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15 July, 2010 AS2550.1 - Crane Safe Use Draft Australian Standard The Council of Standards Australia, ME-005 Cranes Committee is currently updating AS2550.1 Cranes, hoists and winches – Safe use. The current standard was released in 2002, and the draft of the proposed revision which completed its public review period on 23 June has some significant changes.Major changes to this edition include an extensive revision of the inspection and maintenance requirements in Section 7, and the addition of a new Section 9 regarding the assessment of major inspection.For crane owners and managers the key changes are as follows: Periodic 3rd party inspections are now a mandatory requirement of the standard, with a maximum frequency of 52 weeks. The current edition calls for optional inspections with an inspection frequency of 1-3 years dependent upon crane duty. Crane owners are required to maintain crane duty records which are updated annually at a minimum. As part of the annual 3rd party inspection the design working period (DWP) shall be calculated from these records. This DWP calculation assesses the crane fatigue life and acts as a trigger for major inspections once the design life is reached. Aspects of the ISO 12482-1:1995 Cranes condition monitoring standard have been included in the draft standard. Most significantly this requires that a safety factor be applied to the crane duty estimation based upon the method of recording. For example if the crane duty is estimated based upon undocumented, estimated production of the site a 30% loading is required. Therefore automatic recording systems become attractive as they can significantly increase the design life of a crane. Some clarification on the requirements of 3rd Party Audits and Major Inspections There are a number of other more subtle changes which may also impact your operations. If you would like to discuss the implications of the standard further please contact Mike Percy on 03 9763 4332.To return to the ideas* cranes website please click here.
23 June, 2010 Strangers at a cocktail party At ideas* one of our core philosophies is the power of relationships. That a strong relationship is worth more than a mountain of rules, procedures and bureaucracy.Matt at 37signals explores this concept.If you go to a cocktail party where everyone is a stranger, the conversation is dull and stiff. You make small talk about the weather, sports, TV shows, etc. You shy away from serious conversations and controversial opinions.A small, intimate dinner party among old friends is a different story, though. There are genuinely interesting conversations and heated debates. At the end of the night, you feel like you actually got something out of it.At many large companies this ‘stranger at a cocktail party’ raises it’s head. There are always new faces around so everyone is unfailingly polite. Everyone tries to avoid any conflict or drama. No one says, “This idea sucks.” People appease instead of challenge. And that appeasement is what gets companies into trouble. You need to be able to tell people when they’re full of crap.We find that in a large organisation as personal relationships are not essential and individuals are easily able to avoid each small conflicts can fester and become destructive without resolution (sounds a lot like the French football team at the world cup.The flip side of this is when small companies try to work for large bureaucrats. Seth Godin discusses how design firms, creative firms, accountants etc. that successfully deal with large corporations need a much wider skill set than just the job at hand. In my experience, 40% of the fee goes for the work and 60% goes to pay for the do-overs, staffing, project management and hassle that comes from working from big organizations and committees.
27 May, 2010 Engineering Leadership I was recently fortunate enough to be able to get out of the office and spend a couple of days in sunny Brisbane at the Engineering Leadership Conference, hosted by Centre of Engineering Leadership and Management and Young Engineers Australia.I managed to meet some really interesting people, and it provided a great opportunity to step back and reflect on where ideas* is at. However I was underwhelmed by some of the content and the level of innovation within the industry.Predominately a large proportion of the leadership content was around organising large teams to implement large scale infrastructure. A diifficult problem but one based on organisation rather than innovation. Then there was a stream of content which had leadership titles but which were almost solely technical based.What was disappointing was that I never heard anyone speak who was taking a fundamentally different approach, reinventing business models or organisational structures. Resulting in an almost complete lack of ‘whoa’ moments. If you make a comparison to the software industry where you have large established firms (Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Google) co-existing with a lot of innovative startups, engineering appears to be incredibly conservative and risk adverse.Is this a result of the industry structure or are individuals simply risk adverse? Does engineering rely much more heavily on personal networks, hard earned tacit knowledge and requires significant capital investment which limits the ability for young engineers to startup their own companies and have a go? Or do young engineers simply earn too much in established structures to take a more entrepreneurial path?My conference highlights were (apologies to all the speakers I didn’t manage to sit in on);James Trevelyn, University of WA – Why Engineers Resist Leadership and Professional Skills DevelopmentA really interesting discussion which contrasted what engineers believe they do against what they really do.Gregory Bayne, TLC – The Four Dimensions of Sustainable InfluenceThis appealed as it touched on my personal ‘narrative intelligence’ weakness.Andrew Tanner, Chromasun – Solar CoolingAlthough not about leadership per se, a great talk from a young Australian engineer playing a key technical role in a Silicon Valley based startup technology company.
27 April, 2010 Discussing the Future of Recycling at Greentech Media I had the opportunity to discuss some of the large scale opportunities we see in the often forgotten area of recycling over at Greentech Media. Acknowledgment has to go out to Mark Glover at Renewed Carbon, whose work underpinned the main theme of the article. Unfortunately this sector appears to be one area where current industry thinking is acting as a roadblock to major opportunity.Recycling: The New Frontier.
9 April, 2010 Conveyor Belt Monitoring - Article in AJM Article on the conveyor belt monitoring system ideas* recently developed for CBM International appeared in the latest (March April 2010) edition of the Australian Journal of Mining. Click the link below for a copy of the article.
28 March, 2010 ideas* and Leadership Thanks to all those who turned out to hear me speak at Engineers Australia’s 2010 Engineering Expo held at the Exhibition Centre.I had been asked to give my thoughts on Leadership and outline some of the initiatives we have undertaken at ideas*. It was a good opportunity to step back and review what we are doing. What my experience has continually reinforced is that most organisations have fundamental barriers to innovation, and that combining efficiency with innovation is inherently difficult.Our most important role as leaders is removing these obstacles, setting up appropriate structures that allow us to be innovative and efficient and enabling change to happen.
4 March, 2010 Buyer Behaviour As a professional services provider we are well aware of how our clients incentives and motives differ dependant upon their situation. This also has a huge impact on our ability to collaborate, innovate and ultimately provide value.via Josh KaufmanMilton Friedman, Nobel prize winning economist“There are four ways in which you can spend money: You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. You can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get.
1 March, 2010 The price of an email at Green Cities 2010 The future spark trailer was in use last week at this years Green Cities Conference in Melbourne. The trailer was used to supply power to 6 laptop computers on the AE Smith Business Centre & Internet Cafe. Despite over 200 cyclists taking part the trailer fell just short of supplying the required 5 kWh per day. In the words of Raymond Lee, Marketing Manager at AE Smith “it just goes to show how precious electricity is, how difficult it is to create and why energy efficiency is so important”.The ideas* team managed to take out Race 9 the AE Smith Mechanical Services Challenge and finished a respectable 11th overall.
25 February, 2010 [Link] The Bloombox - innovation or replication? Bloombox’s product launch has certainly been creating a lot of buzz in the Greentech world. As Chris Goodall’s Carbon Commentary blog points out similar Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology has been under development just down the road from us in Noble Park (Melbourne) at Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (CFCL). With CFCL close to commercialising their technology we can only hope the hype provides a boost to this local industry.
23 February, 2010 Relationship based efficiency A recent tender highlighted to me the inefficiencies traditional approaches have when applied in the wrong situation (sometimes I wonder if there is ever a right situation).The scope was for a small and relatively simple design, manufacture and installation. The only challenge being interfacing with existing equipment and working around current production.To do the work should have only required a modest budget, however to allow for unexpected events due to the relatively vague specification, and to allow for some onerous contractual conditions our price was close to 60% higher. If you then consider the clients cost in preparing the tender specification, dealing with enquiries and conducting the tender review along with the costs of the tenderers in preparing their responses I conservatively estimate a further 50% increase. The net result, a total cost to all parties more than double what it could have been.What’s the solution? I believe establishing strong personal relationships is the key. Maintaining an ongoing working relationship with a select group of potential suppliers. This is not easy and the mechanics of how it can be achieved are highly dependant on the situation. it requires trust by the client, and integrity by the supplier not to take advantage of the situation.However the benefits are worth the challenge.
