A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
(OP)
This is a bit desparate. Two questions raised today in another forum specialising in pipe stress analysis software and its applications(quoted exactly)...
Quote 1:
I am currently analysing Cargo offloading Piping for FPSO.
Which is runing around 250m with 55°C as temp I need to determine loops in this run. What are the criterias I should take into considerations.
Quote 2:
Dear All,
I have a problem of stress analysis fo a vapor return piping from of column. What are the different criterias to be considered in analysing this system.
I wonder how these individuals have found themselves in the position of being told to do the work, whilst clearly having not a clue where to start or how to execute the analysis. Have they misled their managers ? Perhaps they are afraid to ask a question in the office and thereby admit their lack of knowledge and experience ? If they pick up a few buzzwords from the site, will they go on to fumble their way through an analysis, probably without a thought about checking or verifying results ?
These are by no means isolated incidents. My concern is that there are many disasters being stored up for the future here.
Quote 1:
I am currently analysing Cargo offloading Piping for FPSO.
Which is runing around 250m with 55°C as temp I need to determine loops in this run. What are the criterias I should take into considerations.
Quote 2:
Dear All,
I have a problem of stress analysis fo a vapor return piping from of column. What are the different criterias to be considered in analysing this system.
I wonder how these individuals have found themselves in the position of being told to do the work, whilst clearly having not a clue where to start or how to execute the analysis. Have they misled their managers ? Perhaps they are afraid to ask a question in the office and thereby admit their lack of knowledge and experience ? If they pick up a few buzzwords from the site, will they go on to fumble their way through an analysis, probably without a thought about checking or verifying results ?
These are by no means isolated incidents. My concern is that there are many disasters being stored up for the future here.





RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
I share your concern. These are not isolated incidents, they are everywhere.
However, if you investigate their background you will find out that they are working for large international companies as a cheap labor. I can not blame them. They need to source knowledge if they do not know anything about. So, they are doing.
It is interesting that companies do not value engineers anymore; they do employ knowledgable engineer for a short time to solve immediate problems, in this short time they do expect the new graduates to be educated as well.
Believe me these kind of questions will continue for a long time. There is not much problems for companies because there is an insurance cover, in case there is, fatal or not, an incident. I guess goverments support this for the unemployment issue, and companies save from the engineering.
I hope I am not right.
Regards,
Ibrahim Demir
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
I would imagine that their managers have recently stepped up into their positons when more experienced and knowledgable staff were cut to save money and they too have little more idea, if any, of what needs to be done than these folks that make those kind of posts. At least one would hope its so and they too are really trying to learn something from somebody somewhere, but you're right, the internet isn't an appropriate engineering training school.
Questions of such a general and basic nature that they demonstrate that the OP is fishing, has no real understanding of what they are doing and could lead to "engineering" designs being attempted by untrained amatures perhaps endangering themselves, if not the general public, do nothing to advance the high quality content of Eng-Tips, and in general amount to a complete waste of time for other engineers that want to read these forums and learn from them, can be red-flagged as "inappropriate site content". I'd suggest you flag them. This site is after all a forum where less experienced, but competent engineers can hope to gain "tips" from more experienced, or engineers specifically experienced with the question at hand and (as I understand it) never was intended to substitute for engineering training school.
"The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying." Tony Hayward X-CEO BP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco
"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
I was terrfied for most of my first 6 months at work that I might make a mistake that killed someone/ be found out as incompetent/ do something stupid.... I remember my first assessment at 6 months was to actually make decisions, rather than listing pros and cons and leaving it to the senior engineer to decide!
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
I think maintaining the general high quality of the questions, in addition to the general HQ of the answers of course (I admit I push that from time to time), is a big reason why Eng-Tips is so relevant. Nothing good about spending hours having to dig through a big pile of rubbish questions trying to find out if your question has already been answered and learning nothing from the digging process as well. How frustrating can it get. Here, you can learn a heck of a lot just from the digging experience alone!
We'll just have to let the other sites worry about their content, but right, I get what you're saying. Its severely concerning at the least. Makes me want to open a training school, but then they want that cheap too.
"The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying." Tony Hayward X-CEO BP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco
"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
The reality ought to be that insurance cover was subject to "reasonable care" and "due diligence" the onus would then be on the company to show they did employ.
However, you may have a point. If comapnies couldn't get away with these practices they wouldn't do it. Whether the reason this happens is as you suggest, I couldn't say. Insurance companies tend to be a law unto themselves these days and in many cases the rights and wrongs matter little compared to whether it is cheaper to settle than arbitrate.
JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
A brief story: I recently attended an energy code seminar. The presenter of the seminar came across the term "enthalpy" in the text of the energy code. He didn't know the meaning of the word, so what did he do? Yes, he went online to become an instant expert. He failed to obtain any understanding of what he found online. Come on, give me a break. Engineers go to school, and work for years before they reach an appreciation of engineering properties. I could go on and on, but ... you get the idea.
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
I agree with all that is written above. When I find a question very basic and simple for an engineer I click on OP's name to see how long he or she joins this forum. In most cases they have just logged in.
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
You forget - all you need now is access to a software package and "hey presto" you can call yourself a pipe stress engineer.Nothing between the ears but computer literate is all it takes. For example I came across a pipe stress report recently where the analyst had used 85.5% mill tolerance in the calc - the support rods were 100mm long but the pipework was moving 20mm in both horizontal directions and "all was considered acceptable". Luckily the internal pressure was negligible and the temperature change was relatively small compared with the pipe diameter. Sustained stresses were reported as being around 90% but in reality with the mill tolerance corrected were about 30%.
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
"The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying." Tony Hayward X-CEO BP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco
"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
No still gainfully employed - a Staffie- whereas I'm a mercenary Contractor only here for the cash!!. Also the calcs indicated that 2"nb pipe has an OD of 59.9mm. Not sure where you can get this "special" 2"nb piping from but the calcs have been checked!!! Scary!!!
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
"The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying." Tony Hayward X-CEO BP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco
"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
Like your thinking. But it's the poor Contractor that gets bagged not the useless Staffy.
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
Unfortunately I concentrated on the international companies above because of my observations on some of them. Companies in early days had a core design engineering group, not anymore. Nowadays, in big companies, the organisations are lateral and project bases. Generally the project managers and engineering managers consantrate on the money issues and project management side as expected, mostly they do not have background on the engineering side of the job and leave everything to the engineers.
Small companies are a lot worse. They mostly do not have experienced engineers in house, they do find a consultant in case they need advice. These advices are even sometimes very questionable. They do not have verification process. Sometimes knowledgable clients ask verification process and proper QA system with audit, even CVs of engineers that will involve in the job.
In case boilers, pressure vessels and piping there is an umbrella code and its requirement for the QA system is to be used, verification and documentation etc.... If you go into structural engineering side there is nothing other than code rules for calculation and manufacturing. There is no available umbrella code what to look for about QA other than the government requirement to keep the calculation for certain period.
This goes on and on. Housing industry is the worst.
Governments ask companies for the training of employee which includes engineers in house or outside. These training hours used to teach the employee including design engineers how to input project costing program for progress, and internal seminars for company future etc... not for the person to improve himself/herself in their professions, with some exceptions.
I have only looked at the negative sides above. Isn't there any good engineering company with good engineering practices? Of course they are available, otherwise living would be hell in this World.
Kind regards,
Ibrahim Demir
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
"The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying." Tony Hayward X-CEO BP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco
"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit
http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
Bravo saplanti... !!!! Bravo !!
But I would like to add that companies DO value and highly reward MBAs..!!!
It is particularly galling to note that fewer and fewer of the newly minted MBAs have any type of technical background.
And since the rewards demanded by the MBAs must always increase......there is less left for the ever smaller pool of experienced engineers.
I am glad that I am close to retirement....
My opinion only
-MJC
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
Remember the olde saying which applies to MBA's and the management that employs/remunerates them....
Bullsh!t baffles brains and I have not come across many MBA's whom are not degree qualified in the aforementioned Bull****, buzzwords and brown tongues!!!
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
This not only costs companies for the delayed & repeated meeting but takes valuable program time. This delays the project and results in cost overruns. When are the MBAs going to get it?
I am constantly finding that I have to educate engineers so that they understand the questions I ask and the information I seek. I have even been accused of being difficult when asking for the range of process conditions so that I can adequately undertake a waterhammer or pipe stress analysis.
On the other hand if you ask a dumb question you only look dumb for a few mintes. if you dont ask the question you are dumb for the rest of your life.
It galls me because companies dont want to pay for the experience until of course one ends up in court.
$1 spent at concept stage is worth $10 at design stage
$100 at procurement stage
$1,000 at fabrication stage
$10,000 during construction and
$100,00 during commissioning
$1 million dollars once the lawyers are involved!!!!!!!!!!
"There always appears to be enough money to investigate a failure but never enough to do the design engineering in the first place"
The Engineers' Lament
Soap box now put away for another day.
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
I agree with you but the MBA's/Project managers think by saving/cutting engineering costs is a good idea (shows you what types of morons they are) and do not realize that "engineering cost's" are trivial compared with rectifying poor design in the field (because construction costs are looked at separately). If the MBA's/Project managers were bright enough to consider overall costs they would see that a small amount of additional money spent on design would save money during construction. But unfortunately we have Project Managers (not all of them) who cannot see the overall picture of a Project and are basically ex- draughies who were crap at their job and jumped onto the Project bandwagon. That's fact!!
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
Agree with stainer and DSB123, the old saying"we never have time to do it right the first time but we always have time to do it all over again" comes to mind.
desertfox
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
We had to reverse engineer our own PC boards because the engineering managers, who came up the ranks as engineers, saw no reason to maintain backups of the board designs. Needless to say, after a few years, the workstation containing the designs was given to a new engineer who assumed that he had license to erase everything on his harddrives to make room for his own designs. Bzzz!! This occurred in an organization with nary an MBA to be found.
Another instance was that for the same boards it was deemed too expensive to test at the board level, and the mode of test would be to plug the boards into the system and just fire it up and see what happens. Needless to say, quite often, the result was the release of the stored smoke. On another occasion, a laser system was installed and failed to operate, so the technician decided to try another, with identical results. He was on the verge of trying a 3rd laser before the production engineer was advised and suggested that it was possibly the I/O board that was bad. So $400K of hardware tango-uniform, but we saved money by not pretesting the boards.
Incompetence, stupidity, and just plain "I forgots" are immortal and timeless. While there's no love lost here for MBAs, the problems run deeper than that.
TTFN
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
But, you see, management wants it that way. They want plausible deniability when things go wrong. It's fascinating that management types who encourage confusion are always able to plead ignorance when there is a blow-up. "Why wasn't I informed of this?" is a typical response. The employee would like to say: "Well, Boss, you are not informed because you never take time to actually manage your project. You need to take your head out of your arse and talk to the people who actually work".
I am NOT encouraging anybody who needs to put food on the table to actually use those words to the Boss. But I just don't know how you get some of these management types to listen. It is a problem that begins with GREED at the very top of the organization. Unhappily, the economic downturn (Depression?) makes employees think twice before they talk back.
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
Why not use words like that if it applies. I know when I meet my maker I can look him straight in the eye and say " People may not have liked what I said but I've always been honest and said my piece". That's the problem nowadays - people are too PC and scared to say it as it is. Perhaps that's a way of ensuring employment but sorry I would not be able to go through life like that. Have some "balls" and tell bosses/PM's etc what you know to be true. Jabbering behind their backs is basically cowardice!!
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
It's a simple answer - Enjoy engineering as regards the technical aspects and don't want to become a glorified tech clerk!!!
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
The point is: when you're young you can get away with saying what you want, because you can always move on to another job. But when you're 55 years old, and have been in the trenches all your life "enjoying the technical aspects" with a B.S. degree in Mechanical, your options are limited. My options are especially limited in the economy in my little world, at the moment. Oh sure, I could move to Dubai, but did I mention the part about being 55 years old?
Finally, as far as "you guys should move into project management, you seem to have a better grasp of what needs to be done there than the guys currently in those positions", well ..... I don't want to be a project manager. Project managers these days are simply whores for the client. They don't back up their own people. I couldn't live with myself if I were a project manager.
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
A project manager needs to know budget control & reporting, industrial relations, contract law , client communications, project planning, environmental law, community expectations, government regulations as well as being across the broader aspects of engineering. Many project managers stumble through aspects of these criteria. An MBA at least covers these topics. So give me aproject manager with an MBA any day over one that is learning by their mistakes.
What appears to be missing in our industries is the notion of the common good overriding short term perceived profits. Many an ignorant project manager sees that a profit at the end of the job is a success. If the client is left with a massive maintenance bill then how is it a success?
Life cycle costing is a reality but too often ignored by contractor project manager and client project manager alike. That is why alliance contracting has come to the fore. But alas the quality of the project manager is no better although the project delivery mechanism may be.
Hence we come back to the difficulty of "a little knowledge". There is no answer but to upskill our project managers from government, contractor, design consultant and client organisations so that they are enlightened.
RE: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE .......
Age has nothing to do with being honest to oneself and tell people like it is. I'm no youngster (older than you) but will not shy away from being honest and straight with people.
stanier,
You seem to have the same opinion as me regarding the origin of most Project Manager/engineers. Failed Draughies though not defrocked. Unfortunately these people beleive they know everything about Project Management and do not need training/upskilling. The majority have had no training- never read a project management book and just bumble along from day to day making poor decisions (because they know better than a trained and qualified engineer)and when it all starts to go wrong they either bail out and get another job or pass the buck blaming someone else. That's fact. Remember you cannot upskill people who are low/devoid of cells between the ears.