ISA Management Division
A supplier selection can end your career or launch it. With leaner engineering departments and more options to choose from, selecting the right solution is an ever growing challenge. These decisions often represent millions in long-term total cost of ownership. Making up a process on the fly isn’t an option. You need to select a [...]
This may seem like a crazy tip, but there is a lot more truth in this statement than you might realize. It’s directed to management, but a young engineer may have reason and opportunity to encourage management to do this. Concept: Simple things like strong coffee and a fast brewing pot seem minor, but during [...]
Last time I talked about the Top 10 pitfalls for manufacturing IT projects. It putting that together I realized there were way more than 10. I could probably do like a Top 100 or so but that would be too much. Instead I’d simple like to mention a few more pitfalls that are way too [...]
I’d like to change gears a little and talk some more about successful and unsuccessful manufacturing IT projects. There’s lots of factors that can derail a manufacturing IT project and simply being aware of them can go a long way to helping you avoid them. So, here’s what I call the Top 10 pitfalls for [...]
Recently, a customer of mine who resides on the Gulf Coast (but is not an oil & gas or petrochemical company) approached me with a very interesting problem. He had lost all of his process engineers to other companies over the past three months, taking all of his process and control system knowledge with them. [...]
You’re studying the elephant in school. You look at the pictures, learn about the anatomy and physiology of the animal, research its habits, etc. With enough study you might write a paper or two, and in time you might even be considered an expert on the beast. Studying an elephant is one thing, but it [...]
When I started my career I had no idea what anything cost. I would be asked to estimate a small job and I might as well have used dice, darts, or a Magic 8-Ball to divine a number. In an effort to learn I started logging the price of everything I bought control valves, pressure [...]
According to a recent Fast Company article, the most successful people use it to prepare for their day, knock out the hardest activities, gain awareness, and express gratitude. The author, Kevin Purdy, has assembled some key concepts from, arguably, some of the most successful individuals of our time which outline the need for and the [...]
“There is no future in any job. The future is in the way you do your job.” I recall early in my career being taught the value of caring about the customer. My first job in industry was as a telecommunications technician where I was deployed to various customer locations daily. The owner of the organization shadowed me [...]
This session is in the Human Performance Track: Getting Results from Social Media Presenter: Jon DiPietro, Domesticating IT Abstract: It’s not enough to participate in social media, and it’s not even enough to understand its workings and implications inside and out. More and more, first impressions will be made not by cover letters, resumes, and handshakes, [...]
