Witnessed on of the most disturbing things on site today

Hi all,

I'm a regular poster here who wants to remain anonymous for this post due to obvious reasons.

I was on site assisting in a site acceptance test this morning in a Pharamcuetical plant. A particular test called for the PLC to be placed in stop mode to verify fail safe actions etc.

Anyway the young guy who was the PLC programmer put the PLC (Compact Logix) into program mode (as instructed by the client I should add) and everything appeared to react as expected and the validation guy was ticking boxes etc.

From out of nowhere this guy comes ranting and shouting asking who was responsible for leaving the steam valve open. Before the young programmer got a chance to say anything he hit him a full force thump to the face. I'd say he could have broke his jaw. He told him to "get the F¤%k out of the plant and never come back". The guy was nearly in tears when he left.

Turns out this guy was a production manager for the plant and a batch had been seriously comprised due to the water temperature been too high resulting in a huge cost to the company.

I'm not sure how I would have reacted in this situation. I probably would have walked out quietly but straight to a law office.

Has anyone else here ever experienced violence during commissioning?

trodsky said:

Hi all,

I'm a regular poster here who wants to remain anonymous for this post due to obvious reasons.

I was on site assisting in a site acceptance test this morning in a Pharamcuetical plant. A particular test called for the PLC to be placed in stop mode to verify fail safe actions etc.

Anyway the young guy who was the PLC programmer put the PLC (Compact Logix) into program mode (as instructed by the client I should add) and everything appeared to react as expected and the validation guy was ticking boxes etc.

From out of nowhere this guy comes ranting and shouting asking who was responsible for leaving the steam valve open. Before the young programmer got a chance to say anything he hit him a full force thump to the face. I'd say he could have broke his jaw. He told him to "get the F¤%k out of the plant and never come back". The guy was nearly in tears when he left.

Turns out this guy was a production manager for the plant and a batch had been seriously comprised due to the water temperature been too high resulting in a huge cost to the company.

I'm not sure how I would have reacted in this situation. I probably would have walked out quietly but straight to a law office.

Has anyone else here ever experienced violence during commissioning?

Click to expand...

I've never seen physical violence, but more than once have seen verbal abuse - not just a word or two, but ongoing.

After wondering what the programmer did next after leaving the plant, my thought was I bet the programmer wasn't the one who specified a steam valve that failed open when it should have, based on the production manager's actions, failed closed.

I barely put up with production employees yelling at me. If a production employee was to EVER strike me like that I'd be going after every legal channel available.

At the very least I'd try to ensure that employee was fired and never worked there again.

The line is in the midst of commissioning and the production manager claims that a portion of the line that turns out to be incorrect has ruined a production batch??? Who in his right mind tries to make a production batch during commissioning? The point of commissioning is to uncover issues like that.

I'm sorry Trodsky, but to me, your story sounds more like an urban legend than an actual occurrence.

I am assuming the steam valve change was a secondary effect of testing, meaning, they PLC guy wasn't testing the batch process equipment directly, or even the control system supplying plant steam to the batch. It could have been an unexpected or overlooked reaction of the steam control system when it lost input from the PLC that went into program mode, who knows?

Having done my share of pharmaceutical work, test protocols for equipment commissioning and/or modifications were always closely reviewed by engineering, safety, quality, validation AND manufacturing management. Assuming that method was employed in the case of this post, one or more subject matter experts in either the engineering or manufacturing group should have known what effect turning off PLC outputs would have not only on the process being tested but ancillary equipment as well. Perhaps they did know the steam valve would turn off and intended for the test to be performed when the batch process was offline. Maybe the production manager realized that he made the mistake and started the batch at the wrong time.

Despite GaMP5 and other guidelines, mistakes happen in any industry as we all know. That is no excuse for the plant manager's reaction. I know that individual batches can cost hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars sometimes and the pressure manufacturing personnel are under IS INTENSE. But it does not justify physical or even threatened assault.

First I've heard of this, but I'm sure the dire economy contributed.

Keep us up to date on what happens.

The company I work for has pretty much a zero tolerance policy when it comes to physical violence.

In the 9 years I've worked here, 3 people have been fired for it. One operator punched another operator about 30 minutes before their shift began, he was let go before his shift started. Another maintenance individual punched someone after losing his temper, he was let go before the end of his shift. A third blew his lid and threatened violence against another person, and he was let go at the end of the week after a meeting with management.

I've never been physical with anyone, but there are occasions where I've responded to people yelling at me with yelling of my own. I try not to but sometimes it all just adds up and bursts.

