The project is stopped. Everybody is suspended with one weeks' notice and reduce the workforce 99%. The 1% left are the senior managers wondering how to save their posterior. It is mind-boggling that they are not prepared or trained for shut-down preparations to save the investment to date. If they persist down the current path there won't be anybody to stop the lake from the snow melt which cannot be drained because we have a surface clay-capped layer and no pumps to put the stormwater in the newly-constructed and operational ponds just mere feet away. The plant is not cathodically protected, the uninstalled pumps are freezing in the laydown areas, the tankpads are unprotected, steel structures are not safe, the list is endless.
I've officially given up shouting for attention and joined the downtrodden, trickling out of the plant gate. Surely, the shut-down team should be an opportunity for engineering to tell construction what to do, but there's nobody standing up and I am just a contractor. Sigh. When it comes to restarting the project, they are going to waste time and millions. It will be checked then instead of collecting that information now and having a maintenance crew. I blame the bean counters and the lack of a spine in the engineer. It is a neverending tale really.
Not the first time, not the last, just another missed chance for smart work.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
The Best time to learn, to push yourself
What terrible times we live in. I am about to finish my contract in Northern Alberta and the place is littered with devastated projects in the patch. Everybody is running for the hills instead of planning for the future. The recession will pass but what did we learn? What did you learn? I learned very little but one small thing... you have a little window (pun intended!)..... to learn how to do your job better. If we learn anything from a tough situation it should be to say we are smarter for it.
I have used such times to train people to learn positive habits. When the next big wave of work comes, it helps them. The work will come again. In the meantime, invest in your yourself, your calculations and look to the future.
The future will be a little different to the past. If you're smarter you'll go further. The difference will be measured in computer literacy in simple tools like MS Word and Excel and the ability to produce quality calculations.
I remember when I first came into the profession, I was always looking for that book that would show me how to do calculations properly and here I am...... Still learning how to do it better.
I have used such times to train people to learn positive habits. When the next big wave of work comes, it helps them. The work will come again. In the meantime, invest in your yourself, your calculations and look to the future.
The future will be a little different to the past. If you're smarter you'll go further. The difference will be measured in computer literacy in simple tools like MS Word and Excel and the ability to produce quality calculations.
I remember when I first came into the profession, I was always looking for that book that would show me how to do calculations properly and here I am...... Still learning how to do it better.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Calling for Russian interest
Any Russian Civil/Structural Engineer out there who wants to bring the Mote Method to Russia?
I have worked in many parts of the world and each area has a cultural attitude they bring to their work. As for the Russians, they are bright and well-qualified but I believe they would benefit exceptionally from my ideas, in Russian. Am I wrong? Do you use MS Office? Suggestions would be welcome.
I need someone with ideally +10 years' professional experience ideally as a structural engineer. The books are there, you need to translate and redo the screen shots with the Russian. I bear the production costs, you get a cut of the sales royalty and a chance to run your own seminars.
My colleague has translated the first book into Portuguese, I think it has taken her the best part of six months to do that. This book is graphically laid out now and is ready to go to the publishers for printing. The second one is underway and nearly finished in the translation. We will be ready for the Brazilian market later this year.
Contact me at info@motagg.com if you think you are interested.
I have worked in many parts of the world and each area has a cultural attitude they bring to their work. As for the Russians, they are bright and well-qualified but I believe they would benefit exceptionally from my ideas, in Russian. Am I wrong? Do you use MS Office? Suggestions would be welcome.
I need someone with ideally +10 years' professional experience ideally as a structural engineer. The books are there, you need to translate and redo the screen shots with the Russian. I bear the production costs, you get a cut of the sales royalty and a chance to run your own seminars.
My colleague has translated the first book into Portuguese, I think it has taken her the best part of six months to do that. This book is graphically laid out now and is ready to go to the publishers for printing. The second one is underway and nearly finished in the translation. We will be ready for the Brazilian market later this year.
Contact me at info@motagg.com if you think you are interested.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The Engineer's Chicken Soup
An idea I have been interested in for a long time is a collection of Engineer's stories.
The people I have met are amazing people with incredible stories. Over the course of a project I get to know and make many new friendships. It is these people that encouraged me to write but I thought again. They should write too.
