It seems that not a day goes by without our reading about someone getting caught in the processes of a system – aggreged not (necessarily) by nefarious intent, but by a process that didn’t take into consideration some set of circumstances. Sometimes, the angst endured is amplified by the subsequent processes initiated in a chain of events.
Take the situation of Dr. David Dao who, on April 9th 2017, was supposed to fly from Chicago to Louisville on United Flight 3411. Continue reading
Michael J. Graf P.E.
Government agencies continually face the challenge of addressing complex societal problems with constrained resources. Among Federal agencies, strategic planning is a common practice that helps agency leaders identify their priorities and improve performance. While strategic planning does not guarantee they will foresee all future events and issues, a risk based strategic planning process is more likely to highlight emergent trends and, as a result, agency managers are better positioned to face an uncertain future. Continue reading
Can you believe that two workers, but no management have been formally charged in the Lac Megantic railway disaster back in July 2013, what is Canadian Justice about?
The safety related laws of Canada are, generally speaking reasonably adequate, at least on paper, but the administration and enforcement of these laws can only be described as pathetic and widely influenced by politics at the highest level’. Continue reading
During the past year or so while conducting 5 Star Health & Safety Management System™ Audits, I have been astounded at the number of chemical plants and laborites where employees had not practiced, and could not use the provided eyewash stations. Continue reading
The headlines this week regarding Montreal’s eight-billion-litre untreated sewage dump came and went with a few large plumes of dark-brown water or white effluent witnessed in the St. Lawrence River and strong early morning odours in some quarters, but little visible sewage detected overall. Continue reading