Your Reliability Engineering Professional Development Site
A listing in reverse chronological order of articles by:
Risk management is an objective-focused concept. Risk professionals must, therefore, be a catalyst, an advocate, and trusted friend for driving superior organisational performance.
They must walk alongside executives, managers and staff to achieve organisational objectives by making better decisions under uncertainty, risk, and opportunities.
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While evaluating impact of a toxic release, you may be interested in how the concentration of the toxicant increases in a room and its impact on indoor personnel. For example, if there is a H2S release in the plant and you want to estimate the increase in concentration in a nearby office building.
I want to share a simple model to estimate indoor concentrations following an outdoor toxic release. [Read more…]
New superconducting magnet breaks magnetic field strength records, paving the way for practical, commercial, carbon-free power fusion energy. MIT and U.S. startup company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) led the project. This test paves the way for a demonstration device to show a plasma can be created and contained that generates more energy than it consumes. The demonstration device is expected to be completed in 2025. The hope is that in the future there will be thousands of fusion plants powering clean electric grids around the world helping to save the planet.
Earlier I had written about the use of RFID for tracking hazardous substances. One of the readers, Sujith, wrote to me that RFID can be a ignition source and thus pose a potential for fire/explosion.
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We have general risks and, quite often when risks manifest themselves the various militaries around the world are called in to deal with the issues, crises, disasters, and catastrophes that occur. The military do not enter these on their own volition nor are they of their own making but, in line with the principle that risk is best dealt with by the party most suited, the military are tasked by their lords and masters.
As safety professionals, we are often required to consider value of life in decision making.
So, what is the economic value of a life? According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), it is $5.8 million [in 2010]. Click on the link below to read more…
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I challenge you to read this paragraph and then close your eyes and focus. Think about the future. What does it look like to you? How do you think humankind operates 20, 30, or 40 years from now? Are we even more digitally connected than we already are? What behaviors or actions are commonplace now that might be nonexistent then?
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I have always been fascinated by Apple products. Apple’s iPhone besides providing the “cool” touchscreen also lets developers create customized applications. Here are a few safety applications you may find useful:
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“You’ll be damned if you do and damned if you don’t”. This was the message from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for those situations when you believe in your heart that you are doing the right thing even if, or when others believe it to be wrong. This is what leaders do, they lead based upon what they believe to be right and will reap the consequences, whatever the outcome. Leadership is about doing; it’s about making things happen through the people who follow and enabling those people to make it happen. It’s also about being responsible for your actions and those of the others who have acted on your behalf.
Leadership has always been around in some form or another; there is always a leader of any pack or tribe. Successful leaders and their idiosyncratic styles are not only analysed and biographed but also emulated and even imitated. Practically speaking though it boils down to the ability of some to influence, motivate and direct teams of individuals to undertake some task or other. The traits of leadership in turn are a function of a leader’s character and the situations in which they find themselves, the people around them, and the task at hand.
[Read more…]I had been away from writing blog posts for last 3 months or so…mainly because of my travel to S. Korea. I have also been kept busy working on adding advanced features to Risk and Safety site. I will unveil them in the coming few months.
[Read more…]Structures are all around us, even chaos has structure albeit fractal. We humans too involved in structures; not only do we construct physical structures, but we form organisational structures and create civilizations using the social, economic and cultural structures that rule our lives.
Some of these structures collapse due to human error, natural forces outside of our control, and man’s destructive and violent nature. The reasons for such collapses may not be understood but, being inquisitive we strive to find out. But these endeavours are not only earthbound as we also seek to work out the structure of the universe and its workings. An early example of such work is from the astronomer Kepler who developed his model of our solar system. Although geometrically fascinating it’s a far cry from our modern-day perceptions
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RFID stands for Radio-Frequency IDentification. It is a small electronic device that consist of a chip (capable of carrying 2000 bytes of data) and an antenna.
A RFID device provides a unique identifier and serves the same purpose as a bar code on a consumer product or a magnetic strip on the back of a credit card.
[Read more…]
Question for all who read this: to succeed at any business venture, you merely need to have huge resources, dedicated personnel, and a quality product or service, right? From there, it’s just collecting money and living a good life.
This presumption is more common than you realize, and could not be more wrong and misguided. In a world where exponential change and digital disruptions abound, you simply cannot rest on your laurels and merely rely on what you’ve already built. Because of the rapidly accelerating rate of change, your business is only ever as strong as its next innovation.
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Workplace Safety training is a big industry…every year companies are spending millions of dollars on training their employees.
I have always doubted the efficacy of repetitive and boring training sessions whether personal or virtual (Will your Refresher Training Work?). What is more surprising is that organizations are increasing their training budget without evaluating efficacy of their training program.
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A classic question for all CEOs and floor sweepers alike. What the heck do we do and what do we want to do? In big business there is visioning, missioning, goal setting, target measuring, market analysis, focus groups, policy and much much more, more and more. In small business, we offer far more than we would like to do, but in order to make ends meet, we take on more and more until we finally burn out or are lucky enough to realise a cash flow that will enable us to niche or focus on what we do and what we want to do.
[Read more…]