There are many people working in a typical chemical process industries (CPI) facility. The individuals who work hands-on with the equipment — especially the experienced personnel — have a wealth of information that can make a huge difference in the success or failure of many projects. The key to gaining wisdom from these valuable resources lies in how you approach them. You should cultivate relationships with these colleagues wisely, be willing to learn from them, and give them credit for their assistance. One day, it just might save your job.
Discussed below are several examples of ways in which the relatively small or seemingly innocuous contribution of a colleague had a significant impact on a given project or process.
Getting experts on the ground to share their expertise with you takes time and requires real listening, especially if you may be questioning what they are telling you. This article will cover some ways to make these conversations more effective.
Early in my career, I learned that everyone working in a production facility has unique knowledge. Most of it seemed — or actually was — trivial to me, in terms of my specific assignment and responsibilities. However, it often turned out that I would need some key piece of information that only one or two people might know or have access to. As a result, I developed an expression that has served me very well: “They have forgotten more about the process than I will ever know.”
It is also true that I had knowledge about many processes that they might never understand. However, when I was willing to share my knowledge in ways that they could understand, they were willing to learn from it, and to share their knowledge with me. Sometimes their information made no sense, based on my current level of understanding. That did not necessarily mean that their information was faulty — rather, it usually meant that my understanding was incomplete. There was usually a real nugget of truth with valuable information present that could be gleaned by the patient listener.
I might not have needed that information at the time they shared it. In such cases, I tried to file it away for the future. More than once, I vaguely remembered a comment made by one of the operators, so I went back for a fuller explanation. He might not have understood what was really happening at the time, so his early comments may have been based on “folklore.” However, when I asked about it in more depth, I could often find the golden nugget inside the comments that made the effort worth every bit of my energy.
One example that really stands out in my mind happened while I was working for a flavors and fragrances manufacturer. They had finished a major plant relocation and brought in many new pieces of process equipment. One process involved recovering a particular oil from a special tree bark. We set up the new equipment but the process just refused to produce the standard yield and quality of intermediate oil. We tried everything we could think of to correct the problem.
Pretty soon, the operators said we needed to “bring back the old kettle” for this to work. While we recognized that the metal alloy of the old kettle was different, there was no known reason for this to impact the success of the process. Eventually, the management team agreed to bring the old kettle back from the junk yard, set it up, and test it. Guess what, it provided the standard product and yield from the very first batch.
We never did find an explanation for this difference. The best we could do was assume that the different metal had some kind of catalytic effect on the process. We did know that the different alloy was the key to this process being successful.
Leave no stone unturned
Upgrading the condensate-return system. As the engineering and maintenance manager for Johnson Matthey (JM; www.matthey.com) at its West Deptford, N.J., plant, Peter Joyce was responsible for implementing the plants capital budget. Each year he would solicit projects and ideas from the production managers, maintenance supervisors and senior management in brainstorming sessions, then he would prioritize them.
One year the maintenance supervisors were very concerned that the piping and pumps in the steam-condensate return system were undersized. Business was increasing, the boiler water level was not in control (thereby wasting condensate and makeup water), while the steam supply pressure also fluctuated. The supervisors and the maintenance group were the only ones who had the full picture of what was going on, and they insisted that plant operations were suffering because of it. Thus, they recommended JM go forward with a $20,000 project to upgrade the condensate return system for that area of the plant.
Once the new condensate-return system was installed, they noticed immediate benefits in a number of areas including: reduced boiler-feed chemicals usage, more-consistent steam-supply pressure and smoother overall operation of the process equipment. The maintenance supervisors also believed that the condensate-return system was also undersized in several other plant areas. Based on the success of this first project, JM installed another $100,000 worth of condensate upgrades. The impact on plant processes was dramatic, yielding similar benefits. In essence, because of the supervisors’ insistence that the company do the initial condensate-return project, the entire plant’s steam supply system was now under better control. The bottleneck — an overtaxed condensate-return system — was removed.
