Viewpoints management

It is not my purpose here to elaborate on inventory management as this is a management function in its own right. From the quality management viewpoint, however, there are some factors that need to be considered. 

Chapter 1, The Role of Human Error in Chemical Process Safety, discusses the importance of reducing human error to an effective process safety effort at the plant. The engineers, managers, and process plant personnel in the CPI need to replace a perspective that has a blame and punishment view of error with a systems viewpoint that sees error as a mismatch between human capabilities and demands. 

The type of data collected on human error and the ways in which these data are used for accident prevention will vary depending upon the model of error and accident causation held by the management of an organization. This model will also influence the culture in the plant and the willingness of personnel to participate in data collection activities. In Chapters 1 and 2 a number of alternative viewpoints or models of human error were described. These models will now be briefly reviewed and their implications for the treatment of human error in the process industry will be discussed. 

The data in each table and figure of reports submitted to sponsors should be verified by QA personnel. Team leaders, laboratory managers, field managers and the Study Director should meet routinely to discuss the meaning of the data as the study develops. This allows early discussions regarding data interpretation and allows several viewpoints to be explored, which ultimately strengthen the final report for the study. 

In 1990-1991, American industries involved in hazardous chemicals/materials production, shipping, storing, and usage were scrutinized from both a safety and security viewpoint, to the point where OSHA s Process Safety Management Standard (PSM) 29 CFR 1910.119 was generated to address these concerns. PSM was promulgated in 1992, to be fully complied with by May of 1997. 

From a practical viewpoint, there are two key benefits to this technology. First, it makes retrieval of data very fast and simple. No one wants to search through reports and notebooks in order to find the associated data for a result that is in question. Second, during a regulatory audit it is crucial that your laboratory is able to produce the specific information with as much detail as is required by the auditor. Again, this task is much simpler when a relational database is managing the information (see Figure 7). 

There is no reason why a mathematical model should be limited to simulation of only the physical aspects of a given system. Usually the behavioral response of most interest from a management viewpoint will be an economic variable, such as cost, profit, investment, etc. In many cases the motivation for development of the model will be the optimization of one of these variables. This problem will be considered in the next section. 

Although site surveys, problem assessment, treatment product identification, and program selling services are vital components of the field representative s job, it is the water systems management and the plant site technical support function that are probably considered to be the key areas, from the customer s viewpoint. And it is at the time of a plant upset or a production line malfunction, when the customer is able to confirm (or not, as the case may be) that the expertise and technical service skills made available by the vendor was worth the price paid ... 

Another step in QCPE s history occurred in 1984 when Professor Ernest R. Davidson was invited to move his group to IUB from the University of Washington, Seattle. Ernie Davidson replaced Stan Hagstrom as faculty advisor. Mr. Counts and Dr. Edwards continued to manage the day-to-day operations. To provide new viewpoints, the membership of the QCPE Advisory Board was... 

There is a deficiency in standard terminology, and no recognized reference body of knowledge [14]0. This hinders the possibility to conduct assessments that can reflect all the legitimate viewpoints on the problem. This is not just a theoretical issue the very capabilities of a country to identify and qualify critical assets, and to develop coherent risk management and CII assurance policies depend on the clarification of these questions. 

McDermid, J. A., A.J. Vickers, and S.P. Wilson, Managing Analytical Complexity of Safety Critical Systems using Viewpoints, Department of Computer Science, University of York, UK. 

Add to this the present skills in genetic engineering to improve yields arid lower costs, arid protein engineering to alter the pH, temperature, or other characteristic of an enzyme, and the future looks veiy bright from the en/ymologist1s viewpoint, provided management is willing to speculate on the development costs ... 

Periodically, colleagues will operate under different assumptions related to corporate policies and procedures. Quality assurance can provide valuable assistance to management, through immediate feedback, when differences occur in understanding and viewpoint. 

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