“Representation not only reflects, but actually changes reality.” — Angela Chen OSHA has several regulations that allow or require employee participation in activities regarding workplace safety. For instance, there is employee participation during OSHA inspections and in the development of the elements of the Process Safety Management (PSM) standard. And those regulations don’t stop at [...]
“Meetings should have as few people as possible, but all the right people.” — Charles W. Scharf Ever been in a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) meeting where there were over a dozen people? Wasn’t it excruciating? Either you wondered why you needed to be there, or you wondered why some of the other people needed [...]
“For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise.” — Benjamin Franklin The first time you ever encountered a weasel word was probably when your mom said, “Maybe,” or [...]
“We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” — John Dewey There are too many celebrities and philosophers to count who have talked about the importance of their mistakes in shaping them. Many seem quite pleased, even proud, of the mistakes they’ve made and their ability to rise from them and go [...]
“Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.” — Edsger Dijkstra For most of my life, I have struggled to keep down to a healthy weight. It didn’t help when someone told me, “Losing weight is simple. Eat less.” When I protested, they replied, “I said it was simple. I didn’t say it was easy.” The safest plant [...]
The degree of slowness is directionally proportional to the intensity of memory. The degree of speed is directionally proportional to the intensity of forgetting.” ― Milan Kundera, Slowness Every industry uses speed as a measurement to quantify productivity. That productivity, whether gallons or railcar loads, is a tangible result that translates into revenue for a company. Speed [...]
“We know we need civilization and laws and procedures, but isn’t it frustrating? Wouldn’t it be great if we could just do what we needed to do?” — Lee Child When someone thinks about a Process Hazard Analysis, a PHA, they usually think about a Hazard and Operability Review, a HazOp. And when they think [...]
“To err is human, to forgive, divine.” — Alexander Pope I was in a PHA once where the lone operator on the PHA team finally grew weary of the discussion of operator error. “Why is it that when you engineers make a mistake, you call it design error, but when I make a mistake, you [...]
“I don’t have a particular recommendation other than that we base decisions on as much hard data as possible.” — Dorothy E. Denning The best waiters are the ones who are willing to make recommendations when you ask. Anything but, “Well, everything is good.” Because, admit it, everything is not. And then, when you try [...]
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” — Henry Ford I know a young woman whose relationships are in a constant state of turmoil. She keeps picking the wrong guys and each relationship ends in heartbreak. “Why do I keep making the same mistake over and over?” Why indeed? I [...]
