Sydney Percy Smith Andrew. 16 May 1926—2 November 2011

Sydney Andrew was an outstanding chemical engineer. His career with ICI was notable, culminating in the rare distinction of appointment as senior research associate. Early work when he was a plant manager led to the development of a systematic procedure for plant maintenance, the forerunner of ‘critical path scheduling’, now widely used for planning complex construction and maintenance projects. Syd did pioneering work on the absorption of gases into liquids where the dissolved gas reacts with the liquid. He helped to develop catalysts for the steam reforming of naphtha, leading to the installation of many plants to provide gas for domestic use; these plants replaced the numerous plants for making town gas from coal. Producing syn-gas from naphtha was beneficial for making ammonia and methanol; several plants were built in India and Japan.

Optimization of the Production Process of Sealing Bricks in a Ceramic Factory in Urucurituba City in Amazonas – Brazil

In recent years there has been a high growth in Brazil, in the construction industry this event reflects a great economic development in the regions of the country, in the Amazon, the ceramic brick industry has been gradually increasing to meet this demand, especially in the interior of the state. In them there are failures and waste during its manufacturing process that greatly affects the final product. This article aims to employ the quality tools in the production process of a ceramic pottery that is located in the city of Urucurituba - AM, through them to discover the flaws and propose improvements in the production process of sealing bricks so that there is no problems in the final product. Through site visits data were collected through interviews with employees and the plant manager, the visit also allowed the mapping of the process of manufacturing eight-hole bricks, from this verification it was possible to apply the flowchart that allowed describing Throughout the process flow, the Ishikawa Diagram was also applied, which made it possible to detect faults (cracks and cracks) and their root causes. These occur during the brick production process and used the 5W2H, which helped to organize the ideas. and make a proposal to solve the problems, and bring quality to the final product

APP for Optimizing Number of Trucks for Dispatching Operation of Concrete Plant

Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) batch plant manager dispatches RMC trucks to different construction sites as per the demands and availability of RMC trucks at plant. To have maximum production and profit of the plant, generally more and more number of trucks are send to the sites with the thumb rules or logic of the batch plant manager, through his experience and depending on the capacity of the plant (CP). To avoid discontinuous (interrupted) RMC casting he requires sufficient number of RMC trucks at plant as well as at sites. This logic may be inefficient and might present the loss of profits. Also this may demands more number of trucks. In this research attempt is made to minimize the number of trucks along with reduction in waiting time of trucks by applying Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimization and simulation of operations through App. The flexibility has been given to the dispatching manager to make changes in the data parameters if required. A user-friendly App is developed in MATLAB environment to help the plant manager to decide dispatching schedule with less number of RMC trucks, compared with present industry logic

Genetic Algorithm based Optimized Un-Interrupted Dispatching Schedule for Ready Mix Concrete truck with User friendly Interface on Single window (Single Plant Multi-sites)

Delivering Ready Mixed Concrete (RMC) to construction sites is an important task for the RMC Batch Plant (BP) manager. The RMC BP manager has to prepare an efficient schedule of dispatching RMC trucks, which will optimize the operations at the construction sites and also at the batch plant. The existing dispatching schedule mainly depends on the experience of the dispatching manager and preferences from sites. The RMC plant manager dispatches more and more RMC trucks to the longer construction site which may results in the lineup of RMC trucks at one site and keeping other sites waiting for the arrivals of RMC trucks, this may leads to ‘interruption’. In this model attempt is made to reduce the interruptions by giving scope to the BP manager to make changes in the SCT (Scheduled Casting Time) on single window called user friendly interface. A Genetic Algorithm User Interface (GAUI) model is developed in MATLAB environment to reduce waiting time of dispatching trucks. Result shows that GAUI model gives an uninterrupted dispatching schedule with reduced waiting time over the industry thumb rules results

Manager-Employee Relationships during Turbulent Times at a Gold Mine in South Africa

This article aims to provide new conceptual insights into the responsibilities of an engineer who acts as a plant manager and who has to deal with employee relations during a turbulent time at a gold mining plant in South Africa. A qualitative research approach was used to gather the data in this study. Trustworthiness of the research was ensured by applying various reasoning strategies, such as content analysis, inductive reasoning, blending, bracketing and understanding in order to interpret the data. The first group interview comprised managers as well as engineers who were appointed as managers, the second, administrative employees from the service departments, and the third, artisans and foremen employed at the mine. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the transcripts. The recurring themes from the group interviews were ‘employee empowerment’, ‘trust building’, ‘employee voice’ and ‘development of skills’. A conceptual framework for manager-employee relations during troubled times was developed from the findings. The essential responsibilities of a gold mining plant manager during periods of turbulence were described.

