ra*{»J
The Professional Side
Application of Intuitive Judgment to Research Department Problems
NlANY
chemical engineers like to develop new methods of design calculations, which presumably will give more accurate designs of new equipment. This is a laudable objective and should be encouraged. Progress toward cheaper plants can be made through these studies. However, when the time comes to design a plant for construction, perhaps the engineer should use more judgment and less calculation. For example, when I was a young engineer, one of our jobs was to design stabilizers to separate propane and butane. Some of my associates liked to make tray-by-tray calculations to determine how many bubble trays were required. In some cases this was probably a waste of time because we knew very little about tray efficiencies, the feed stock was usually about the same as that for existing stabilizers and the job to be done was the same, so why not use an existing design, and regardless of what the calculations showed the contractor would usually insist on 30 trays anyway. Many other examples could be given where hours of engineering time could be saved if a competent engineer used educated judgment instead of lengthy calculations. This attitude would be difficult to instill in an engineer and, indeed, all engineers could not be trusted to function in this manner. However, the boss should let the engineer know that good judgment is sometimes better than lots of calculations. Administrative Budgets
Many hundreds of hours are spent each year in preparing administrative budgets. There is a strong tendency for many people to think that they have not given the problem adequate consideration unless they have given attention to every
item which might make up the total, regardless of how small it is and regardless of the degree of accuracy with which the item can be predicted. Many of these estimates cannot be made with much accuracy and even the basic assumptions on manpower will probably not materialize. It should be possible to put together an adequate budget in one or two days, provided everybody understands that the individual items may vary considerably. There is no justification for a feeling that the accuracy of a budget can be measured by the amount of time spent on its preparation. An experienced man should be able to prepare a budget within the limits of accuracy required for the purpose without resorting to detailed examination of each item. Scheduling of Operations
This function, carried out by the Research Department, is somewhat analogous to that discussed in the paragraph concerning administrative budgets. A man experienced in this field should be able to establish certain limits within which the refineries would probably operate, and these should be sufficient guide for refinery operations. This seems to be a field where it is easy for people to become dazzled by their own lengthy calculations and to assume the results will have an accuracy not justified by the basic assumptions inherent in the figures. I recall an incident in the early days of seasonal balancing where the figures proved that one refinery could not meet the proposed program for winter gasolines. The manager said, "thanks for the advice," and proceeded to meet all requirements. This is a field when intuitive judgment could save many hours of computation.
Morris T. Carpenter, Administrative Director of Research for Standard Oil Co. (Indiana), has been with Standard Oil since 1930, when he joined the company as a chemist. He was "loaned" to the Government during 1952 as Assistant Director of the Refining Division, Petroleum Administration for Defense. He has been active in scientific activities outside his company—president of the Scientific Manpower Commission, 1953-55, chairman of the ACS Manpower Committee, 1953-57, and a consultant to the AEC from 1950 to date. Mr. Carpenter received a B.S. degree in industrial chemistry from the University of Kentucky in 1930 and completed the AdvancedManagementCourse, Harvard University, in 1949.
Pilot Plant Programs
There have been many cases where pilot plant programs have been carried out and the results never used. Sometimes an elaborate program is undertaken to pinpoint an optimum temperature for the design of a plant. When the engineers get finished with the design, the plant is sometimes capable of bracketing the same range of temperatures investigated in the pilot plant. There seems to be an almost irresistible urge to operate a pilot plant, and good researchers can VOL. 5 1 , NO. 7
·
JULY 1959
91 A
THE P R O F E S S I O N A L SIDE frequently think up things it would be nice to know. Critical judgment should be applied to be sure that the results would be useful before a pilot plant is operated. Research Programs
Γ
|ff
^
F®AM has ι VOU
J
bubble dancing-
get α D o w C o r n i n g SILICONE
DEFOAMER!
Is foam robbing y o u of production? Stamp it out fast w i t h a D o w Corning SILICONE D E F O A M E R — t h e most effective f o a m killers ever d e v e l o p e d .
250,000 lb "I - x _ -
\
molasses, vot dye solution,
trioxide pickling solution, n, tall tal oil
kills foam in: ) m
I
1 2 5 , 0 0 0
lb
phenolfor m aldehyde,
urea formaldehyde, asphalt,, starch sizing
62,500 lb *^%9\ψ\ψ
1 U
soft
drinks, 7 0 %
caustic
liquor,
b l a c k liquor, sulfuric a c i d pickling b a t h , h e x a n e - s o y a oil e x t r a c t FREE SAMPLE i Make your own test. Return coupon below for generous trial sample of a Dow Corning SILICONE DEFOAMER. No obligation, of course.
f i r s t in ι silicones
ΌΟΛΙΪΤ Corning CORPORATION MIDLAND.
r |
6419
|
Q/ÏUJL faûstoM M
j
NAME
ill *
1
Ls
Oil system .
TITLE
\ Aqueous sysiem |
Food products __
COMPANY
1 |
Other CITY
ZONE
STATE
Circle No. 63 on Readers' Service Card 92 A
INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
MICHIGAN
Sometimes elaborate and timeconsuming research programs have been undertaken before there is a clear understanding of how the results would be used. An example was a great deal of experimental work and many hours of correlation in connection with a possible change in a specification for refinery control. Much costly time on the IBM machine was spent before there was any assurance that the results of the work would ever be used. It is a matter of judgment whether the concept was a good one for refinery control or whether some approximation of the same result could be achieved by other means. However, it should have been possible for someone with intuitive judgment to estimate a few of the answers and see whether the concept would be acceptable to those who would have to use it. This seems to me to be a case where the author of the idea got dominated by the intriguing possibilities of correlation and couldn't resist the temptation to use the new gadget (IBM). We expect exploratory research people to have and exhibit intuitive judgment. I think we have many instances to prove that some people are gifted in this way. However, I am not so sure that we use equally good intuitive judgment when it comes to developing our ideas after initial discovery. Is it possible that some technical people are afraid to use their judgment? Do they think they have to prove that they have tried experimentally every possible variation on a basic idea? At least some of them should be encouraged to go ahead on the basis of their intuitive judgment. Maybe we should study how to encourage our researchers to develop this faculty. This is probably a philosophy which will have to come from the top. Maybe they should all read "The Tao of Science" by R. G. U. Siu, which expresses in a different way and in detail some of the thoughts mentioned here.
