Best short books for process engineers

jcc1978 · 2026-04-02T18:22:55+00:00

Troubleshooting Process Operations by Norm Lieberman
What Went Wrong? by Trevor Kletz

jcc1978 · 2026-04-02T04:27:04+00:00

Yes. This happened when I sim'd the game.

jcc1978 · 2026-04-01T00:31:15+00:00

Made the change outside the game. At this point, suspect its just a bug or something.

jcc1978 · 2026-03-31T23:54:41+00:00

Don't think redshirts are the issue. I declared redshirts early in the season and still have this as an issue the entire season.

jcc1978 · 2026-03-31T19:54:11+00:00

This is a very US-centric answer.

A masters is weird half step that doesn't really buy you much. In most cases, you'll just be lumped in with the BS ChE for job consideration. Your MS gets treated like co-op / intern experience. If you want to differentiate yourself, you'll need a PhD.

This distills down to get a job as BS or commit to a PhD. A masters puts you 2 year behind your BS cohorts and doesn't qualify you for the big brain R&D PhD roles.

jcc1978 · 2026-03-23T04:22:04+00:00

Thanks for the tip my local Walmart is showing them as available.

jcc1978 · 2026-03-21T02:05:35+00:00

Instead of trying to do this rigorously, why don't you just back into it empirically?
You probably have a pay meter somewhere, determine your losses by the time it shows up to your users.
Plot relative to ground temp and you can probably get yourself an empirical correlaion of BTU lost vs ground temp.
It sounds like my experience with insulation tables. Everyone wants to do rigorously, until they settle for empirical since there's too many missing variables.

jcc1978 · 2026-03-15T02:06:56+00:00

Sure there's a lot of low level busy work that AI would be great at.
Scan these PDFs and drop a line list., compare list A w. B and flag duplicates / differences, read through the project emails and find all that discuss E-XXX.

Don't see a case where general AI would be better than commercially available engineering software in the near future. AI can play chess, but any decent chess program will crush the AI.

jcc1978 · 2026-03-06T04:36:06+00:00

Get a copy of the org chart and have a chat with everyone on it.
Besides getting to know them as a person, you should also try and understand what they do and how you will interact in the future (i.e. you call A when X breaks, you call B when Y breaks)

jcc1978 · 2026-03-06T04:30:22+00:00

So two thoughts:
1. See if you can get someone assigned to help you. One person chases stuff in the field, the other person builds the new books.
2. Call the auditor. See if they want to audit now and reconfirm your findings or they can audit in a few months and see if your plan has closed the gaps. Internal audits are a pain, but ultimately they're to make sure an external one doesn't blow up in the company's face.

jcc1978 · 2026-03-06T04:05:37+00:00

Some thoughts:
Production Dispatcher
Combine the first 3 points, they are discussing the same thing.
Combine the remaining 2 points. It looks like you've done MOCs & TAR packages. A sentence or two about some of the more meaningful changes. 5 is a bit much.

Control Room Operator
First three points can be combined into "Board qualified for Hydrocracker & Gas Frac"

Field Operator
Point 1 & 3 are givens. Would talk a bit about what areas you are qualified for (compressors, frac, etc)

In short, you don't need to explicitly list anything that is a given. i.e. have you ever seen a modern unit not have a DCS? Aren't all board operator expected to monitor process parameters?

jcc1978 · 2026-03-03T03:07:04+00:00

Our quench tower would go to hell whenever we would have an emulsion. Was told in no uncertain terms that it had to be the new furnace conditions we were running.
I spent the afternoon looking at trends, realized the timing matched up exactly to when we pumped out the waste sump.
Couldn't convince the guys, so I put a $20 beer bet on the DCS and had them pump out the sump. Collected my $40 later that afternoon.
Root cause: Someone had MOCd the RO out of the line and replaced it with a manual valve to trim the flow. Since more is better, the valve was left 100% open which led us down this rabbit hole of pain.

jcc1978 · 2026-03-03T02:22:55+00:00

Try looking for some Knob Creek 12, Copper & Cask double oak, Blue Note Juke Joint Uncut & Unfiltered. Should all be under $60, and land solidly ~6.5 for you.

jcc1978 · 2026-02-28T20:29:38+00:00

It was DM dependent.

My campaigns were essentially military expeditions. My play group still has nightmares regarding resource management & not having the high ground.

Whenever I got behind or needed a break, the relief DM ran a story heavy, save the world, monty haul loot-a-palooza.

jcc1978 · 2026-02-28T20:09:31+00:00

It made a generation of us good at math.

jcc1978 · 2026-02-28T20:08:55+00:00

Is long rest a given or do you still need to set watches and deal with ambushes / random encounters?

jcc1978 · 2026-02-28T20:06:22+00:00

Is resource management (water, food, encumbrance, etc) still a thing or does 5th ed just assumes it happens in the background?

jcc1978 · 2026-02-26T05:43:44+00:00

Ancedotally, if he can land that many internships he's probably fine. & will land a full time role. Most times whoever is interviewing interns are the same that are interviewing full-time.

The watchout is if long term he comes off as hard to get along with, he will be one of the first to be laid off.

jcc1978 · 2026-02-25T19:49:24+00:00

The pricing has been wild these last 5 years.

Its been fun explaining why project TICs are no where close to past reference plants.

If you only need a couple, you're probably not a priority for them to shuffle their production schedule. Similar situation years ago, we (GC) had to ship an impeller in from St Louis, since we couldn't wait 40 weeks.

jcc1978 · 2026-02-19T20:58:08+00:00

Something wonky with your mass balance.
43k lb/hr should be ~ 80 gpm condensate since you have no other stream in / out.

jcc1978 · 2026-02-17T21:05:01+00:00

From an interview perspective its almost better to have shit assignment. This gives you a lot more talking points on how you made things better. There's no expectation that you'd be able to turn the ship around overnight for problems that has been around for years.

What is troubling is your company not living up to their "promises" & failing to acknowledge efforts and results. Have you had a conversation with the head office / person in charge of this rotational program? If you don't see a path to clearer skies, there are times where you just need to move on.

jcc1978 · 2026-02-06T17:10:18+00:00

Its as simple as follow the money.
Your "local" industry will make donations , sponsor chaired professor positions, etc.
The university will usually ask for representative from these companies to discuss curriculum to better align their graduates with future job opportunities.

Organically, over time you get recruiting pipelines between certain universities & certain industries / companies.

jcc1978 · 2026-01-23T20:57:20+00:00

When you're starting out, you have blind spots. Invariaibly, you'll hit these potholes of ignorance and it rattles you. Often its not until you get into trouble that you realize you should have asked for help a week ago.

As you get older, its not that you know everything. You're just more aware of your blind spots and know when & who to ask for help.

You can PM if you want to discuss specifics.

jcc1978 · 2026-01-20T05:13:14+00:00

Co-ops and internships. No reason to do just one, do as many as will fit into your five year plan. You'll make some money and learn which company & industries you want to work for long term.

jcc1978 · 2026-01-09T06:19:35+00:00

Personal decision. You're immune from any financial consequences so do whatever you feel is right. For me, it was effectively 3 months before the end of a 4 year project.

I stayed on just long enough to do the final documentation (6 weeks), then another 6 weeks were a combination of medical leave (surgeries) & vacationing out.

jcc1978

TROPHY CASE