OT (Kinda) Don't let this happen to you - $2.5 mil

[brucechase]

I just read this article in Control Magazine. It was pretty interesting how what could be a simple mistake can cost $2.5 million US. Luckily no one died from a mistake like this. I'm not sure about the plumber thing though. What kind of company would contract a controls job to a plumber? Oh wait, bean counters that say use the lowest quote no matter what. The utility has some responsibility on this in my opinion. I just wonder if that utility had any of their engineers involved.

http://www.controleng.com/article/CA6515739.html?nid=2362&rid=163191411

 

[Steve Bailey]

One of the many reasons you buy insurance.

 

[brucechase]

Or hire competent people.

 

[mordred]

would insurance cover this if the persons hired were not qualified?

 

[Jiri Toman]

Excellent article. This goes hand in hand with my assertion that engineering has become a pseudo-profession. If in fact there was a proper certification required to do a job like this, someone this incompetent would not get hired in the first place.

 

[jsatkanpak]

I got lost at the "plumber" bit... Wow.

 

[Andybr]

This might have seemed a fairly major mistake at one time but pales into insignificance compared to the Browns Ferry incident. You could not have made that one up in your wildest dreams.

http://www.ccnr.org/browns_ferry.html

 

[kamenges]

It's a good thing NASA only hires degreed engineers to design spacecraft and handle launch and trajectory details. It would really suck if they lobbed a spacecraft into the space and missed their target because someone misplaced a... Oh, right. Never mind.


This stuff can happen to anyone regardless of education level. Care, or lack thereof, is not tied to a degree.

Keith

 

[CroCop]

It's a good thing NASA only hires degreed engineers to design spacecraft and handle launch and trajectory details. It would really suck if they lobbed a spacecraft into the space and missed their target because someone misplaced a... Oh, right. Never mind.


This stuff can happen to anyone regardless of education level. Care, or lack thereof, is not tied to a degree.

Keith

Truth.

 

[MASEngr]

Excellent article. This goes hand in hand with my assertion that engineering has become a pseudo-profession. If in fact there was a proper certification required to do a job like this, someone this incompetent would not get hired in the first place.

I often think of Engineering as a pseudo-degree.

 

[TConnolly]

It's a good thing NASA only hires degreed engineers to design spacecraft and handle launch and trajectory details. It would really suck if they lobbed a spacecraft into the space and missed their target because someone misplaced a... Oh, right. Never mind.


This stuff can happen to anyone regardless of education level. Care, or lack thereof, is not tied to a degree.

Keith

Its amusing (or unfortunate) how the phrase "pull a NASA" has entered our vernacular.

 

[danw]

Bruce, thanks for bringing that to our attention.

Dan

 

[Lancie1]

This might have seemed a fairly major mistake at one time but pales into insignificance compared to the Browns Ferry incident. You could not have made that one up in your wildest dreams.

Andy, as an electrical engineer working for TVA at the time of the Brown's Ferry incident, (No, I was not the one that started the fire!) I can say that the David Comey article is accurate. Brown's Ferry came within a knat's eyelash of nuclear meltdown.

Did TVA learn anything? The people involved did, but they are long gone, and it is doubtful that the new bunch even know the details. Bureaucracies have very poor memories, and wear corporate blinders so they only look straight forward, never looking back. In fairness, TVA did learn to separate the cables for redundant control systems.

A government agency operating ANY nuclear plant is not a good idea. There is no one to take responsibility for correcting the mistakes. Government organizations are generally run by committees, and on committees the blame is spread around until it finally gets swallowed by the bureaucracy.

TVA is preparing to build a new nuclear plant soon.

PS: Brown's Ferry Unit 1, out of service since 1975, after many years of re-design, re-work, and testing, was finally put back into service 32 years later (spring 2007).

 

[SLC_Integrator]

It's a good thing NASA only hires degreed engineers to design spacecraft and handle launch and trajectory details. It would really suck if they lobbed a spacecraft into the space and missed their target because someone misplaced a... Oh, right. Never mind.


This stuff can happen to anyone regardless of education level. Care, or lack thereof, is not tied to a degree.

Keith

Couldnt have said it better myself.
A degree means someone is book smart. It doesnt mean they have any common sense, real work experience or know a wrench from a walking stick.
It may be a good starting point but it certainly doesnt guarantee they know what theyre doing.

 

[cntrlfrk]

The article focuses on who took the reading and where the reading was taken etc... My first concern would be where was the sensor installed and the fact that someone didn't follow the design instructions for proper placement of the sensor.

A proper check-out, especially on something of this cost, would have included checking and verifying each device. Obviously, the turbine had a design speed. When the mechanical overspeed tripped, there should have been a more thorough investigation than getting somebody on the radio with a Strobotac and calling it good.

Having said that, the best protection is having a good lawyer spell out everything in detail ahead of time.

I've worked on turn-key projects as a customer and was not allowed to touch anything until the equipment had been turned over to us.

I've also worked on million dollar compressors with tens of thousands of dollars in vibration monitoring protection, and had plant managers suggest I bypass the vibration trip because somebody with a screwdriver pressed up to his ear claimed the vibration was 'acceptable'. I didn't, and the machine was operated, and tripped, repeatedly until it finally came apart. It's scary to see what 7500HP can do if you don't respect it.