I became a structural engineer by "not-knowing" and a bit of shoulder-shrugging. I love solving problems and making things work simply. My family were accountants and sales type, not engineering at all. I did my first degree never realising really what it is that a structural engineer did. Embarassing. I was forever looking for the book that told me what it would be like.
I want to collect your stories before it is "lost":
How did you become an engineer?
The best point of your career?
Did you travel?
What would you do differently?
Your favourite project
Your worse project
Your advice to the future generation?
Do you enjoy what you do?
It would be diverse, interesting, inspirational, amazing and who knows what it would mean to any one reader!
Over 300,000 engineering students graduate every year, between China and India alone. Do they know what they are gettting into? I think a chicken soup book for engineers would be fantastic promotion.
The people I have met are amazing people with incredible stories. Over the course of a project I get to know and make many new friendships. It is these people that encouraged me to write but I thought again. They should write too.
I became a structural engineer by "not-knowing" and a bit of shoulder-shrugging. I love solving problems and making things work simply. My family were accountants and sales type, not engineering at all. I did my first degree never realising really what it is that a structural engineer did. Embarassing. I was forever looking for the book that told me what it would be like.
I want to collect your stories before it is "lost":
How did you become an engineer?
The best point of your career?
Did you travel?
What would you do differently?
Your favourite project
Your worse project
Your advice to the future generation?
Do you enjoy what you do?
It would be diverse, interesting, inspirational, amazing and who knows what it would mean to any one reader!
Over 300,000 engineering students graduate every year, between China and India alone. Do they know what they are gettting into? I think a chicken soup book for engineers would be fantastic promotion.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
I believe we are a profession in crisis.
Let me relate a common story. I was asked to check a calculation long overdue, for a wide operating platform supported on three buried vessels. In essence, it is a continuous beam over multiple supports and lots of point loads for grating dead and live loads. I had a picture in my mind of what to expect. Perhaps, two pages describing the platform, a general arrangement plan, loading and vendor information followed by a sketch layout for the designer and an additional two pages of simple numbers to confirm beam sizes. Something in the range of seven to ten pages and all in a mornings work. What I actually received was closer to 250 pages analysing 242 possible load combinations lasting three months, with overtime. While the design was not ultimately flawed, the calculation was accepted, without change, and the engineer thought his work was a progressive piece of art. I know this is the tip of the iceberg.
Engineering calculations are a legal and project requirement for any structural engineering project looking to record the design assumptions and demonstrate the adequacy of the design. These documents are subjected to scrutiny and verification by third party before the design is approved.
Within the Oil and Gas industry of which I have been involved for over 20 years there has been a sea of change in the way we work, where we work and how we work.
Many of us are familiar with the changes in our environment; from the smoky, noisy halls of stand-up drawing boards and manpower to the silent office spaces of cubicles and screen power. I have experienced the generational changes and seen how we are losing our craft.
The way we work has evolved from concept building and simple logics using design tables to detailed analysis and complex modelling. Calculations have gone from simplistic and artistic to archaic and formulaic.
The drawing office used to be halls with good natural lighting. Amongst the domino array of drawing boards would be hidden clustered desks of engineers. Now drawing offices are any office space fit for cubicle planning and engineers often isolated from the designers.
Most engineering companies now call upon designers to prepare budgets, schedules and manpower plans; the engineers are fast becoming figureheads and required only for final approvals. The industry uses offshore workshare teams which may not be conversant with the codes and requirements of the project, providing the team with go-by example calculations of previous project. These example calculations are used as the baseline for work; copied and expanded upon faithfully. The head office assumes it can close the door on them expecting high a degree of performance without interaction. Major project execution in western economies relies upon resources in cheaper locations to perform routine engineering and design tasks. The final design and calculations are checked by head office where the ultimate responsibility lies. When things do not go well, the finger is pointing the wrong way.
Workshare execution can and should be expected to work very well. The fundamental place to start is the calculation. The go-by template mentality sets the upper limit boundary on expectations. By default, engineering should be the pursuit of excellence but now it becomes an exercise in mediocrity.
This article looks more closely at the structural engineer and the calculations that become the go-by examples, the default setting for the future. I found that engineers do not challenge the example, or seek to improve upon it. On large projects, change is frowned upon and engineers are not encouraged to go against the grain. The assigned workshare scope is often modelled and a concept is started, so, the workshare engineer accepts this model at face value and proceeds to analyse it. It seems these engineers are being subordinated to a role of technologists.
The last fifteen years has seen a strait-jacket mentality evolved in the way structural engineers work in the drawing office. The emergence of desktop computers ironically killed the structural engineer’s ability to interact with technology.
What happened to us? Up to the time of the desktop supremacy, mainframe computers were designed, programmed and managed by engineers, putting man on the moon, building and operating nuclear power stations and modelling complex seismic behaviours. The languages of FORTRAN, Basic and COBOL ruled the world. The engineers were formally trained to master the programming of technology. Desktop computer and Windows smashed that. Like the proverbial tower of Babel, we lost the plot. The languages proliferated into Pascal, C+, VB, Java and we saw the dawn of the computer profession.
The structural engineering profession also saw the loss of many engineering graduates and professionals during the 1990’s to the computer industries which left large generation gaps within our disciplines. In many locations around the world, we are a senior and aging profession lacking continuity of maturing engineers to maintain and nurture our numbers into the future. While no profession has been immune to the impact of the new technology, some have maximised the benefits more than others, for example the architects and electrical engineers have embraced the opportunities more positively, using web-based applications.
Thirty years ago, we lost slide rules to new calculators. Programming Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments and Casio calculators became the next personal project for many engineers. Results from this activity were integrated into the calculations. As the programming was step-by-step in machine code, many engineers produced flowcharts and documentation to explain their logic and assumptions. This activity was accepted and supported by senior and departmental managers. Structural engineering calculations produced by hand were concise and simplified; they identified and addressed the key elements of the design.
The desktop computer brought different programming concepts into play, which were without engineering precedence and not intuitive to most engineers. Applications were designed for the secretarial work and did not engender natural support amongst engineers. Remember how MS Word and Excel were continuously revised to our continual disappointment? We lost time to learn, think and talk to each other. We compete for the quality of the analysis.
Nowadays, the chances are high that calculations are not concise or simplified; they are voluminous, detailed and address every component of the design without identifying the critical behaviour.
The calculations are the face of the engineers. Unfortunately the activity of checking is commonly getting pushed all the way out to five minutes before the deadline. For checking, assume it is a minute a page, what would your confidence factor be in the engineer, receiving ten pages of top quality visuals and specifics statements as opposed to 250 pages without explanations?
A critical part of the engineer’s job is to check another’s calculation, but this is requiring more and more time and resources. When I look back on twenty years of checking calculations I can see fundamental questions are overlooked. Fundamental questions such as:
Identifying the critical load path
Identifying the critical load combination
The assumptions of the design such as support conditions, joint behaviour etc
Explaining these things in simple terms are positive declarative statements that benefits the reader. These are not intuitive.
The design (ex. Drawing) office saw the transformation of the draughtsman into designer, the rise of the modellers. The designers training multiplied and is still a substantial budget for companies to keep abreast of the latest technology. The engineers’ training remained static.
Companies bought into the Windows network and provided MS Office to all employees. Training was not provided as it was determined to be intuitive and of low value to the business balance sheet. On the shop floor, we discovered the profit motivated drive of the Windows business and the endless recycling. MS Office is not geared for engineers but for businesses, payroll, marketing and sales; just look at the endless examples and references. The endless continual revision and upgrade of the MS Office product and Windows operating systems also frustrated the engineers. The lack of consistency and uniformity has kept the engineer away from learning how to maximise the opportunities collectively. The only software applications having engineering-related components are the structural analysis packages and MathCAD and these have become the staple products for most engineers.
So what happened to the calculations? Structural analysis programmers saw the opportunity to bind the structural engineers to their products by taking care of the reporting features. Many of the big name software applications were developed before MS Windows so the reports are still DOS-based formats. Consequently, the reports show their ancient heritage of courier text, fixed lines, poor graphics and ASCII formats. Only in this direction did engineers embrace the new technology; to perform complex and over-detailed 3D analysis, where 2D would suffice. The result of every structural member would then be printed out and presented as the calculation and the proof. Engineers got drawn into the quality of the analysis, not the quality of the calculation. Calculations have become quantitative tomes of work, failing to meet the primary and fundamental requirements of any structural calculations.
Engineers’ career go through a lifecycle of changes but I believe we underestimate the importance of our responsibility to future generations of engineers, through our calculations. We must assume responsibility for the quality, not only of the analysis but also of the calculations. Graduates leaving university for a career in the design office face a culture shock on many levels. To future engineers, calculations are the face of engineering profession, far removed from the simply applied physics or pure analysis. It is a world of teamwork, building confidence, demonstrating the confidence, leading, interacting and communication. Good calculations inspire good engineering.
To break the strait-jacket thinking, engineers need to look at the way they work:
Brainstorm the details together
Talk to each other
Work together, not in isolation
Break the work into smaller components
Perform more frequent regular checks.
Be visual in your work
Identify, agree and focus on the key component of the design
Avoid automatically performing 3D analysis
Use analysis to verify the thinking.
Leave the analysis towards the end of the design cycle
Think about the reader
Do not keep a history of superseded pages in the calculations
Ensure the calculations are an active component of the design office cycle
The calculations are a minimum basis for design, not the final.
The sequence of work is not the same as the sequence of the calculations
Go electronic, use proforma templates.
Assuming a piperack calculation was to be designed, the first section would be a reactions calculation for the foundation model. This section completed and approved would be a seed for the subsequent detailed concrete design and the structural steel design. The final model will be tested against the original approximations of the reactions calculations.
Reaction calculations are required to provide:
13 Summary of changes
12 Post-calculation notes
10 Material Take off summary
8 Scope of work
9 References
3 A reasonable basis for design multi-discipline interfacing
1 Design Concept
2 Sketch for the designer modelled, first check
4 Load assumptions first check
5 Building the model
6 Key results
7 Conclusion first check
11 Appendices
QA/QC First checking would then occur after steps 2, 4 and 7.
The calculation cannot be changed after it is signed off as this is the baseline and the original document. Any changes are captured and measured as impact, by statements and percentages, on a page prefacing the original calculations.
Let me relate a common story. I was asked to check a calculation long overdue, for a wide operating platform supported on three buried vessels. In essence, it is a continuous beam over multiple supports and lots of point loads for grating dead and live loads. I had a picture in my mind of what to expect. Perhaps, two pages describing the platform, a general arrangement plan, loading and vendor information followed by a sketch layout for the designer and an additional two pages of simple numbers to confirm beam sizes. Something in the range of seven to ten pages and all in a mornings work. What I actually received was closer to 250 pages analysing 242 possible load combinations lasting three months, with overtime. While the design was not ultimately flawed, the calculation was accepted, without change, and the engineer thought his work was a progressive piece of art. I know this is the tip of the iceberg.
Engineering calculations are a legal and project requirement for any structural engineering project looking to record the design assumptions and demonstrate the adequacy of the design. These documents are subjected to scrutiny and verification by third party before the design is approved.
Within the Oil and Gas industry of which I have been involved for over 20 years there has been a sea of change in the way we work, where we work and how we work.
Many of us are familiar with the changes in our environment; from the smoky, noisy halls of stand-up drawing boards and manpower to the silent office spaces of cubicles and screen power. I have experienced the generational changes and seen how we are losing our craft.
The way we work has evolved from concept building and simple logics using design tables to detailed analysis and complex modelling. Calculations have gone from simplistic and artistic to archaic and formulaic.
The drawing office used to be halls with good natural lighting. Amongst the domino array of drawing boards would be hidden clustered desks of engineers. Now drawing offices are any office space fit for cubicle planning and engineers often isolated from the designers.
Most engineering companies now call upon designers to prepare budgets, schedules and manpower plans; the engineers are fast becoming figureheads and required only for final approvals. The industry uses offshore workshare teams which may not be conversant with the codes and requirements of the project, providing the team with go-by example calculations of previous project. These example calculations are used as the baseline for work; copied and expanded upon faithfully. The head office assumes it can close the door on them expecting high a degree of performance without interaction. Major project execution in western economies relies upon resources in cheaper locations to perform routine engineering and design tasks. The final design and calculations are checked by head office where the ultimate responsibility lies. When things do not go well, the finger is pointing the wrong way.