DOES AN ENERGY INDEPENDENT VILLAGE BE FORMED IN NORTH SUMATRA PROVINCE? CASE STUDY: BULUH AWAR VILLAGE, SIBOLANGIT SUB-DISTRICT, DELI SERDANG DISTRICT

The potential of renewable energy in the province of North Sumatra has not given confidence to the provincial government to establish Energy Independent Village (EIV). This paper aims to describe the utilization of renewable energy in the village Buluh Awar who have had success using a water-based renewable energy as a source of electrical energy for 25 (twenty-five) years. The approach in this study is qualitative and uses data collection techniques such as observation and interview. The study was conducted in May 2016 and took place in the Buluh Awar village, Sibolangit sub-district, Deli Serdang District. The village was chosen because it has been using the power source coming from renewables for 25 (twenty-five) years, but has not been designated as EIV. The informants were: the user community; plant manager; headman; Department of Mines and Energy (Distamben) North Sumatra Province; and, Distamben Deli Serdang. Analysis of the factors that play a role in the utilization of renewable energy shows that the North Sumatra Province has the ability to form the EIV. Based on the analysis of the factors that play a role in the utilization of renewable energy, it can be concluded that the village Buluh Awar has the ability to set as DME, if followed by the intervention of the local government by providing technical assistance to improve generating capacity so that it can generate more electric power so that society can do creative activity that can push economic growth at Buluh Awar village.

Analyzing Accountability Relationships in a Crisis: Lessons From the Fukushima Disaster

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster became the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Many studies have examined the so-called “first-order causes” of the Fukushima disaster, such as economic interests and lax regulations. However, studies examining the disaster have paid little attention to how it escalated during the response phase, that is, “second-order causes.” This study examines the unresolved question using an analytic frame of accountability relationships. The results demonstrate how crisis management organizations of government faced cross-pressures within a web of accountability relationships while dealing with the disaster. In particular, these organizations’ responsiveness to hierarchical accountability had a negative effect on the political accountability relationships. It is the contribution of this research to specifically identify multiple and complex relationships between the types of accountability. Previous studies have mostly treated professional accountability as the single dependent variable. In contrast, this research argues that the other accountabilities—hierarchical and political—can be dependent variables as well. More importantly, inconsistent with the findings of previous studies, the economic pressure of political accountability had no effect on professional accountability relationships as a result of the heroic efforts of a nuclear plant manager.

The Case of the Missing Time

Illustrates the challenges most managers face in prioritizing their time in the workplace environment. Looks at “a day in the life” of a printing plant manager who, with well-intentioned goals for the day, is frustrated by numerous interruptions.To serve as a starting point for a discussion on how to manage one's time, responsibilities, and employees to the greatest effect.

Communicating Increased Risk: An Empirical Investigation of the National Weather Service’s Impact-Based Warnings

In 2014, following a Central Region pilot assessment, the National Weather Service implemented large-scale use of an experimental product of enhanced severe weather warnings known as impact-based warnings (IBWs). The overarching goal of these IBWs is to improve the threat warning process and motivate appropriate responses by using event tags and additional text that provides more specificity about the magnitude of the storm and its potential consequences. These IBWs are designed to be used by individuals in the field to make more effective decisions. Although qualitative research has shown overall satisfaction with IBWs (Harrison et al. 2014; Losego et al. 2013), little published experimental research has been conducted on these new enhanced warnings. The research reported here therefore empirically investigates the effectiveness of the new IBW experimental product. In three experiments, participants adopted the role of a plant manager and read both IBWs and non-IBWs. At three different decision points, participants made decisions about shutting down the plant and having employees shelter in place. The results of all three experiments show that the IBWs produced higher likelihoods of closing the plant and sheltering in place, but only after the additional IBW text (providing information about the hazard, source, and impact) was presented. Interestingly, participant background knowledge of tornadoes and severe weather had little impact on their shelter in place decisions. The results support the conclusion that the additional enhanced text in IBWs promotes a higher stated likelihood of sheltering in place, at least as measured by behavioral intentions.