PlantSuccess
Newsletter
Volume
II, Issue 25
2
October 2002
Dear
Subscriber:
At age
40, Andrew Fastow, ex-CFO for Enron Corp, must have faced his
worst nightmare – his family seeing him transported, in handcuffs, from an FBI
office to a courthouse, where he was charged with … “securities, wire and mail
fraud, money laundering and conspiring to inflate Enron's profits and enrich
himself at the company's expense.”
Unfortunately,
Enron was the first of several companies whose greedy executives tanked their
company and contributed to the market debacle, taking their auditor with them.
Fortunately, honest people with integrity manage the companies most of us work
for and work with.
At times
like this, strong, principled people step forward and lead. The chemicals
industry has many strong leaders and can claim a share of one of the world’s
best known in the investment community, Warren Buffett, CEO, Berkshire
Hathaway -- one of the countries most successful and most admired
enterprises. Berkshire owns many well-known companies outright, including Geico,
Dexter Shoes, Helzberg Diamonds and See’s Candies and, has major holdings in
many others, including Coca-Cola and Great Lakes Chemical Corporation
where Berkshire owns 6.9 million shares or almost 14
percent.
This
week, Great Lakes Chemical announced additional corporate governance actions
that will require
independent board members to meet without insiders for some period at all
regular board meetings. This measure and many others are likely
to be adopted by the SEC and will apply to all publicly held
companies.
The
outstanding slate of speakers we have recruited for the 4th annual
PlantSuccess will make you feel good about your industry. Visit http://www.plantsuccess.com/ to review
the conference agenda, presentation abstracts, speaker bios, previous
conferences, etc. Then register online and join us 9-10 October at the PHL
Airport Marriott Hotel.
The very
appropriate theme is: Best Practices Driving Plant Performance. Join
keynoter, Hermann Ortega, VP of Engineering and Manufacturing for the
Chemicals Group of Air Products and Chemicals,
Inc., will share his experience and international success in
Productivity: A Model for Success. Inaugural PlantSuccess keynoter, Jim
Porter, DuPont’s VP of Engineering and Operations, will introduce
Ortega.
Join
other senior managers from Rohm and Haas, Atofina, Black & Veatch, CDI
Engineering, Coastal Eagle Point Oil, DuPont, Eastman Chemical, FMC, Hercules,
Jacobs Engineering, Molson Canada, Shell, Sunoco, The Boldt Company and many
others. Meet many of the industry’s leading managers with responsibility for
major work processes and the budgets to make them better.
Join
John Voeller, Black & Veatch CTO, as he leads one of the most topical
discussions -- SAP:
The Next Step in Value Extraction
Abstract
for Bill Wight, Eastman Chemical Company, and his
presentation -- Enterprise Integration at Eastman — Getting the Cats In
Harness
Applying information technology is often
compared to “herding cats.” Deploying a shop-floor integration project goes
a step farther. So you better have a good reason to try it. At Eastman, we
had several good reasons, and learned some valuable lessons along the way. Over
a three-year period, we deployed consistent software systems to 40 manufacturing
sites, 28 of which have full shop-floor integration. This presentation will
cover the reasons we embarked on the project, examples of benefits we’ve seen,
and some lessons we’ve learned about how to achieve those
benefits.
And,
abstract for Carmen DeVito, DuPont, and his presentation -- Plant
Integration Architecture: Deploying XML & Message Bus
Technologies
With
today's increasing collaboration requirements between existing systems and
emerging technologies, sharing real-time data from plant floor through the
supply chain to deliver the expected ROI becomes more critical and more
difficult to achieve than ever. As part of the SAP Roll-out in Manufacturing,
DuPont is implementing a Message Bus Architecture that supports eXtensible
Markup Language (XML) and Publish/Subscribe messaging to achieve both vertical
and horizontal integration between business systems and among plant-floor
automation systems.
This
presentation will cover one of several key project objectives — the development
and implementation of a set of common integration templates (modules) and
deployment methodology (practices) to be leveraged between business units to
optimize the overall costs, risk and support.
Join
Joe Morray, an industry consultant, entrepreneur and president of
Trinity Technologies Corporation will moderate the sponsor’s panel
discussion.
The Web-based paradigm for accessing
and deploying engineering, maintenance and operations applications is increasing
at a remarkable rate. Equally, we see the data retrieval functions being
handled through a browser interface becoming a standard form for data
harvesting. Partially, we are seeing the effects of faster network speeds
and the proliferation of intranet systems within companies. Others are seeing
the advantage of server-based software, which does not require administration at
the desktop. Still others are benefiting from the intuitiveness of the
interface and the uniformity across many applications. Needless to say, it
is a major force in technology deployment.
The objective of the panel is to
explore from each participating company's
perspective:
1. What are the key benefits and challenges to
the thin client approach?
2. Which of your applications have been
delivered to date and what has been the experience?
3. Where do
you see thin client applications going over the next three years?
4. What are the lessons to PlantSuccess attendees as they
bring this environment into production applications?
5. Is thin client access the preferred method for
collaboration and multi-company project performance?
6. Does the thin client
interface lend itself to role-based interactions?
Click HERE for online registration. For room
reservations, call the PHL Airport Marriott at 1-215-492-9000
or 1-800-800-228-9290.
Regards,
Carl Howk.
Chairman
************************
Featured
Sponsors
************************
AIChE – Delaware Valley Section
Process Industry Practices
(PIP)
The Center for Innovation in Project and
Production Management (CFI)
Visit
our leading sponsors online and join them in the Solutions Marketplace at
PlantSuccess 2002. Register
Now.
*************************
Collaborative
Event
*************************
On
Tuesday, 8 October, Greg Howell, co-founder and managing director of The Center for Innovation in Project
and Production Management (CFI) is collaborating with PlantSuccess and
conducting a workshop in his area of specialty – Project Management; the topic –
The Theory of Project Management: Is It
Obsolete?
The Abstract:
This
Project Management Workshop redefines the problem facing project managers and
presents a new solution.
Current
project management proposes that managing activities on the critical path to
assure they are done quickly and for low cost is the problem to be solved.
Current project management attempts to solve this problem through a centralized
planning system that notifies each activity when it is to start and controls by
tracking. Commitment to action is low because those responsible for planning and
control are separated from those who do the work. Delays compound as each
activity strives to best solve the time/cost/quality/safety tradeoff for itself.
Unfortunately, optimizing performance of each activity reduces total project
performance. Improving project performance against all four dimensions requires
that workflow through the project be reliable.
This
workshop will show how unreliable workflow within and between activities causes
poor performance at the project level. A new approach to planning and control
will be explained that solves this problem. Results from adopting this approach
show improvement against all four dimensions of project
performance.
Don’t
miss this. Registration fee is $195. Register Now. Discounts for multiple attendees from
the same company are available, for information, please call PlantSuccess at
770-565-3282.
******************
Current
Links
******************
·
America Should Not Relinquish
Respect
It is
not easy to maintain the focus necessary to do what must be done for our
companies and our families and still give the time required to so many other
issues. The Financial Times has always given me a perspective that I welcome;
this article by the European
Commissioner for External Relations is a reasoned viewpoint. READ
MORE.
·
Return on
Enterprise Architecture: Measure It in Asset
Productivity
From a
recent Gartner report: “ROI misses the point in assessing the value of
investments in enterprise architecture. Return on assets is a strategic
alternative.” READ MORE.
The
PlantSuccess Newsletter generates a substantial number of visits to our website,
we welcome the interest and the access to previous issues of the Newsletter
which are available there. If you'd like to share this newsletter with a
colleague, just forward a copy. Subscribe or cancel by sending a request to Carl.Howk@PlantSuccess.com
Full
links to Volume II, Issue 25 Newsletter articles: