3 ms·

That reminds me of my dad's recollections of working with Engineers (of what branch, I'm not sure) in the oil refinery he worked at for ~30 years. He was a pip

That reminds me of my dad's recollections of working with Engineers (of what branch, I'm not sure) in the oil refinery he worked at for ~30 years. He was a pipefitter and he almost said what you just said word-for-word on a regular basis. If he had any corrections—well—he's just a lowly pipefitter, he can't be correct. Then he'd go out, work to their spec, the system would fail and he'd have to be called back in for overtime to fix it when they adjusted the spec to suit the problems he originally pointed out. Nothing new under the sun, huh.

ovi256 8y ago
That's just bad process that many best practices make a point of correcting. Lean Manufacturing, famously, pushes for people to give feedback.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  Ah. Well while a refinery is technically in the category of manufacturing, my father wasn't part of the oil refining process itself. He was initially construction, and later maintenance on—well—all of the pipes. So the situation wasn't as iterative. It was more, for ex: * We need a new line for X process. * Draft plans for new line. * Receive [unwanted] feedback from fitters familiar with existing lines (having been in and out of them for n years) * Disparage feedback and double-down on drafted plans * Fitters implement plans * Line fails (a number of times this step has nearly cost people their lives) * Feedback of failure reverts to engineers * Redraft plans with practical considerations applied * Fitters implement fixed plans AFAIU that even somewhat aligns with lean manufacturing—in that they adhered to the designed process according to the authority, and when defects were found they iterated. I think the main complaint is that the fitters at this point act as almost an extension of the machine itself explaining why something will not work, and the given authority rejected any input at the outset—acting as the old priest caste, if you will. I worked briefly for Toyota (subman. Toyoda Iron Works) and the process wasn't much different. The stakes were just lower as the parts were smaller, cheaper, and faster to adjust. If I, as an operator, attempted to raise issue with the engineering team I would have been laughed out of the room in the same way. † † the engineering team had us set every M part aside for inspection 2-3 times a day so they could come check calibration. There was no other direct feedback loop that way from ops.

ovi256 8y ago

That's just bad process that many best practices make a point of correcting. Lean Manufacturing, famously, pushes for people to give feedback.

52-6F-62 8y ago
Ah. Well while a refinery is technically in the category of manufacturing, my father wasn't part of the oil refining process itself. He was initially construction, and later maintenance on—well—all of the pipes. So the situation wasn't as iterative. It was more, for ex: * We need a new line for X process. * Draft plans for new line. * Receive [unwanted] feedback from fitters familiar with existing lines (having been in and out of them for n years) * Disparage feedback and double-down on drafted plans * Fitters implement plans * Line fails (a number of times this step has nearly cost people their lives) * Feedback of failure reverts to engineers * Redraft plans with practical considerations applied * Fitters implement fixed plans AFAIU that even somewhat aligns with lean manufacturing—in that they adhered to the designed process according to the authority, and when defects were found they iterated. I think the main complaint is that the fitters at this point act as almost an extension of the machine itself explaining why something will not work, and the given authority rejected any input at the outset—acting as the old priest caste, if you will. I worked briefly for Toyota (subman. Toyoda Iron Works) and the process wasn't much different. The stakes were just lower as the parts were smaller, cheaper, and faster to adjust. If I, as an operator, attempted to raise issue with the engineering team I would have been laughed out of the room in the same way. † † the engineering team had us set every M part aside for inspection 2-3 times a day so they could come check calibration. There was no other direct feedback loop that way from ops.