It seems like a company looking the other way on physical violence in the workplace would be a company looking for legal trouble.

If I were that programmer I would have stood my ground.
I would have telephoned the police and reported the incident.
This is assault and battery, not acceptable in modern society for any reason.
I am sure if the pharmaceutical company were a reputable one then the manager that made the assault would have been relieved of his duties immediately.
Certainly having the police involved would have highlighted the incident and it would have been a huge embarrassment for the pharmaceutical company in question.

If I had been there I would have taken charge of the situation, checking the young programmer was ok, calling the cops, putting myself forward as a witness to the incident etc.

Liam I'm laughing my hole off here as your flag indicates your from Ireland.
This incident happened in Pfizer pharamcueticals in Dublin!

trodsky said:

Liam I'm laughing my hole off here as your flag indicates your from Ireland.
This incident happened in Pfizer pharamcueticals in Dublin!

Click to expand...

I am dismayed you chose to look the other way

trodsky said:

Liam I'm laughing my hole off here as your flag indicates your from Ireland.
This incident happened in Pfizer pharamcueticals in Dublin!

Click to expand...

So what was the outcome of this?
I am confused as you stated in your first post that it was disturbing for you to witness and now you are "laughing your hole off" about it.
I applaud you. Not.

maybe the programmer was at fault and he/she is responsible for incorrect operation of the valve, and maybe he should have been dismissed but regardless of who is at fault about the valve,that looks like a criminal case of assualt, there is NEVER a valid reason for a manager to strike an employee and I believe the programmer should bring assault charges against the thug.

liam moran said:

if i were that programmer i would have stood my ground.
I would have telephoned the police and reported the incident.
This is assault and battery, not acceptable in modern society for any reason.
I am sure if the pharmaceutical company were a reputable one then the manager that made the assault would have been relieved of his duties immediately.
Certainly having the police involved would have highlighted the incident and it would have been a huge embarrassment for the pharmaceutical company in question.

If i had been there i would have taken charge of the situation, checking the young programmer was ok, calling the cops, putting myself forward as a witness to the incident etc.

Click to expand...

good

I didn't witness the violence but I was told the story if only briefly by the perpetrator.
I was working in a high security jail in the boiler house and a lot of the wiring was done in mineral insulated cable (piro to me)

The warder asked me if I would like some help from some inmates. He explained that there were plenty electricians doing time there.
He saw I was worried by this and told that only 'trustees' would be allowed to work with me.
The bloke they brought was absolutely overjoyed to be doing electrical work. He took each length of cable that needed to be fitted and polished it up until it shone.
He did a beautiful job (long winded but first class - and for free)

After a few days, I forgot he was a 'con' because he seemed like a very nice man and he was more than keen to do a good job.

During a normal conversation I asked him what he was in for.
He replied without any intonation - as casual as you like
'I murdered my wife and her mother'

What do you say to that? The warder then told me to never ask that question again and he wasn't allowed to work with me again.

Goody said:

I didn't witness the violence but I was told the story if only briefly by the perpetrator.
I was working in a high security jail in the boiler house and a lot of the wiring was done in mineral insulated cable (piro to me)

The warder asked me if I would like some help from some inmates. He explained that there were plenty electricians doing time there.
He saw I was worried by this and told that only 'trustees' would be allowed to work with me.
The bloke they brought was absolutely overjoyed to be doing electrical work. He took each length of cable that needed to be fitted and polished it up until it shone.
He did a beautiful job (long winded but first class - and for free)

After a few days, I forgot he was a 'con' because he seemed like a very nice man and he was more than keen to do a good job.

During a normal conversation I asked him what he was in for.
He replied without any intonation - as casual as you like
'I murdered my wife and her mother'

What do you say to that? The warder then told me to never ask that question again and he wasn't allowed to work with me again.

Click to expand...

Oh My, i went through something similar to this. altho they were not allowed to do electrical, they were allowed to do grunt work, like dig a trench, pull a cable, help move big equipment. i never had a bad inmate with me, but the gaurds always said there were murderers there, and maintenance crew said they were 3 year max. haha.

The gaurds were trying to make it sound like their job was more important haha

Liam I'm laughing my hole off here as your flag indicates your from Ireland.
This incident happened in Pfizer pharamcueticals in Dublin!

Click to expand...

So what do you expect anyway... someone takes the time to write up a response to your question and all you do is laugh at him. you didn't have the guts to act up when it was needed, but anonymously online you can laugh your hole off. good for you, kiddo. F¤%k yourself on the way out...