesitation they came to an agreement.
Being the small firm only production oriented, and not really interested in the sale of technology.
•They wanted no accountability in the business promoted by the international firm.
•The supplier assumed all the liability and would pay a fee for the exclusive right to promote the technology.
•The inventor firm, owner of the production facility, would continue the process development and would share all developments with the large firm.
Success came as an avalanche.
Everybody seemed to be interested in the process, with the back-up of such a respected firm, was a guarantee of success.
Soon the plants being built overseas were much larger than the plants owned by the original firm.
Then things changed ..
First the international firm, that was specialized in petrochemical technology, was sold to a new Holding, that decided that the metallurgical projects were more suitable for another of their subsidiaries specialized in the metallurgical field (MF), and so they assigned these projects to a second firm, without the good reputation of the first one, to say something. This second firm was later sold to a third Holding. .
•Experience was lost in the change.
•Business image was lost.
•Accountability was lost.
•Motivation was lost, the sale was made by someone else, now we had to meet the guarantees.
•The (MF) company shuffled personnel frequently, few people stayed with a project long enough to develop “ownership”.
Second
Competition surfaced . Nothing attracts more competition than commercial success . Many tried, only one succeeded and succeeded spectacularly.
And Third.
Some of the new plant owners (based on available published information) changed production and market scope, the information was, intentionally wrong, of course, but the most damaging consequence was that nobody knew who was accountable for what.
They soon found out that solutions intended for 200 tons per day production rate were not suitable for 200 tons or even 400 tons per hr.
The new (MF) firm struggled to find solutions some were successful, some others required an experimental approach. They made a plea for help to the associate in Latin America, (LA), who rushed to form ,(beef up from 6 to 100 and later to 300), its technical team including an R&D group. Unfortunately there was no time for testing, and the research team was unprepared for the challenge, so the solutions were taken with or without limited empirical back-up.
The solutions were tested on the client's installation, that became, as one of them put it crystal clear “The largest pilot plants in the world”.
Fortunately, as often happens, either the solutions converged to success, or the customer learned how to work with what they got, and they started making money, lots of it, and soon forgot about the original promises, not without some grudging.
They all acknowledged something.
“The dedication of the (LA) support (start-up) team was unparallel” and we became life long personal friends. Some of us stayed 16 years there. I only stayed 2.
a)At the time the team was faced with a terrible challenge.
•The salesmen had lied, some times due to ignorance some times not, and had offered a product that was not the one produced by the process, the way it was installed.
•The plant was sold by a European trading company to the customer and they retained a large percentage of the stock, and acted as start-up managers .
•One world wide publication from the recently formed Sales Department of the inventor company (LA) coined the term “critical storage temperature", and the value was at well below the real value.
oA Top VP decided this would be a safe value.
oThe value was based in the average temperature of the product in their low dew point environment plants and bigger compressors. This was the field data available.
oThis meant that 50 percent of the production would be hotter and 50% will be cooler.
oSomehow a guarantee of 5% separation overall had been offered, and signed under a smart lawyer wording, shroud of course.
•Not concerned by the fact of being employees of the operational plant in LA . The start-up team was repeatedly told, they were hired by the supplier and asked to represent their interest not those of their mother company.
oThey were told not to mention the obvious.
The hot spots were well above the 65 ºc, well above 150 indeed .
The hot spots could ignite the rest of the load.
To set the separation values to 65ºc would separate several hundredth tons per hr , that would fill the so called “cooling building” in a few hours,
The cooling building saturation would force a plant shut-down.
The material inside the “cooling building” would not cool and would get red hot and sometimes melt.
The obvious solution recommended by the home office was to shut down the IR sensors, and allow the un-inspected material to go to the storage building where it would cool if we spread the production in thin enough layers.
Conclusion:
The first of many costly storage building fires .
This was a fantastic world where everybody blamed the other, and nobody made anything to solve the problems institutionally.
•The inventors did not have any liability by contract,
• The supplier did not have the experimental resources, nor experience in the field and could not assign resources, without the trading company's permission. It had no share in the sales fee. They were also not in very good terms with the Trading co, having fought on opposite sides in WWII.
• The process data came from calculations not from empirical data, and was supplied by the not liable R&D department without significant experimental back-up, and by personnel that sometimes did not even know the plant nor the consequences of their results, or did not care.
•There was no over capacity in the main process equipment. To cope with the real world.
•We were asked , not politely, to start-up the plants without problems and within the specified time frame.
The plants were designed for disaster, and we were going to be part of it .
What was to be done then?
Being unable to start the plant the way it was built, in the terms we were asked, and meet the guarantees, late by night, "en petit comit", we concocted a plan.
Taking advantage of the R&R period of the supplier's Start-up Managing team, we were going to ask for personnel to change the position of a noisy valve, form before the K.O. drum to after, the drum could handle the pressure, and some other minor things.
We were going to interconnect the cooling compressors from two modules to feed one.
We were then to start the guarantee test before the managers arrived back to work.
13 days later we had passed the guarantee test of the largest installation in the world of its type.
When the manager arrived, all hell broke loose, but the plant was running and the customer was happy, they were finally making money.
Scared, each compressor was 1 million dollars or more, the home office , did sent a second team from home to try to star up , in the design conditions but ………… , ..………………..go to point a)..
The consequences:
•a breakup of the association terms. No more exclusive rights.
• 8 million dollars settlement, that we lost.
• a relaxed operational plant, process wise.
• a happy customer
•and a respected, but feared, start-up team.
It was clear that the cost was well below the profit we made, although some managers (without start-up experience) for years , classified the case as an undesirable outcome. The facts were that, every single storage fire cost the customer many millions more in damages and lost production, and that there was significant risk of injury, and even death . And , if the plant was not to start soon, we could face the loss of a much larger sum.
There were several lessons learned,
1.If you lie , somebody might even believe you and you will pay, eventually.
2.If you make an agreement stay with the people you made the agreement with, you own your agreements.
3.If you ask for the impossible, somebody will do it, but it might not be cheap.
4.Do not ask for permission, do your job within the limits explicitly marked , if they are contradictory or ambiguous, hold yourself to the widest .
Personally, I was never sent to a start-up where there were lies or mistakes to be kept from the customer. If I was going to go, I was to do my job, solve the problem, not to be Mr, Sympathy.
It normally took them 2 years of start-up trial and error, to realize that I was indeed needed, and I understood and still understand it is a painful decision. ■