16 February, 2010 ideas* named Autodesk Inventor of the Month A little late on this post but Autodesk recently announced ideas* as their Global Inventor of the month for January 2010. We used Inventor software to design and develop Alex Fraser Group’s Concrete Recycling Facility in Laverton, Australia.News of the award has featured in a number of national and international media outlets include Euro Investor, Earth Times, Business Wire and Manufacturers Monthly. We even managed to feature on websites in Holland and Croatia.Read the full press release here or listen to my interview here.
9 February, 2010 Moving beyond physical prototyping - process modelling for operations The following article appears in the current edition of the Australian Journal of MiningPrototyping has long been an integral part of product design and development. Now it is increasingly being used to prototype more complex systems, such as manufacturing and service delivery models. Advances in process modeling technology are enabling firms to model their existing production facilities and systems, and experiment with potential process improvements.Mike Percy, Managing Director at ideas*, an engineering consultancy based in Australia, acknowledges that analysis of a dynamic system such as a production or service environment is inherently difficult. Dealing with multiple products, various inefficiencies across processes and equipment are well beyond the ability of a spreadsheet or similar tools to manage efficiently and transparently.“In the past physical prototyping was the only way to see if something was actually going to work,” said Mike, “but now we help our clients see the benefits of making changes early in the process, using advanced computer technology and internal expertise.”Process modeling is a highly effective tool for continuous improvement, complementing other improvement efforts such as lean manufacturing or six sigma. Newer software and techniques combined with a broad operations experience across a range of industries, allows ideas* to create a robust model which can quickly determine the impact of any system changes such as new equipment, process redesign, or changes to the product mix.Not only is process modeling an effective continuous improvement tool but it also allows firms to prototype the effect of major changes to their production systems. “With process modeling we can see that small changes can have big impacts, both positive and negative,” said Mike, “Our job is to eliminate the negative ones and refine the system or process until we arrive at an optimal solution.”Many of the large multi-national companies are adopting advanced process improvement techniques, but most of the companies on the next level down are yet to fully realise the benefits.Mike said: “When you’re processing and handling raw materials in exponential quantities every day, the results of a process modeling exercise can be quite astounding.”To find out more about ideas* process modelling offering visit our website, or contact us direct.
4 February, 2010 Linchpin - Engineering and Artistry Although key agents of change engineers generally keep a low profile, does Seth Godin have the answer with his latest book Linchpin?Engineers and businesses are not surprisingly incredibly risk adverse. Employees are generally punished for failures and rewarded for consistent (yet mundane) work and attention to detail. Not exactly conducive to bold innovation. Businesses spend an inordinate amount of time limiting accountability and risk. Projects get divided up between the client, architect, structural engineer, detailer, manufacturer, installer and project manager with strict boundaries between each. Again not an ideal environment for collaboration and innovation.The businesses who will succeed in the future are those that can overcome these structural limitations. Critical will be the ability to combine systematic, left brain thinking with creative and social skills. Change will not come from following established methodologies inside industry standard structures. Although traditional engineering tools will remain important, we need to connect and engage across traditional boundaries, embrace artistry and be proactive.Most importantly we must acknowledge our ingrained resistance to stuffing up, to being laughed at by others. This is what prevents us from standing out and doing truly meaningful work.
25 January, 2010 Innovation Elasticity Why are some companies better able to develop innovative products and business models while the majority remain stuck in the pack. At do_matic Ryan Jacoby raises the concept of innovation elasticity, how far companies are willing or able to stretch across any of their business dimensions.“At some point during an innovation project you ought to wake up in the middle of the night, eyes wide open, screaming into the void: “We’re thinking of doing what?”“Although scary to you and your neighbors, this is a great moment. If you aren’t waking up in the middle of the night, you might not be pushing hard enough. The trick is to embrace that fluttering feeling and to understand the situation. If you don’t, you risk incrementalizing or even killing some really great ideas.”Unfortunately most Australian companies appear structured around risk minimisation rather than innovation.
22 January, 2010 Future Spark Trailer at Green Cities 2010 The Future Spark trailer will be featuring as part of AE Smith’s (Australia’s largest privately owned mechanical services contractor) stand at Green Cities 2010 on the 22nd & 23rd February.ideas* will also be competing, lining up against AE Smith and HydroChem in the Mechanical Services Challenge, come and cheer on the crew at 11am on the 23rd Feb.
17 January, 2010 Helping manufacturers realise their full potential It’s no secret that most manufacturers can’t afford a full suite of dedicated engineering resources, often settling for a combination of internal resources and specialist engineering providers. Although specialist expertise has its place, the lack of a holistic view and information sharing can have a significant impact, leading to costly decisions and missed opportunities.Acknowledging this dilemma, we created the ideas* Assist Program to provide manufacturers with scalable and dedicated access to a full suite of engineering services. Essentially, an outsourced engineering service that allows your business to make effective capital investment decisions and process improvements.The ideas* Assist Program adopts many of the same processes we have applied to projects over many years, but allows manufacturers to access services on a more regular and cost effective basis.If you would like to know more about the ideas* Assist Program please call Mike Percy on (03) 9763 4332 to arrange an appointment, or read more about the program here.
17 January, 2010 Evolution of a Christmas Card Some of you may have already received these in the post by now. A couple of months ago we decided to design our own card – combining Christmas, engineering and some humour. What you haven’t seen was the evolution of the design.Starting Ideas (click to enlarge)Final design (click to enlarge)
14 December, 2009 Energy Literacy Here at ideas* we are big believers that in order to drive change in individuals energy usage we must first understand our own usage.Saul Griffith one of the most influential Australians of today (yet mostly unknown in his homeland) recently started the Energy Literacy Blog, following on from his online tool for measuring energy usage WattzOn.com.I highly recommend checking them both out.
11 December, 2009 Future Spark featured in Eco Voice A profile of Future Spark appeared in Eco Voice’s latest edition of Eco News. Energy-generating bikes show students the future of green technology
30 November, 2009 Climate Code Red As part of the recent SSEE (Society for Sustainability and Environmental Engineering) 2009 conference Geoff and I attended the Climate Code Red workshop.The workshop built on a number of previous events, all of which asked If Australia declared ‘Code Red’ status on climate change and had to reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately at all costs, what would we do?This prompted some interesting debate, with the group splitting into three to develop specific actions SSEE could undertake as an organisation in the areas of technology development, public awareness and communication and transportation and infrastructure.It will be interesting to see how SSEE with it’s limited resources attempts to put the findings into action.
24 November, 2009 Engineers as role models "Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models" Barack Obama23/11/2009
18 November, 2009 Alex Fraser Group - Plant grand opening Alex Fraser Group’s new state of the art Construction Material Recycling plant in Laverton was officially opened on Wednesday the 18th of November. The grand opening was attended by industry leaders, government officials and interested onlookers.The plant was officially opened by Victoria’s Premier John Brumby. To listen to his speech please see the video below:For more information about the ideas* designed plant please click here
11 November, 2009 Australian Journal of Mining - Concrete recycling plant cuts carbon impact ideas* and the AFG Laverton Construction Materials Recycling Plant are profiled in the latest edition of the Australian Journal of Mining.Also check out the AFG website for further details on the plant.
5 November, 2009 Band Aid Engineering A common prolem we see throughout industry is a band aid approach to problem solving. Quick fixes made to keep production running with limited understanding of the original design intent. Repeated over time this can quickly spiral out of control.The San Francisco Bay Bridge eye bolt repair and subsequent failure is a recent highly visible example of band aid engineering gone wrong.The not only appears to be limited to industry. Many aspects of our current health system have a focus on treating symptoms with quick fixes rather than dealing with the root cause.The solution? Well it requires a combination of engineering expertise and embedded knowledge within the organisation. Unfortunately internal cost cutting, a shortage of engineering skills and the typical career path of a young engineer (where 2 years in a role can be considered stagnation) makes this incredibly difficult. With these barriers in mind a smarter approach for most companies may be to focus on building robust and accessible systems for managing design/engineering information and utilising 3rd party engineering services.
28 October, 2009 Future Farming As an engineer who was raised on a Dairy Farm this article appeals to me. From Wired Science;Self-Steered Tractors and UAVs: Future Farming Is (Finally) Now.
22 October, 2009 CAD and Disruptive Innovation The engineering design process has evolved rapidly as new technology has evolved from drawing boards to electronic drawings to 3D modelling and digital prototyping.What we have recognised in our evolution is that the power of 3D modelling can actually inhibit the design process, especially during the creative stages of the process. While we are heavy users of 3D software (in particular Autodesk Inventor) we have taken a step back with our conceptual work and use a number of ‘lower end tools’ such as Google Sketchup and AutoCAD LT along with our pens and notepads more suitable to free form thinking.So it was with interest that this morning I saw the release of Project Cooper from Autodesk, a light easy to use 2D sketching tool. It appears that the CAD marketplace is experiencing Clayton Christensen’s idea of ‘disruptive innovation’ where a product fulfills an unsatisfied market demand where consumers don’t require the full feature set or performance of currently avaliable products.
12 October, 2009 End Results From an interview with Christopher Alexander (Emeritus Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley) via Signal vs Noise.It’s the main reason why architecture is so bad at the moment. People are always assuming that if they can draw it and have somebody build it, then that’s it…..….The main form of communication about buildings that have not yet been built is the artists’ conceptions of the imagined end state. Those sketches do, in fact, carry enormous weight around boardroom tables but, of course, they are an absolutely impossible way to deal with reality and so produce the same dead garbage.
6 October, 2009 Thinking Beyond Sustainability: Reducing Excess and Waste Geoff Ball, Principal Projects Director at ideas* has been invited to speak at an international conference held by The Society for Sustainability and Environmental Engineering (SSEE). The key theme for the conference is ‘Solutions for a Sustainable Planet’. Geoff will be talking about how companies can take real action to reduce their environmental impact and become more sustainable. The conference will be held on the 23rd – 24th November 2009, at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Click here to see the 2009 program
30 September, 2009 Future Spark - On Neighbours Soon! The future spark trailer was filmed in July as a key part of the Neighbour’s story line in which the Erinsborough Students decide that their Deb Ball should be carbon neutral.It was a great experience, and it is fantastic to see this popular show expressing environmentally conscious values. This is a real indication that these issues are becoming mainstream.We expect the trailer to make it’s appearance on October 9th and 12th.
28 September, 2009 Engineering Awards Night September marked an important month for ideas* with the two projects entered in the 2009 Victorian Engineering Excellence Awards both receiving awards. The diversity of the projects entered reflects the broad experience base we bring to our client’s projects.The Victorian Engineering Excellence Awards are a prestigious showcase of leading edge, innovative engineering projects and products being developed and delivered by Victorian engineers. To view the 2009 Victorian Engineering Excellence Awards Booklet click hereAlex Fraser Group – Construction Material Recycling PlantThe first of the winning entries was a concrete recycling plant designed by ideas* for Alex Fraser Group. The project received a High Commendation in the category of Industrial Development and Manufacturing.Working collaboratively with the Alex Fraser Group project and production teams, ideas* provided the engineering and detail design for their new state of the art Construction Material Recycling Facility. Located in Laverton, the plant is capable of processing up to 600 tonnes per hour of concrete and other building materials.The facility now leads the world in construction material recycling efficiency, helping Alex Fraser Group achieve their target of recycling 40 million tonnes of waste by 2014 and saving the CO₂ gas equivalent of taking 46,000 cars off the road for one year.To view the Alex Fraser Group case study click hereFuture SparkThe second of the winning entries was Future Spark which received a Chairman’s Recognition Award. The Future Spark project was inspired by an unsuccessful overseas attempt to power a rock concert by human effort alone. ideas* undertook research and development, design and construction of a mobile facility for generating electricity by human effort. The Futurespark trailer was then used to power the 2009 Earth Hour Concert at Federation Square, Melbourne.The scope of work undertaken by ideas* also included the event planning, marketing and public management required to recruit cyclists for the event. The trailer is now used as an interactive educational tool at schools across Melbourne, teaching kids the value of the energy they use on a day to day basis.To view the Future Spark case study click here
5 May, 2009 Volleypong World Championships April marked the annual Volleypong World Championships at ideas*. Volleypong is a game inspired by a traditional Brown Family game and has been evolved by the ideas* employees. A cross between volleyball and table tennis, this emerging and exciting competition pushes the limits of international sporting performance. It acts as a great stress relief and team building sport for all the ideas* employees. This year’s 2009 championships were won by Green Team (Don, Mike and Boris). See below for the 2008 highlights:In its 2nd year of competition, the championship has been expanded from 3 to 4 teams. This is a reflection of the games ever increasing following around the world, with star players announced from countries including Eritrea, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, England, Ireland and Armenia – just to name a few.The four competing teams are;GreenDon McClure (Captain – Ireland)Michael Percy (New Zealand)Boris Epple (Germany)BlueRick Stefanutti (Captain – Australia)Paula Simon (Finland)Vahagn Khachatryan (Armenia)RedDavid Gemmell (Captain – Australia)Simon Tesfamariam (Eritrea)Kenneth Galbraith (Scotland)YellowLuke Giuliani (Captain – Australia)Jonathon Wilson (Australia)Will Grant (Australia) Basic Volleypong Rules Minimum 2 players per side (no max) Maximum of 3 hits per team per rally (and 1 hit per player) The ball may bounce on the ground once during each rally The ball only dies if it hits the ground or table twice. Games are first to 11, however you must win by 3 points If the ball comes to rest on any roof, it results in a loss of point The ball must travel in a forwards direction when it crosses the net Player’s feet must be behind the line of the net when the final shot is played Shirtfronts allowed (within 5 metres of ball) Sledging is not only permitted, but encouraged
1 April, 2009 Future Spark - Earth Hour Concert The Melbourne Earth Hour Concert was Australia’s signature Earth Hour event for 2009! Held at Federation Square on Saturday March 28th from 7:00pm, the concert was a FREE public event.The concert was a unique part of Australian history because it was all powered by people power. 1400 people pedalled over the course of one week to generate enough energy to power the 3 hour concert. The concert ran from 7:00pm to 10.30pm and attracted over 6,000 people. The Earth Hour Concert featured a special performance by Augie March – playing their, “One Crowded Hour” song – which is the signature song for Earth Hour 2009.To view the Future Spark case study click hereTo view the Future Spark website click here
10 November, 2008 Year of the Engineering Team Mike Percy was the guest speaker at the recent 2008 Victoria Division ‘Engineering Officer & Technologist Cocktail’ function, held on the 30th October at Swinburne University of Technology TAFE in Hawthorn.Mike’s presentation, ‘Providing Engineering Services in a Rapidly Changing Business Environment’, focused on the importance of realising that the environment around us is changing and organisations need to be proactive to adapt to the change. The presentation also highlighted the need for organisations to provide an environment that offers work challenges, as well as the opportunity to have fun.Engineers Victoria Newsletter
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