Workshare execution can and should be expected to work very well. The fundamental place to start is the calculation. The go-by template mentality sets the upper limit boundary on expectations. By default, engineering should be the pursuit of excellence but now it becomes an exercise in mediocrity.
This article looks more closely at the structural engineer and the calculations that become the go-by examples, the default setting for the future. I found that engineers do not challenge the example, or seek to improve upon it. On large projects, change is frowned upon and engineers are not encouraged to go against the grain. The assigned workshare scope is often modelled and a concept is started, so, the workshare engineer accepts this model at face value and proceeds to analyse it. It seems these engineers are being subordinated to a role of technologists.
The last fifteen years has seen a strait-jacket mentality evolved in the way structural engineers work in the drawing office. The emergence of desktop computers ironically killed the structural engineer’s ability to interact with technology.
What happened to us? Up to the time of the desktop supremacy, mainframe computers were designed, programmed and managed by engineers, putting man on the moon, building and operating nuclear power stations and modelling complex seismic behaviours. The languages of FORTRAN, Basic and COBOL ruled the world. The engineers were formally trained to master the programming of technology. Desktop computer and Windows smashed that. Like the proverbial tower of Babel, we lost the plot. The languages proliferated into Pascal, C+, VB, Java and we saw the dawn of the computer profession.
The structural engineering profession also saw the loss of many engineering graduates and professionals during the 1990’s to the computer industries which left large generation gaps within our disciplines. In many locations around the world, we are a senior and aging profession lacking continuity of maturing engineers to maintain and nurture our numbers into the future. While no profession has been immune to the impact of the new technology, some have maximised the benefits more than others, for example the architects and electrical engineers have embraced the opportunities more positively, using web-based applications.
Thirty years ago, we lost slide rules to new calculators. Programming Hewlett Packard, Texas Instruments and Casio calculators became the next personal project for many engineers. Results from this activity were integrated into the calculations. As the programming was step-by-step in machine code, many engineers produced flowcharts and documentation to explain their logic and assumptions. This activity was accepted and supported by senior and departmental managers. Structural engineering calculations produced by hand were concise and simplified; they identified and addressed the key elements of the design.
The desktop computer brought different programming concepts into play, which were without engineering precedence and not intuitive to most engineers. Applications were designed for the secretarial work and did not engender natural support amongst engineers. Remember how MS Word and Excel were continuously revised to our continual disappointment? We lost time to learn, think and talk to each other. We compete for the quality of the analysis.
Nowadays, the chances are high that calculations are not concise or simplified; they are voluminous, detailed and address every component of the design without identifying the critical behaviour.
The calculations are the face of the engineers. Unfortunately the activity of checking is commonly getting pushed all the way out to five minutes before the deadline. For checking, assume it is a minute a page, what would your confidence factor be in the engineer, receiving ten pages of top quality visuals and specifics statements as opposed to 250 pages without explanations?
A critical part of the engineer’s job is to check another’s calculation, but this is requiring more and more time and resources. When I look back on twenty years of checking calculations I can see fundamental questions are overlooked. Fundamental questions such as:
Identifying the critical load path
Identifying the critical load combination
The assumptions of the design such as support conditions, joint behaviour etc
Explaining these things in simple terms are positive declarative statements that benefits the reader. These are not intuitive.
The design (ex. Drawing) office saw the transformation of the draughtsman into designer, the rise of the modellers. The designers training multiplied and is still a substantial budget for companies to keep abreast of the latest technology. The engineers’ training remained static.
Companies bought into the Windows network and provided MS Office to all employees. Training was not provided as it was determined to be intuitive and of low value to the business balance sheet. On the shop floor, we discovered the profit motivated drive of the Windows business and the endless recycling. MS Office is not geared for engineers but for businesses, payroll, marketing and sales; just look at the endless examples and references. The endless continual revision and upgrade of the MS Office product and Windows operating systems also frustrated the engineers. The lack of consistency and uniformity has kept the engineer away from learning how to maximise the opportunities collectively. The only software applications having engineering-related components are the structural analysis packages and MathCAD and these have become the staple products for most engineers.
