Inside NIRMA Spring 2020 FINAL

More documents

Recommendations

Info

I A Retrospective on Information Management in Nuclear Power By Eugene Y. Yang, KISMET Consulting, Inc. t was not necessarily always about document control and records management. I did process improvement consulting from the 1990’s and into 2000’s when “globalization” really emerged and competition was for real. This resulted in the “right-sizing” of companies; deregulation came to the electric utility sector, forcing the nuclear power industry to look at better efficiencies. This issue’s article reflects my experience in process improvement versus technology change. Growing up, I was a big fan of science fiction. I loved anthologies; you could read a variety of great short stories, filled with science “gee whiz”. One story that stuck with me was “The Specter General” by Theodore Cogswell. A maintenance battalion of the Imperial Space Marines establishes a base on an uninhabited planet, but it’s forgotten as the empire falls into civil war. For the next 500 years, the soldiers doggedly stick to their mission in training for starships that never come. They lapse into a primitive farming and hunting existence, exhibiting characteristics of the American Indian culture. “Braves” are garbed in buckskin, wearing feathers that identify their company or platoon, and on their arms are painted rank insignia. One day, starships do show up, but they are sorely in need of maintenance. One particular brave immediately identifies one of the problems and fixes it. Astonished, the starship captain asks how did the brave know how to repair the problem, the brave shrugged and said, “That’s how I’ve always done it.” Starting in the late 1970s and into the 1990’s, the resurgent Japanese industrial base produced competitively priced, high-quality goods, staggering the economies of North America and Western Europe. For example, the United Kingdom, for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, became a net importer of finished goods. The big secret? The Japanese studied, implemented, and refined the quality management principles espoused by W. Edward Demig: Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA). “Process Improvement”, “Process Re-engineering”, and other like terms became all the rage. A good portion of the consulting that I did in those days was directed at achieving greater production in the capture, review, indexing, storage, and disposition of documents and records piling up at near mythic volumes. This work addressed not only fundamental recordkeeping processes, but also major plant processes, such as design change/modification, supply chain, maintenance management, and configuration management. I got to use cool (well, at the time!) tools such as MetaVision or IEW’s Knowledgeware that helped in modeling processes. The debate back then (and continues today!) is: which “answer” takes the lead - is it an improved process or is it better technology? I am still amused at the “armed 10 Spring 2020 NIRMA.org Inside NIRMA
camps” – the “process” or business people were all about the latest and greatest computer technology that would take care of their problems, and the information technologists would be about getting the “fill-in-theblank users” to come up with a cogent process description so they could fit in the technology. When I would facilitate a process review, there would be times when I’d scratch my head on a particular series of steps, and ask “why do you do this?” I’d get back, “That’s how we’ve always done it.” I would then think, you know, that’s a bad process; if they implement the system according to this process, they’re only making a bad process go faster! On the other hand, the nature-of -the-beast with technology is that there is an inherent “management system” in the software, processes that may not fit a company’s current culture or processes. So, do you adopt the process to meet the system, or do you adopt the system to meet the process? I’ve seen it both ways, with extraordinary hoopjumping and accompanying cultural angst. On one hand, so much change was done to a software application to meet a company’s process that it was Back then, the buzzword that got change going was “total quality management”; today, it’s Lean-Six Sigma. Tomorrow? No doubt there will be another methodology to get excited about, but the clash will be the same: is it process improvement or technology change? nearly unrecognizable if you saw that system used in another company. On the other hand, I’ve seen “edicts from on high” that the software must be used “as-is”, so the company needs to change its ways of doing business to meet it. Don’t get me wrong; there are valid reasons for either way, with justified cost-benefits, it’s just an interesting dichotomy I’ve observed – or been a part of! The best implementations, especially at the fleet-wide scale, is where a compromise is achieved between process improvement and technology change. There are some processes that must stay in place in order to meet regulatory needs (“if the process is bad, go tell the guv’mint!”); on the other hand, if a software company has a track record of effective success, a client should “listen” as to why the automated process is in place and strive to implement it. Back then, the buzzword that got change going was “total quality management”; today, it’s Lean-Six Sigma. Tomorrow? No doubt there will be another methodology to get excited about, but the clash will be the same: is it process improvement or technology change? Eugene has been a member of NIRMA for over 33 years. At the time he joined, NIRMA had only been in existence for 11 years. He would love to hear about stories and anecdotes from others, so please email him at: eugene.yang@kismetconsulting.com. Inside NIRMA NIRMA.org Spring 2020 11
Page 1 and 2: Issue # 07, Spring 2020 Inside Lead
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS in every issue FROM YOUR P
Page 5: Plant Vogtle Unit 3 and 4 (Image: G
Page 8 and 9: STimaging next can S Of course, cer
Page 12 and 13: NIRMA 2020 Conference Keynote speak
Page 14 and 15: NIRMA Transforming the 2020 Confere
Page 16 and 17: Professional Development Business U
Page 18 and 19: NuScale Submits SMR Design to Canad
Page 20: Inside NIRMA Magazine is published

Inside NIRMA Spring 2020 FINAL

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?