Date: 8 February 2011
Hosts: Joint meeting ~ CQI NoS and Welding and Joining Society (WJS) North Scotland
Speaker: Alan Foxton, Technical Manager, Subsea 7
Subject: Can we rely on specifications?
Alan posed questions to the mixed CQI and WJS audience such as “with all the specifications which we have, the day of the experienced engineers are surely gone, and we can rest safe in the knowledge that national and international specifications will keep us right?...Or are specifications intentionally flawed documents which keep us employed?” .
Alan opened the concept to the audience by playing a game, where as a group, the attendees had to agree on designing a specification for buying a new car. Through much energy and enthusiasm Alan took us on a journey full of mirth and we arrived at our car specification: a six wheeled, bubblegum pink, V8 powered, 12” clearance, stainless steel bodied, speed limited, slow car. Only to be reminded, such a thing will never exist.
From here, he took the group through a real world problem with an international pipe line specification. Where a pitfalls of a manufacturing specification was used as a design specification, which leads to potential issues from the client to the supply chain.
From his two examples, he concluded that specifications rarely reflect what we actually want, we rarely acknowledge what is actually available in the supply chain, our suppliers cannot therefore supply us with what we specify (although they have products in their ranges which exceed our needs) and moreover, specifications need to be flexible enough to allow intelligent decision making.
To watch the video of the meeting, please click here.
The CQI NoS Branch would like to thank Alan and Subsea7, for supporting the event, though hosting the meeting in their Westhill offices.
Alan Foxton, Susea7 Technical Manager
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