Streamlining the filtration system.James Langford, Quality Engineer with IFF (iff.org), was asked to improve the production of a particular flavor-ingredient manufacturing process that required a very slow and labor-intensive filtration process (one that required the fluid stream to go through three different filter-press steps). Using this process, one batch would require several pad changes, wasting a lot of material absorbed in the pads).
Langford looked at several alternative ways to achieve the same clarity, but had no success. Finally, he spoke to the area supervisor (who had been a floor operator when the product was first developed). The area supervisor told Langford that they had started the multiple filtration steps because one customer complained about receiving the product with two inches of sediment on the bottom of some drums. With that anecdote, Langford realized that IFF didn’t need to achieve any particular clarity target — just prevent precipitation during storage. That allowed him to look at lower-cost alternatives.
Adjusting the operating temperature.In another example, Langford reports that a previous employer was producing a polymer for brake linings from a nut-based liquid. Business was growing rapidly, so he needed to find ways to increase throughput. While the “engineering” knowledge said that running the process at the top end of the approved temperature range was better, a senior operator stated that running it near the top limit would create more problems. Sure enough, when the team ran the process at the higher temperature, the reactor had to be cooled at times to prevent a run-away reaction. It turned out that these interruptions stopped the reaction from going to completion. At least one batch was lost when a customer found the product had continued to polymerize and solidify in the drums.
When they followed the operator’s advice and reduced the operating temperature by 10°C, the process ran smoothly with no product loss in storage.
Evaluating the plant layout early.Chris Liu of Strategic Building Solutions (www.go-sbs.com) reports on a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) installation. Another engineer had designed the water connection for a heat exchanger to fit in an under-floor space. When Liu discussed this with the building maintenance personnel, they told him that location was not acceptable. The air flow through this under-floor plenum was already quite restricted. Adding these new pipes could jeopardize the system operation and create huge hassles with balancing the air flow.
If the previous engineer had done this checking earlier in the design phase, a lot of time and rework expense would have been avoided.
Evaluating the impact of a change in metallurgy.Chris McIntyre, formerly of Tastemaker (now part of Givaudan Flavors; www.givaudan.com), reported on attempts to change the metallurgy when installing new equipment to manufacture candy. The new, shiny and clean stainless steel vessels made it impossible for the operations staff to produce the same grade of taffy. As mentioned in the first example above, there appeared to be some catalytic effect of the original copper-alloy kettles that resulted in a superior product. No one could explain it, but the operators tried to tell the engineers that the bright, new stainless steel kettles just would not work.
Of course, if this knowledge had been recorded somewhere, it still might not have been found when the new generation of engineers were designing the new equipment. Once they returned to using the copper vessels, the quality of the taffy met the previous standards.
Working closely with customers. Mike Baillo, now retired from Givaudan (www.givaudan.com), was working on an oil-free salad dressing for a customer. The team developed a successful substitute that required heating the mixture to 180°F, then cooling it. They were ready for a test at the customer’s facility and got all of the arrangements made.
When they were reviewing the process with the plant personnel, one of the operators mentioned that they had no capability to bring the vessel to that temperature. This created quite a fiasco for the team that had developed this product.
Had someone from the team discussed with the plant personnel their capability to heat the process to the necessary temperature, they could have changed course or brought in the necessary heating equipment prior to the plant test.
Improve communications
These examples, drawn from several of my colleagues, show the importance of engineers keeping open the lines of communication with the plant personnel — operators, mechanics and others. All too often, engineers, supervisors and managers treat the comments from their subordinates or junior staff members as uninformed or trivial.
I have often found it to be the case that while their explanations of “why” something is happening are incorrect or incomplete, due to a lack of experience or knowledge, their observations are usually dead-on. As another former colleague of mine (Rudy Krack) often advised: “Trust their observations, not necessarily their analysis.” If you take the time to really discuss their information and explain your own understanding of what is happening, both you and the operators can increase your knowledge and understanding of the process.
