Happy 4th of July – America
“We hold,” says the Declaration, “these truths to be self-evident: – that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
Happy Birthday America! We look forward, this week, to Celebrating the birth of a great nation. We will look to the fireworks and the parties with little thought of the cost and commitment of the founders of this nation. We have come so far from their values and beliefs that they would not recognize us anymore. If they could speak today, I wonder what they would say. Well, we don’t have to look too far as they said it all in the Declaration of Independence and we are blessed that many today still hold to its truth and value to be our guide in all we do.
And that our glory as a nation might in nothing be wanting, the men to whom the people first confided their interests – they whose names stand highest in the annals of our glory – the statesmen by whose voice the pure spirit of the country expressed its desires – the leaders by whose bravery and skill our citizens were conducted to success in the contest for their rights – were of undoubted integrity and spotless patriotism, men in whom the elements of human greatness were so happily mixed that as their principles were generous and elevated, so their lives were distinguished by a course of honorable action and the sacrifice of private advantage to the public good! . . . And the political privileges of the people correspond with the moral greatness of our illustrious men. . . . George Bancroft – 07/04/1826
UCDS strives to be a good witness to the dreams of the Nations Founder’s and be a representative of the values and truths of their beliefs. We aim to be the company who trades internationally as they intended and to make friends with many nations as they did.
UCDS is having a great year thus far. Steve Maddox is our new representative for sales and marketing. He brings with him a great personality. He will be a champion for our customers and will provide that personal touch many customers have come to respect him for.
We have also hired Harry Williams to our team adding style and quality to our documentation. Harry comes with many years training systems experience. I have not known him very long but I have been impressed with his hard work and eye for detail.
Jack Pankoff (Production Excellence, Inc) and I have recently been working on a number of projects together. We have spent several weeks in Salt Lake City working in the mine and associated businesses.
Operator Effective Practices
I had the pleasure of being at the Saudi Aramco Global reliability forum and had the opportunity to present the new Operations effective (Best) Practices; I was impressed with all the speakers I heard at the conference. Colonel Mike Mullane, a NASA Astronaut, spoke from the heart and not a political agenda. He is one of those men who you soon come to a realization that you can learn so much from every word hey say.
The High Performance HMI
After this I joined my good friend Rob Allen with Lin & Associates and we did some customer presentations together. They have done some remarkable work on their HMI Design. We spent a work day this last month reviewing and making improvements to their Honeywell Demo System which was presented at the HUG this year. As many customers who were there can testify, they are on the right track and have a great solution for Experion. They have really implemented the High Performance HMI and I am proud to endorse them. We continue to work together on joint projects.
I have completed an updated High Performance HMI philosophy and Style Guide Document for Delta V for several customers that fully meet today’s regulations and ISA SP 101.
Pipeline PHMSA Regulation
We have been doing CRM plans with multiple customers all around the country. I believe Dave has done more workload assessments this year than in all the previous years he has been working with us. I launched our new fatigue & Alertness workshop this month and received great feedback from the customers as we are now providing CRM plans in this area.
I also did some redesign of some SCADA graphics for a Gas Pipeline Company in Philadelphia to the high performance HMI compliance. We are doing some joint work with Jack Pankoff, Doug Rothenberg (D-Roth) and EnerSys out of Houston. All this is work is helping customers fully comply with the new PHMSA regulations; we are one of the few companies that can provide guidance for the whole of the regulation.
Alarm Management Philosophy
As with most projects, when you are doing HMI you often are addressing Alarm management. We have updated the powerful and complete Alarm Philosophy which is now available through a workshop process to be configured for your plant and specific DCS or SCADA system. It is also fully compliant with today’s standards and meets ISA SP 18 and EMMUA 191.
We have been promoting Doug Rothenberg’s book Alarm Management for Process Control. It has been great to see multiple customers carrying that big book to our workshops and referencing the wealth of material inside.
It is good to see an alarm management book focused on helping the customer understand the problem and solve it through tried and tested solutions rather than being a tool just to sell more services.
Control Room Design
We continue to have multiple control room projects and Harlan Graf (retired ConocoPhillips Rodeo refinery manager) continues to work on these projects with me. Harlan has a wealth of refining knowledge and experience and when we take him on these and some of our staffing assessment studies he gets the opportunity to share some of this experience as a bonus to our customers.
These next months are going to be busy for UCDS. I travel to New Mexico next week with EnerSys on a PHMSA Pipeline job, and the following two weeks Dave & Harry will be back in Lima, Ohio doing a Staffing Assessment for the oil refinery. Steve and I will be in Mobil Alabama doing The High Performance HMI Workshops for a Petrochemical customer. The following week I will back to a PHMSA customer in Sweeny with EnerSys. We are planning on being in Chile, Mexico and Canada after this.