PlantSuccess Newsletter
Volume VIII Issue 7
19 March 2008
Dear Subscriber:
This week is Sunshine Week; rather than cloudless skies across the country, this reference is to a sunshine law requiring governmental bodies to hold open meetings and sometimes to permit public access to records. Sunshine Week is a national initiative organized by the American Society of Newspaper Editors to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and public information access.
The Sunlight Foundation is a major player in this initiative and in the increase and effectiveness of sunshine law. From their website: “The Sunlight Foundation was founded in January 2006 with the goal of using the revolutionary power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing, and thus help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy. We are unique in that technology and the power of the Internet are at the core of every one of our efforts.” What a great way in which to be unique!
I’m in favor of sunlight as in clear skies and clear records and in the commitment The Sunlight Foundation has made to the “power of the Internet and new information technology.” I believe strongly that this will bring about communication adhering to my favorite definition: that which is -- CLEAR, CONCISE and CONSISTENT.
Leaders in oil & gas and chemicals manufacturing also recognize opportunities for and have made huge commitments in the technology and performance of the Internet, Google, other information systems and applications to substantially impact their ability to improve plant production and company performance. An example: Each quarter, Rohm and Haas executives use the Internet for an hour each quarter to discuss the company’s business – challenges and success -- with employees. The process is set, the benefits understood by all; the technology will get better and faster and the result will be even more effective communication and improved performance.
For many examples of effective communication, management and leadership, join us April 10th (Thursday) at the Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake for our 7th annual PlantSuccess and discussion with executives and other decision makers from leaders in oil & gas and chemicals manufacturing. Also join us April 9th (Wednesday afternoon) for the Workshop – ProcessSafety & People. Visit www.PlantSuccess.com to register online and to review descriptions, agenda and participants for both of these unique events.
The conference features keynoter John Sieg, Group Head of Operations, BP International, joined by other execs for the Executive Panel Discussion plus a roster of outstanding speakers.
ProcessSafety & People is the product of a presentation on BP’s Texas City incident in Houston last year by Mike Broadribb, BP’s Director of Process Safety that put all of last year’s conferences on the path to discussing process safety and human capital management. This focus was continued in Calgary with a great session including Petro-Canada, NOVA Chemicals and Deb Grubbe, BP’s Vice President - Group Safety, and was concluded in Philly with a session featuring Laurie Bassi, founder and president of McBassi & Company and three execs with American Standard Companies discussing the significant impact Laurie’s methodology has had on their company. Keith McLeod, Charlie LeRoy and BJ Stephan also are involved with the ProcessSafety & People workshop. Truett Airhart’s traditional Texas-style BBQ will follow the workshop.
To increase the value of the ProcessSafety & People workshop, we’re asking speakers, attendees and others to spend ten minutes to help us learn which Human Capital measures count most for Process Safety.
PlantSuccess has activated an online assessment to discover the most important Human Capital factors affecting process safety. We have collaborated with McBassi & Company, inventors of an innovative methodology that relates human capital investment to business outcomes to do the analysis and report the results.
Participate and you will get a report detailing the assessment results and you will learn which human capital factors drive process safety. If five or more plants from the same company participate, the company will receive a custom report showing how each plant stacks up against the most important human capital factors.
Early participants include FMC Corp, Ineos-Nova, Noltex LLC and Shell. More participation means better definition of the most important human capital factors driving process safety. All responses will be held in strict confidence; only aggregate results will be shown to the audience. Please join us in this landmark event and help our industry discover new and vital information about improving safety outcomes.
Click on ProcessSafety&People and spend 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Thanks.
Best regards,
Carl Howk, Chairman
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Current Links
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· How companies think about climate change
A McKinsey Global Survey:
o Fully 60 percent of global executives surveyed by The McKinsey Quarterly regard climate change as strategically important, and a majority consider it important to product development, investment planning, and brand management.
o Fewer companies, however, act on these opinions. More than one-third of executives say their companies seldom or never consider climate change when developing overall strategy.
o Nonetheless, executives express optimism about the business prospects of addressing climate change. Sixty-one percent expect the issues associated with climate change to boost profits—if managed well.
o Despite the uncertainties around regulation, a remarkable 82 percent of executives expect some form of climate change regulation in their companies’ home country within five years. READ MORE
From Investor’s Business Daily.
Climate Change: When new facts emerge, the open-minded tend to alter their views. This is what has happened to a Hungarian environmental scholar whose position on global warming has been transformed. READ MORE.
Very Important Solution Partners – PlantSuccess 2008 Gulf Coast
AVEVA's high-integrity, data-centric applications enable error-free design, collaboration between geographically dispersed groups and the integration of disparate 'silos' and formats of information in support of:
· Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Plant Handover
· Management Of Change
· Plant Incident Management
· Work Package Management
· Commissioning, Start-up and Turnaround Management
· Operations Support
· Plant Engineering and Maintenance Support
· Equipment and Piping Inspection Management
· Safety Management
Johnson Controls Inc -- provides industrial and manufacturing companies with a competitive advantage through facility solutions that make a difference to the bottom line. JCI offers office, lab, factory and industrial plant solutions that deliver high performance work environments for better productivity, reliability, safety, and security at a reduced cost – all with a measured impact on improving business performance.
Pavilion Technologies Inc, a Rockwell Automation Company -- model-based software helps the world’s leading manufacturers like BP, Cemex, and Total Petrochemical improve production processes to facilitate quick response to market demands, continuous reduction of costs, consistent achievement of quality targets, and enhanced environmental quality. Download a recent ARC Advisory Group case study describing how NOVA Chemicals realized millions of dollars in value by measuring actual capacity versus predicted theoretical capacity and contribution margin in real-time.
SAT Corporation – is Microsoft’s 2007 Mobility Partner of the Year and a leading provider of integrated mobile field force automation solutions for process manufacturing industries. SAT’s IntelaTrac Mobile Workforce and Decision Support System accelerates and sustains key process improvements such as Operator Driven Reliability, Reliability Centered Maintenance and cost effective HSE compliance. Typical hard dollar paybacks on IntelaTrac projects are three to six months.
Siemens Energy & Automation Inc – Simatic IT XHQ™ is Siemens real-time, Web-based Operations Intelligence software platform. XHQ aggregates operations and business data from multiple disparate sources and presents this to a wide community of different users typically comprised of facility users, corporate users and partners. XHQ has been proven in multiple installations to be easy to use, and highly scalable, handling several hundred concurrent user sessions simultaneously while exhibiting performance appropriate to the needs of these various communities of users.
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. To share this newsletter with a colleague, please forward a copy. Subscribe or cancel by sending a request to Carl.Howk@PlantSuccess.com
Full links to Volume VIII Issue 7 Newsletter articles:
http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/about
https://www.mcbassi-surveys.com/se.ashx?s=56E9418020813075
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=290213857214322
http://www.jci.com/publish/us/en.html
http://www2.sea.siemens.com/Home