PlantSuccess Newsletter
Volume III, Issue 7
26 March 2003
Dear Subscriber:
Last year, corporate
ethics (or lack thereof) was given a lot of play by much of the media and cited
as being a significant contributing factor to the decline of the US stock market
and the world economy. The interests of the press are on Iraq today while many over-paid,
under-achievers are wending there way through the US court system on a variety of
criminal charges. The civil suits will follow.
There may not
have been many, but they were big – Enron’s bankruptcy is the largest in history
and impacted the accounts of millions of investors. Enron and the others have contributed
to a major problem of credibility that the average person has with Wall Street.
The repair is
underway. Although it shouldn’t mean much, CEO’s and CFO’s jumped at the opportunity
to certify the accuracy of the reports they file to the SEC. The ethics programs
at the country’s leading business schools are getting renewed attention and forums
are popular. The goal, of course, is to restore public confidence in corporate America.
Warren Buffet called the need to restore corporate integrity
as being “vital to this country” and cited a recent survey that said Americans trusted
chief executive officers about as much as used car salesmen.
This is a great
time of year for Buffet fans; his annual letter to the
shareholders is published for his company’s annual meeting in March. His letter
for 2002 begins with: “Our gain in net worth during 2002 was $6.1 billion, which
increased the per-share book value of both our Class A and Class B stock by 10 percent.
Over the last 38 years (that is, since present management took over) per-share book
value has grown from $19.00 to $41,727, a rate of 22.2 percent compounded annually.
In all respects, 2002 was a banner year.”
A statement
like that on 2002 is not heard often. Buffet’s style is legendary and simple – “To
be a winner, work with winners.” Perhaps because of his penchant for winners, Buffet
has been tremendously successful with his managers, many of whom haven’t the “slightest
financial need to work.” And, he claims, “We now have six managers over 75. Our
rationale: It’s hard to teach a new dog old tricks.”
PlantSuccess
also attracts winners. Join us at the Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake, 9-10 April
for PlantSuccess Gulf Coast 2003. Join innovative managers with the industry’s leaders
and their presentations on the successful implementation of engineering IT and its
impact on business drivers, work practices and integration requirements.
PlantSuccess
sponsors – AVEVA, Ivara, JD Edwards and OSIsoft – and their customers are winners because of the commitment these technology
providers have made to owner-operators in the process industry and to many of their
critical applications in plant operations and maintenance.
Visit www.PlantSuccess.com to:
Best regards,
Carl Howk, Chairman
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Despite months
of uncertainty regarding additional terrorism, a war in Iraq and a sense of malaise
regarding the US economy, PlantSuccess has organized another outstanding roster
of speakers under the theme: Best Practices Driving Plant Performance. With
this conference, more than 90 speakers have contributed to PlantSuccess.
Keynoter is
Doug Walker, a recently retired executive with ExxonMobil. In 1988,
Walker’s final position took him to the Far East when he became the Singapore
Chemical Plant Manufacturing Director for the $2 billion petrochemical complex
that includes a liquids steam cracker, a polyethylene plant, a polypropylene plant
and an oxoalcohol plant. Walker will share his views after 34 years with an industry
leader on a subject he knows well: The Environment for Competitive Success,
and “set the conference table” for another roster of outstanding speakers.
Walker will
be introduced by Kirk Wilson, Bayer’s VP of engineering services and keynoter
for PlantSuccess 2001. Session moderator for the Q&A will be Ken Eickmann,
director of the Construction Industry Institute (CII) and retired USAF Lt Gen.
Process manufacturers
utilize a full-range of very different business models – from high percentage outsourced
to almost completely in-house and everything in between – in support of their operating
plants. In this session, industry leaders describe the rationale for their approach.
Join DuPont's Kelly
Byers, Bayer’s Martin
Brown and Dow Chemical’s Richard Brod in a session important to all plant
operators. Moderator for this session: Different Approaches to Supporting Plant
Operations is Charlie Gillard, a plant executive recently retired from
Shell Deer Park Refining.