If the topic relates to a new process or one that may require a significant change in the procedure, it may be worthwhile to move the discussion into a classroom-type setting to involve a larger group of stakeholders. Make it clear that everyone’s comments are welcomed. This will permit each person to be heard by all and bring forth greater collective wisdom, which can then be used to provide a more complete description and understanding of the plant process.
So, how do you get to the point where the operators and mechanics trust you enough to share comments that they suspect you and others may scoff at and pointedly ignore? You must develop and use your active listening skills, then work to incorporate their comments into your designs. Throughout the process, be sure to give credit to others when their information proves useful.
When you are speaking with these folks, truly listen both to their words and work to understand the meaning behind them. This goes beyond the common advice to listen and not prepare your response. Listen not just so that you can repeat their comments, but so that you can put it in your own words, speak them back to the other person, and have that person agree that you truly “got” what he or she was saying.
One thing that helps this process is to take notes while the other person is speaking. This shows that you are truly listening and intent on understanding their comments. It also provides you with a written record of the comments that you can refer back to at a later date when you really need that information.
This is nothing new. The concept of “management by walking around” (MBWA) was reportedly first developed by Taichi Ohno, creator of the Toyota Production System [ 1]. It was later popularized in the U.S. by Peter Drucker and others [ 2]. The FutureCents website [ 3] gives twelve good steps to follow as you practice MBWA. I have summarized six of these below:
• Do it to everyone — spend time with each of the people in your area of responsibility, especially when they are not direct reports.
• Do it as often as you can — spending some time every day or at least weekly shows a real commitment to developing this relationship.
• Go by yourself — People are generally more willing to share one-on-one. Don’t circumvent their managers. If someone voices a complaint about a supervisor, counsel them to take it to the appropriate person in the management chain.
• Ask questions — be truly inquisitive about how your work impacts and can improve their work life.
• Watch and listen — work to receive the message behind the words, particularly observe their body language. Remember that only about 10% of communication is in the words. Tone and body language convey much more of the true intent.
• Share your dreams with them — help them understand what you are trying to accomplish, particularly as it relates to improving their job situation.
As you are in their work area, look for opportunities to thank them for their work and communicate to the whole team, even if they are simply doing their job. Every job is critical to the smooth functioning of a facility. When you observe someone going beyond the norm, commend them personally and inform them that you will bring it to their supervisor’s attention. They will both appreciate your efforts.
When you do receive information that proves to be key to your work, make sure that you let others know this. When they hear others refer to the critical information they provided to you, your value will rise significantly in their eyes.
I expect that if you have been in a manufacturing facility more than a couple years, you have received information from personnel that could be critical to your work. Make sure you actively develop open communications with the operations and maintenance personnel. You never know when you will receive a comment that can save a project and possibly your job. n
Edited by Suzanne Shelley
References
1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genchi_Genbutsu
2. Wallace, L., and Trinka, J., “A Legacy of 21st Century Leadership: A Guide for Creating a Climate of Leadership Throughout Your Organization,” iUniverse, New York, 2007.
Author
Ross Topliff is the principal at Tops Engineering (30 Algonquin Drive, Newburgh, NY 12550; Phone: 845-728-1769; Email: [email protected]), which focuses on converting waste materials into clean energy and useful products. The firm is currently pursuing tire conversion to fuel and asphalt milling recovery utilizing a non-hazardous solvent. Topliff holds an M.S.Ch.E. from the University of Michigan, and a master’s degree in management of technology from Stevens Institute of Technology. His has more than 30 years of process engineering experience, including 15 years in process development and manufacturing at Givaudan Flavors, and stints in the production of bulk chemicals, semiconductor and consumer goods. During his career, Topliff has designed and operated the majority of major unit operations used in chemical engineering.