130 Years of KM Forensics, Governance & Metrics ...

130 Years of KM Forensics, Governance & Metrics - and 1000's of lives saved! In browsing Flickr photos, I came across an industrial archaeology plaque, commemorating the original Manchester site of British Engine Insurance, an organization committed to avoiding industrial explosions. And, ironic, in 1996, that this Manchester head office, itself was destroyed in an IRA bombing. Judith, a blogger from the UK, wrote to me that all its systems and records were also destroyed, effectively ending this organization as it was taken over by Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group plc. Sadly ironic that there was no IT & KM disaster recovery systems that could save it.

November 12 2008 marks the 130th anniversary of the formation of the British Engine Insurance Ltd, originally known as the "The Engine and Boiler Insurance Company" - set up by RB Langridge. And from its origin in 1878, its Chief Engineer, M Langridge submitted an annual technical report (Knowledge Base ?) to the board (one of Arthur Shelley's elevator conversations ?) - covering "post mortems of dead equipment" ... aiming to improve safety, efficiency & equipment reliability. It all resonates with the thoughts of Professor James Reason - advocate of the mindful and High Performance Organization.

British Engine Insurance had been a pioneer in Knowledge Management, passionately committed in the 1870's, to preventing explosions killing dozens of people each year ... just as many do today to prevent explosions

............... more

130 Years of KM Forensics, Governance & Metrics: Part 1

130 Years of KM Forensics, Governance & Metrics - and 1000's of lives saved! In browsing Flickr photos, I came across an industrial archaeology plaque, commemorating the original Manchester site of British Engine Insurance, an organization committed to avoiding industrial explosions. And, ironic, in 1996, that this Manchester head office, itself was destroyed in an IRA bombing, and with no backup administration/IT systems elsewhere, the business was effectively destroyed.

November 12 2008 marks the 130th anniversary of the formation of the British Engine Insurance Ltd (now part Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group plc), originally known as the "The Engine and Boiler Insurance Company" - set up by RB Langridge. And from its origin in 1878, its Chief Engineer, M Langridge submitted an annual technical report (Knowledge Base ?) to the board (one of Arthur Shelley's elevator conversations ?) - covering "post mortems of dead equipment" ... aiming to improve safety, efficiency & equipment reliability. It all resonates with the thoughts of Professor James Reason - advocate of the mindful and High Performance Organization.

British Engine Insurance had been a pioneer in Knowledge Management, passionately committed in the 1870's, to preventing explosions killing dozens of people each year - helping to achieve cultural change in "boilermen" & asset owners/managers alike. They used visual inspection & the KM tools of the day ... maybe not all the highly technical NDE (NonDestructive Engineering/Inspection - similar to medical techniques of ultrasound, X-ray, CT Scan) instruments nor the databases, document management systems, emails, internet, communities of practice, wikis, blogs, Web 2.0 etc ... but they willingly & enthusiastically captured knowledge - then shared it very widely .. being exploited for decades .... as an embryonic beginning of the governance engineering culture in much of today's power industry.

Professionally, my great passions are forensic engineering aka failure analysis, knowledge, quality & safety management - avoiding reinventing the wheel .... in mid 1981... I was a young metallurgist and permitted to join the Failure Analysis Metallurgical team, then led passionately by David Barnett (now AINDT CEO - An immigrant from the UK, Dave has now served Australian industry for 45 years). Dave has always been a devout follower of the "British Engine Insurance" Technical Reports. In our field, these Technical Reports had broken new ground in establishing a culture of knowledge capture, management & sharing - way back in 1879. Although I was initially perplexed back in 1981, as to how an insurance company could possibly do failure investigations ... I learnt.

Problems had emerged with boilers exploding as early as 1815, and even in the 1850's, a few engineers began to recognise it was essential to do regular inspection of equipment to prevent catastrophic, & often fatal, explosions. RB Langridge was a key figure in the Manchester Steam Users Association, the first boiler inspection company- set up in 1854 ...he had strong views on regular equipment inspection programmes - and he was prepared to stand by them - he even resigned in 1859 when his vision of linking insurance cover to regular condition monitoring inspections was not accepted.

In 1878 RB Langridge argued to his employers, The Steam Boiler Assurance Company, that steam engines should be brought into the inspection scheme. He firmly believed that "accidents resulting from the disruption of the very large flywheels of the engines of the day could be as violent and explosive as boiler explosions and could similarly be reduced by routine inspection." So, his views falling on deaf ears, he resigned again, and formed the "The Engine and Boiler Insurance CO. Ltd"... and in 1932 the firm merged with the old MSUA - enlarging British Engine Insurance Ltd. In the meantime all sorts of fanciful theories for causes of the explosions began to flourish, one being "the spheroidisation of water".

Note - in the 1860-70's, up to 60 people pa would be killed in boiler explosions in the UK, with 31 explosions in 1880. In 1879, M Langridge classified the causes of the breakdown of engines (& the root causes seem remarkably unchanged !) in the first annual technical report to the Board (Elevator conversation & Knowledge Base ? ) as follows ......
- 49% - due to accidental causes - eg some twine was dropped into the casing
- 14% - due to negligence of attendants eg brass had worn through - but it hadn't been checked for a very long time
- 23% - due to old defects, flaws and wear - many cases of pre-existing cracks preceding final fracture were cited
- 14% - due to weakness and faulty construction - eg incorrect fitting

Further he identified what would be known decades later as fatigue & the role of residual stress in fracture ..."it should be remembered that under variable strains of a certain intensity, especially when alternately tensile and compressive, the strength of metals gradually decreases, until ultimately rupture takes place with a comparatively light load; and also, that iron or steel, when in a high state of strain, will give way under a slight jar which would not otherwise affect it." I have always believed that it takes special traits to make good inspectors - attention to detail, crawl around in arduous conditions & to get it all documented in a meaningful way. These factors remain crucial in engineering to this day, eg planes, oil rigs, gas pipelines.

Effective KM was to be a crucial component in the changes necessary to stop the industry killing its own


............................ more

(Reference - British Engine Technical Report 1978 Volume XIII - 1878-1978 100Years of Service to Industry.)

130 Years of KM Forensics, Governance & Metrics - Part 2

Up to 60 people killed p.a. in boiler explosions in the UK in the 1860-70’s, with 31 explosions in 1880. The UK Parliament became agitated - so 1882 & 1890 saw the UK pass the Boiler Explosions Acts. It was necessary for industry to be regulated into a governance culture. Just preceding the 1882 Act, the British Engine’s 1st Technical Report, of 1879 was born … a key first step in the industry's KM.

Before the 1882 Act, only 20,000 of 110, 000 boilers in the country were being inspected - explosions were attributed to "age, corrosion & wastage". In some ways the reticence to inspect was not surprising - the costs & it does involve quite a lot to take a boiler down for inspection and then bring it back online – not just a matter of flicking a switch. After the 1882 Act, the bar charts showed an amazing plummet in explosions and deaths. And they dropped again after the introduction of the 1901 Factory & Workshop Act. Those outcomes are step change metrics that many organizations would be thrilled in achieving. In Germany, by 1900, Munich Re was beginning to consider industrial equipment insurance issues.

However it was not just about inspecting susceptible equipment – KM was vital. M Langridge was passionate about documenting & passing on the lessons to the next generation, as stated in his 1906 report ... "Many of the experiences set forth in the following pages are no more than old acquaintances dressed in new clothes, familar pictures with fresh backgrounds and the paragraphs in which they are described but new presentments of ancient histories. But in ephemeral literature repetition is not to be despised so long as the mistakes and difficulties dealt with continue to be made and felt; so long as there are young ones growing up to make the like mistakes and suffer the same troubles as their elders, unless warned by the records of the experience of the past. And particularly is this true when the experiences gathered are of a kind that comparatively few have opportunities of gathering."

And in his 1908 report, Langridge again reiterated the KM message ... "The old causes of accidents remain. The familiar consequences follow, and history repeats itself in the Company's little world no less than in the march of nations.... Nor is it well entirely to ignore the old, for what is old to some is new to others. Those who have learnt the lessons of experience pass away, and others who have yet to learn take up the work. They find to their cost that much of the old is new. ... There are two kinds of things men's eyes and minds ignore - those they have never seen and those which speaking vulgarly, are always in front of their noses. To inform them of the one and remind them of the other is fitting work for the instructed scribe..."

However success could not allow complacency. And in 1917-27 explosions of caustic cracking due to failing boiler rivets appeared - failing from a combined corrosion and straining beyond yield point. 1928 saw the onset of failures due to welding - in the absence of advice on proper design, permissible stress levels, construction methods or inspection requirements ... problems with lack of fusion in welding were reported. Ultimately changes were called for - including pressure testing. (Note - From 1946-1964, the reports were written by the Research Engineer, GA Cottrell - an icon in the field of metallurgy for many students of the 1970-90’s).

This legacy of boiler inspection in the UK, which was carried through generations of families, continues via the SaFed. It has now been extended to a much wider range of assets - oil rigs, turbines, plants in chemical, iron& steel industries.

And all around the world - the boiler inspectors, together with other specialists in inspection - NDE, lifting, condition monitoring, structural condition & those in failure investigation - forensic engineering specialists, such as Neil Barnett, (20 years experienced, carved out his own niche & firmly stepped outside Dave's shadow) ... are all supporting today's asset owners, managers, shop floor operators & maintainers. Together .... all dedicated to preventing equipment problems, improving safety & documenting what they find into today's knowledge bases & sharing it across networks & Communities of Practice (COP's).

The language of the old British Engine Technical Reports may be archaic and quaint ... but their KM & Governance messages remains constant ... checking, sharing and learning ... to save people's lives....

(Reference - British Engine Technical Report 1978 Volume XIII - 1878-1978 100Years of Service to Industry.)

Of KM Metrics, Whales, Hermit Crabs and other things

Metrics matter. But do they tell the whole story ? Is it just about a site's "hits" rating ? Or should we consider the value that Knowledge initiatives bring in avoiding "huge amounts of egg on face" in preventing a bad decision ? Or enabling exploiting a great opportunity generated through collaborated ideas of a commuity spread around the globe ? So how do we measure that value ... so often intangible ? Unfortunately it was nearly a case of having to learn the hard way when it was decided that our Communities Of Practice were no longer delivering value ... according to those who had never been participants.

And, we the "cranky" technologist/engineering "Hermit Crabs", with apologies to Arthur Shelley's "The Organizational Zoo", belatedly realised, just in time, that we had to do the "elevator messages" to key stakeholders ... ... of how the Knowledge initiatives benefit our organization ... to politik, spin & drag the IT "Whales" back out to sea ... just in time saving these "Whales" from in fact "beaching" us all.

Back around the year 2000 Laurie Lock Lee, then at CSC, established Communities of Practice (COP's) in my organization ... it was really early days and so it was hardly today's 2008 Web 2.0 stuff ... nevertheless, several years later, there were 80++ COP's running in our organization - linking people across our global organization in key engineering / technology /organizational management / OHS COP's. Given a nudge by Laurie in mid 2000, I participated in a number of engineering/technology COP's - even setting up & administering several in the quality & forensic engineering fields.

And of course over time, as with all communities and networks, some dropped off and new communities formed. Our Knowledge Consultant Barbara Netterfield did a cleanup of the dormant COP's and reminded us of how they should run.. ie Kerrie ... it's not like Moses coming down with the 10 commandments... just remember ... ask a question Kerrie .. ask open-ended questions....

What I personally still continue to experience .... is the amazing generosity of colleagues ... some whom I was not to meet face to face for several years ... some maybe never .... of how they willingly shared their knowledge and experience to those who needed it eg they offered tips to "newbie" engineers asking advice on such esoteric subjects as the flammability of carbon monoxide, quality management policies & how to do security on pdf documents . And when one engineer wanted to use a really big old concrete storage tank we tracked down who "really" knew all the key engineering details ... and saved much embarrassment in avoiding probs with OHS, EPA etc ... leaks etc... not to mention in many cases ... countless hours, days, even weeks saved in unnecessary "reinventing the wheel" .... some very high value transactions from the COP's indeed ... but not necessarily measured to become part of the official IT KPI's & metrics. But when Barbara and Laurie did a social network analysis of our area, they found it relatively tightly networked, but at risk of fragmenting if we didn't do something proactively, ahead of a few key babyboomer retirements. We listened and acted ... and even et up another COP ... the Technologist's Helpline.

Global examples I recall the young chemical engineer from Indonesia who asked some questions and who was supported by the full intellectual horsepower of our Australian based chemical engineers, even transcending when our countries' relationships became a tad strained ... it was amazing stuff to be honest. Then as climate change-global warming-greenhouse issues exploded onto the agenda & our COP's kept us informed ... eg who was capturing and using rainwater off major industrial buildings on our site. And when Santos had probs with their Moomba site - put it out of action for a while - where the national business media even "rabbited" on about such obscure technical issues as "Liquid Metal Embrittlement of Aluminium by Mercury at cryogenic temperatures", then I, who was a materials engineer and not a chemical engineer at all, was asked to help out the chemical engineering community understand what it meant for them. Such an amazing amount of knowledge so freely shared and willingly accepted ..... by members of the ostensibly technologist / engineering "Hermit Crabs" COP's ... we just wanted to get on with creating solutions ... the "PR" spin and politicking could be left to others ....

But then Microsoft Sharepoint arrived ... actually I am a big user of Sharepoint Wikis along with our COP's ... but it was as though anything that preceded Sharepoint was no longer. It was rather telling for me when one IT bod, who helps me out heaps, looked at me in wonderment when I mentioned the COP's - he had forgotten all about them and seemed perplexed that the engineering and like technologists were still using them. But, in fact many COP's still continued ... it was such a nice easy way to share news in your community and ask a question when you needed help. And if you wanted to post a document, then you could make a few comments and ask your community what they thought. And it was so easy to set up a COP ... whereas setting up a Sharepoint site just seemed so tortuous ... official approval and not nearly as friendly and welcoming as our much loved COP's. But no IT geeks were looking after them ... nor was anyone paying for them .... but they continued to deliver value. Unfortunately we Hermit Crabs forgot to tell anyone "the elevator messages" & how much benefit they brought ... so many lessons not having to be relearned ... so much time and $'s saved! We just forgot to share that good news...

Then one day a key IT geek decided to announce that the COP's would be defunct .. he gave lots of notice... but he announced it on the top level COP page that virtually no one ever uses ... and there was no official announcement to the administrators of the 80++ COP's. And of course most people have short cuts for their individual COP and haven't looked at the main page in years .. literally! And then he asked a question on a top level COP page ... again no one ever used that one either ... if they had a question of course everyone went straight to the most appropriate of the 80++ COP's. The IT geek had perceived that the recorded hit rate for each COP might have been higher than the real one.... but actually it was probably the reverse .... especially with the flow-on as team members shared the emails they received from the COP with others.

So after a couple of weeks with no response to his announcement, nor to his test question, both posted to the 2 areas that were rarely ever used, the IT geek convinced himself that the COP's were dead. There seemed to be no passionate owners of sites. So perhaps no one would even notice if they were archived onto tape and just disappeared .... But, had he drilled down to individual COP's, he would have found several dozen that were still active and flourishing ... with very passionate owners .... in fact many organizations pursuing Knowledge programmes would have been ecstatic with such shared activity.

During this all of this phase my laptop motherboard died, so I was off the air in total ignorance. When the laptop was reincarnated, I went to post a message onto a COP ... as my organization, like so many around the globe, was at that point taking in the global financial situation ... and I had been posting to fellow COP members around the globe ... seeking their input to create a composite assessment of a changed regulatory situation in one of our markets.

And thus I found myself greeted with "Analysis of Comunities of Practice usage logs indicates that the COP is not being used. This application will be decomissioned and the information it contains archived on 10th Nov 2009. If you wish to maintain any COP functionality you will need to migrate the particular COP into a Sharepoint teams site." .... It was all a bit like "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".... remember that from way back when ..... the main character is told that his home is to be demolished for something like an intergalactical superhighway.

A few excitable phone calls followed ... the IT geek acknowledged that finally someone with passion had responded to his message .... a bit like sending out messages to aliens in the galaxies and hoping they speak English ??? ... remember Stephen Spielberg's ET :"Phone home"??

Some postings to key users of various COP's followed. The result was like one of David Gurteen's "reverse brainstorms" as it dawned on fairly conservative engineers that "the plug might be pulled". In fact I got a few calls demanding that I not axe their COP's ... ironic in that I was trying to achieve an orderly "change management and transition to Sharepoint" process. It then emerged that no migration project plan had been put in place

... a day or so later the "Hitchhiker... " like message had been pulled from the main COP website.. We COP users were told not to panic ... that it was now all going to be fixed in the proper IT-like project management way .... just like an IT Programme Office should do it, according to my "other half" who runs such an IT Programme Office.

In the meantime the global community continued and my COP maintained contact across Asia, Europe, Asia and the Pacific ... not withstanding our "Hitchhiker" style fright.

And so we the "cranky" technologist/engineering "Hermit Crabs", with apologies to Arthur Shelley's "The Organizational Zoo", had to realise that we needed to do the "elevator messages" to key stakeholders ... ... of how the Knowledge initiatives benefit our organization ... to politik, spin & drag the IT "Whales" back out to sea ... just in time saving these "Whales" from in fact "beaching" us all.