So what happened to the calculations? Structural analysis programmers saw the opportunity to bind the structural engineers to their products by taking care of the reporting features. Many of the big name software applications were developed before MS Windows so the reports are still DOS-based formats. Consequently, the reports show their ancient heritage of courier text, fixed lines, poor graphics and ASCII formats. Only in this direction did engineers embrace the new technology; to perform complex and over-detailed 3D analysis, where 2D would suffice. The result of every structural member would then be printed out and presented as the calculation and the proof. Engineers got drawn into the quality of the analysis, not the quality of the calculation. Calculations have become quantitative tomes of work, failing to meet the primary and fundamental requirements of any structural calculations.
Engineers’ career go through a lifecycle of changes but I believe we underestimate the importance of our responsibility to future generations of engineers, through our calculations. We must assume responsibility for the quality, not only of the analysis but also of the calculations. Graduates leaving university for a career in the design office face a culture shock on many levels. To future engineers, calculations are the face of engineering profession, far removed from the simply applied physics or pure analysis. It is a world of teamwork, building confidence, demonstrating the confidence, leading, interacting and communication. Good calculations inspire good engineering.
To break the strait-jacket thinking, engineers need to look at the way they work:
Brainstorm the details together
Talk to each other
Work together, not in isolation
Break the work into smaller components
Perform more frequent regular checks.
Be visual in your work
Identify, agree and focus on the key component of the design
Avoid automatically performing 3D analysis
Use analysis to verify the thinking.
Leave the analysis towards the end of the design cycle
Think about the reader
Do not keep a history of superseded pages in the calculations
Ensure the calculations are an active component of the design office cycle
The calculations are a minimum basis for design, not the final.
The sequence of work is not the same as the sequence of the calculations
Go electronic, use proforma templates.
Assuming a piperack calculation was to be designed, the first section would be a reactions calculation for the foundation model. This section completed and approved would be a seed for the subsequent detailed concrete design and the structural steel design. The final model will be tested against the original approximations of the reactions calculations.
Reaction calculations are required to provide:
13 Summary of changes
12 Post-calculation notes
10 Material Take off summary
8 Scope of work
9 References
3 A reasonable basis for design multi-discipline interfacing
1 Design Concept
2 Sketch for the designer modelled, first check
4 Load assumptions first check
5 Building the model
6 Key results
7 Conclusion first check
11 Appendices
QA/QC First checking would then occur after steps 2, 4 and 7.
The calculation cannot be changed after it is signed off as this is the baseline and the original document. Any changes are captured and measured as impact, by statements and percentages, on a page prefacing the original calculations.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Houston, I have a problem
Ok, back to the mission...
In June 2008, I signed a contract with the publisher to get book 2 into print. It has been a long long road to get into print. I am still waiting to get it right in January 2009! If any of you think about going into writing, it is harder work than you might think! Lonely and punishing. You really are on your own sometimes and you wonder why you do it.
Fortunately, I am still passionate about what I do. I promise I am working on book 3 now, looking to get it into editing phase soon. Getting to the third book was always my goal and then I could start the seminars, media and publicity work.
In 2009, I plan to see ebooks, and online modules.
In the last six months, I have completed a circle. People are interested in what I do and ask lots of questions. How do I reduce it to a sentence? I teach civil/structural engineers how to design engineering documents. This is the subtitle of what I do and is all very well, but why?
My problem is the subject is a new genre and the business of how to sell it when you don't know you have a problem.
My mission is actually simpler. Teaching you to be a better engineer, one by one.
Thanks Houston....I'll keep it simple....
In June 2008, I signed a contract with the publisher to get book 2 into print. It has been a long long road to get into print. I am still waiting to get it right in January 2009! If any of you think about going into writing, it is harder work than you might think! Lonely and punishing. You really are on your own sometimes and you wonder why you do it.
Fortunately, I am still passionate about what I do. I promise I am working on book 3 now, looking to get it into editing phase soon. Getting to the third book was always my goal and then I could start the seminars, media and publicity work.
In 2009, I plan to see ebooks, and online modules.
In the last six months, I have completed a circle. People are interested in what I do and ask lots of questions. How do I reduce it to a sentence? I teach civil/structural engineers how to design engineering documents. This is the subtitle of what I do and is all very well, but why?
My problem is the subject is a new genre and the business of how to sell it when you don't know you have a problem.
My mission is actually simpler. Teaching you to be a better engineer, one by one.
Thanks Houston....I'll keep it simple....
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