Successful requirements
planning and asset management is key to the profitability of process plants. Eastman
Chemical’s Johnette McDaniel will present a portion of their ERP experience
with SAP and Ventura Food’s Carlton Cunningham will present their EAM experience
with JD Edwards; industry consultant Gerhard Meinecke will moderate.
The issue of
security became a critical part of work and everyday life with the terrorist attacks
of 9/11. This session, Industrial Security: A National and Corporate Perspective,
will feature the experience of industry giant ExxonMobil and Ben Butchko
senior security engineer. He will be joined by Ken Eickmann, extensively
involved with Homeland Security issues for the State of Texas and the Federal Government,
in a session moderated by Bill Beazley, executive director, the Society
of Piping Engineers and Designers.
George Pohle, senior staff engineer, Shell Global
Solutions US has been integrally involved with the implementation of a successful
Ensure Safe Production (ESP) process at nine refineries. Pohle will discuss
how they have achieved economic targets through improved work processes and increased
collaboration and a project that encompasses best-in-class solutions driving “best
practice” implementation. Rob Harvan, senior editor, World Refining Magazine,
moderates this session.
PlantSuccess
major sponsor representatives will discuss significant commitments made by these
companies to meet application requirements of owner operators and unique capabilities
in software and services that support plant operations and maintenance. Join Dow
Chemical’s Bob Donaho, director of design engineering, as the moderator for
the session: Solutions for Process Industry Owner-Operators, with these participants:
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Steve Lorenz, Business Development Manager, AVEVA |
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Gino Palarchio, VP of Client Solutions, Ivara |
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Mark Wieber, Marketing Manager, Asset Intensive
Industries, JD Edwards |
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Tom Hosea, Application Consultant, OSIsoft |
Knowledge
Management (KM) gets
increased attention each year because operating plants continue to lose important
experience and knowledge at an alarming rate and because there is growing success
with commercial implementations of KM. John Voeller, CKO and CTO for Black &
Veatch, renowned technologist and industry leader, has assembled an outstanding
team from the industry's key practitioners in KM for this extended session with
the appropriate title: Knowledge Management -- Getting Tangible About the Intangible.
For a discussion of what works and an understanding of the commitment to KM made
by these industry leaders, join:
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Jill Kennard, Business Manager for Knowledge Management,
DuPont |
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Carol Arnold, Leader – DuPont Engineering University |
|
Charles
Rowney, Chief Knowledge
Officer, CDM |
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John McQuary, VP of Technology & Strategies
Organization, Fluor |
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Kent Greenes, Chief Knowledge Officer/SVP, SAIC |
Mike Alianza, with Intel’s Capital Development
Group, will share the experience of this leading manufacturer to achieve a major
upgrade of a fabrication facility in a very competitive market. Intel has been very
successful with its use of many of the IT industry’s current tools including laser
scanning, 3-D plant models and integrated databases – tools used with varying degrees
of success by process manufacturers. Charlie Gillard will moderate the session:
Intel Retrofit Succeeds with Technology, Innovation and Time to Market.
FIATECH Project Manager, Charles Wood,
will provide an update on two key projects from an important industry organization.
Many process industry leaders are strong supporters of FIATECH projects; learn about
the current state of two major projects: Lifecycle Data Management and Technology
Road Mapping, Gerhard Meinecke will moderate.
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Intel’s Barrett
Paints an Untethered World
"After
20 years of talking about it, this is really the most tangible example of the convergence
of computing and communication," said Intel CEO Craig Barrett as he introduced
his Centrino wireless chip. READ MORE.
Guiding
Your Business to the Ends of Its Imagination!
From the
Knowledge Management page of the SAIC Website: “Learning is the only sustainable
source of competitive advantage. From deregulation to dot.com, the way businesses
do business is changing at an accelerating pace.”
READ MORE and join the KM session at PlantSuccess
Gulf Coast 2003 with John Voeller as moderator and Kent Greenes, SAIC’s Chief Knowledge
Officer, as a panelist.
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 III, Issue 7 Newsletter articles: