April 2011 - Control Global

E D I T O R ’ S P A G E
It’s All About the Uptime!
Ever since President Bill Clinton’s “It’s all about the economy, stupid!,” we’ve been
shoehorning complex ideas into one-liners. They resonate better, make sound bites for
the evening news, and make the “elevator speech” easier. So, when we want people
to listen about safety and security, we’re going to have to have a one-liner to use there.
Walt boyes
Editor in chief
wboyes@putman.net
As I said in this space last month, we are doing
abysmally poorly at creating functioning
safety cultures in manufacturing, and we are
still relentlessly and regularly injuring and killing
people—and we are also losing great big
gobs of money because a plant that goes boom
is a plant that is not making product. I for one
am having a very hard time understanding the
disconnect that has been happening about the
idea that a safe plant is a profitable plant. In
fact, a safe plant is a more profitable plant.
A CEO recently said, “I don’t want to hear
from my plant. When I hear from my plant it
means something is wrong, and I don’t want
things to go wrong. So I don’t want to hear from
my plants.”
In fact, the CEO is right. His job is to measure
and manage the business of which he’s the
chief executive. It’s not his job to engineer or
operate an olefins plant, for example, or a tomato
sauce manufacturing line. CEOs who micromanage
like that aren’t usually around for
very long.
Process safety and industrial control security—although
they are vitally important to us
and to the financial health of the corporation—
are down in the weeds when viewed from the
lofty heights of the boardroom, and they probably
should be.
As I have been saying for years, process
safety, industrial control security, physical security,
alarm management and operations strategies
are really all ways of looking at the same
thing from different points of view. What this
means is that you can’t do any of those things
in a vacuum without considering the effects of
what you’re doing on the others.
But, as we’re finding out from incidents like
Deepwater Horizon and the Stuxnet attacks,
all the safety systems and all the industrial controls
security systems in the world can’t defeat
human beings intent on screwing things up—
whether they are doing it accidentally or on
purpose.
Most people will agree that, to complement
the systems we devise for plant control systems
and equipment, we need the corresponding
culture change in the attitudes and behaviors
of the people involved. And there the matter
stops. We don’t seem to know how to get culture
changed.
Levi Leathers of The Dow Chemical Company
made an essential part of working at Dow
the deep understanding that a safe plant is a
more profitable plant, and that is the hook on
which we need to hang safety and security
practices and procedure. As Leathers found, it’s
great to be the boss. He was able to drive the
development of a safety culture because he was
the boss.
Here’s the one-liner for your CEO. “Safety
and security are all about uptime.” Every CEO
is vitally interested in sustainable manufacturing
practices. CEOs are willing to spend big
bucks on sustainability. The fact that your plant
didn’t blow up is a real sustainability issue. The
fact that you can continue to make product is
sustainability writ large. What a concept!
That’s why we launched www.sustainableplant.com
in February. Uptime improvement
is a vital sustainable manufacturing practice,
and safety and security both make key contributions
to increasing and maintaining your
plant’s uptime.
So let’s go talk to the CEO about improving
uptime and profit from his plants—so that he
won’t have to hear from them.
All the safety
and industrial
controls security
systems in the
world can’t defeat
human beings
intent on screwing
things up.
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