Some repetitive activities don’t need to start each time with a blank page. From the iteration of previous experiences, there’s bound to be a framework, checklist, or guidance posts to help accomplish the task in a reliable, repetitive way.

This applies to the obvious things like quality control processes and measurement accuracies. It also applies to bigger picture activities like forming a new project team or writing reports. These tasks have been done before, by someone, and so there no need to start with a blank page.

Sometimes the freedom of a blank page is absolutely appropriate. Sometimes, it’s not.

The metaphor of the iceberg shows, with a recognisable image, how we sometimes only see a small part of something bigger.

What we see is above the surface, while an enormous amount of substance and depth to the issue is unseen, below the surface.

Any masterpiece we create can take on the image of an iceberg. Whether during the regular achievement of our daily tasks, or finishing a report, writing a new process standard, or coming up with a breakthrough innovation that will change the world: the product is not always indicative of the iterative process involved to get there.

Standards allow us to set expectations. A standard gives us criteria for a basis to make a judgement. There is a model or a pattern, for repeatable outcomes. With expectations set, and agreed to, we can have confidence in the reliability of the results.

Standards are relevant in our personal and our professional lives. Minimum standards are applicable in the right context. Other times it’s reasonable to strive for higher standards.

A minimum professional standard is called competence. Higher professional standards build a career. Minimum personal standards are basic societal behaviour expectations. High personal standards represent ethical and principled behaviour.

A standard is ‘an agreed way of doing something’. The ‘something’ can be the agreed way of making a product, managing a process, delivering a service, or supply of materials. Standards also apply to an ‘agreed way’ of societal things like how we drive, how we interact online, or how we learn new things.

Standards exist within businesses, within ourselves, and within our professions. Standards can be spelled out clearly, or can be unspoken and mysterious.

Setting high standards is both a help and a hindrance. It helps achieve great things, but, can lead to disappointment when they aren’t met.

“Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” John Lennon said that, to encourage experiencing life in the moment. Ok, maybe sometimes.

Plans are important to making progress. Those who spend the time to make plans tend to have a certain standard of expectations: for themselves, and for others. Those who plan tend to know what needs to be done. Those who don’t make many plans (and there are plenty) live for spontaneity. Ok, but then you can’t know when you’re making progress.

A gold-standard plan is, basically, a proposal for doing or achieving something. Sounds good to me.

Did you read the title as “resume”, as in, restart, revive, begin again, start again? That’s what I meant. Or did you read it as “resume” as in, CV, curriculum vitae, summary, what you send with a job application? Maybe it’s a colloquial thing, as the dictionary didn’t have that definition.

The English language is funny that way, with homonyms like this. Both are applicable for me today. It’s October 1st so I’ll “resume” the ole 100 words a day habit, and, being self-employed means an ongoing effort at summarising my background and skills, in a “resume” sort of way.

I grew up and went to school in the northern hemisphere (Calgary). I moved to Brisbane in 1997, so I’ve now lived in the southern hemisphere for 24 years.

In the northern hemisphere, September marks the beginning of autumn, and the new school year. It’s a time to hunker back down to work after the summer holidays.

It’s hard for me to shake the feeling that September represents a ‘new beginning’. That feeling is baked into me.

#100wordsaday is taking a break for the month of September. It’s a good time to put some of the 100-words into a book.

It’s baffled me for a while, trying to differentiate between project engineering and project management. Because in my experience, when you’re doing project engineering, it sure feels like you’re managing.

In reading this competency for Pipeline Project Engineering (but it could be for any type of project), I’ve now figured it out: the “project engineering” is the expertise around managing the project documentation.

This could be the contractual, regulatory, or technical documents. It could be any of many documents such as the design basis, approvals documents, execution plans, QA plans, variations, or the all-important closeout/handover documents.

Project engineering is documentation.

The inspection and testing of the steel pipe for pipelines is a key step in the manufacturing process. And while an engineer working with pipelines mightn’t undertake the inspections themselves, we certainly should understand the process of appointing inspectors and overseeing the program.

This is definitely an area of expertise that deserves more attention from Australian engineers and materials scientists.

To understand inspection requirements, we should understand the chemical composition of line pipe steel, the writing of the pipe specification itself, and manufacturing methods. There’s a lot to know, and it’s a fascinating area to be working in these days.

This contemporary competency applies no matter what industry you work in. In our context, it’s for pipeline construction crews working in remote areas, in some designated FIFO arrangement (28 days on/9 days off was my experience).

In addition to knowing the symptoms, factors and consequences of fatigue, engineers working with pipelines should also understand a few other things particular to pipelines. There’s often a camp environment involved, long driving travel times, dusty work conditions, and repetitive tasks.

Managing these risks is easy to write but hard to enact. Try strategies such as work cycle planning, task rotation, and fatigue recognition.

Our transmission pipelines don’t travel a straight course. They go up hills, around corners, and under rivers and roads.

When pipe is manufactured, it’s a straight piece of pipe. When steel pipe gets welded together, it’s a really long straight pipe. So, in order to go over hills and around corners, somehow it needs to be bent. Bring on the bending machine.

The bending machine has a mandrel and shoes, and hydraulics. There are engineering principles around buckling thresholds, ovality, strain, and coating flexibility. To get it just right, bending pipe is a science, but almost more of an art.

While there are many identified “core” competencies an engineer should have when working with pipelines, there are many others that are important as well.

Since our transmission pipelines traverse across a multitude of properties, features, and landforms, it’s obvious that they will also cross railways, roads, watercourses and other utilities. So knowing how those crossings are done is essential.

We need to know the depth of crossing, the contours, load calculations, as well as interfaces with CP cross bonding and even the warning sign requirements so that those going digging around their asset will know there’s a pipeline there too.

The Australian Standard for (petroleum) pipelines, numbered as AS2885 and comprising of seven parts, might in fact be heading for a rewrite, a restructure, a rethink. With the changes coming down the pipeline (see what I did there), we need to be ready for it. And that’s ok – the way forward is to keep changing.

In the meantime, though, for the near future, the current version of AS2885 is still in play. It is key to the safe operation of key linear energy assets in Australia. Each part of the suite provides requirements and guidance for engineers working with pipelines.

The principles of risk assessment and management are clear: think about the likelihood of an event along with the consequences of that event.

We do it all the time, every day, for ordinary life decisions. It’s when we try to put science to it, or explain it, or rank it, or use our judgement to make heavy decisions based on it… that’s when it gets very complicated.

In order to understand, and then manage, risk for pipelines, we must understand the principles of risk, along with many pipeline-specific considerations, such as population density, plume dispersion, damage resistance, and ignition probabilities.

Pipelines transport fluid from where it is found or manufactured, to where it will be used. Most long-distance pipelines transporting fluid are made of carbon steel. There is also a massive network of flowlines carrying fluids shorter distances, but still transporting fluid.

Therefore, a core competency for pipeline engineers is one about other materials besides steel for that transport purpose.

We’re in a changing industry, and there will be new material options in the mix. A pipeline engineer should have knowledge of many relevant (non-steel) standards, as well as the alternative materials themselves: GRE, GRUP, BRVE, RTP, PE, SS, nylon.

While it might not seem obvious at first thought, knowing about the equipment used around pipelines is a logical expectation for a pipeline engineer.

Knowing about what the machines are used for, and their sizes, capacities and technical specifications is useful for design or operational tasks. Because, if you’re responsible for that design or operation, you should also know the equipment that will be used fulfilling that design or operation.

It’s useful to be able to speak easily about the excavators, rock breakers, cranes, generators, grit blasters, side booms, trenchers, induction heating coils, pumps, air compressors, generators, graders and bulldozers.

Pipeline monitoring and control systems have developed significantly in the past few decades. The advancement of SCADA systems and their associated Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) has allowed all kinds of automation and remote management of the asset over the years.

Additionally, the communications systems (WAN and LAN), protocols and mapping have also increased in complexity in a generation.

Because of these advancements, there’s also need for power supply in remote locations, UPS and backup generators, so that we don’t lose the information flow that is relied upon for the safe operation of the remote pipeline.

Those keeping track of our journey through the pipeline competencies might remember a couple of weeks ago, a competency was described for the principles of corrosion. That competency is about the mechanisms of corrosion itself, while this one is about controlling (stopping) that corrosion.

While it’s not expressly stated in the competency description, my understanding is there are really only two effective methods of corrosion control: good coatings, and cathodic protection. Although along with knowledge of those aspects (for which there is plenty to know), a pipeline engineer should also know about interference testing requirements, earthing, stray currents and shielding.

The thing about the AS2885 suite of Standards, is that it now (since the 2018 revisions) excludes design of piping itself within a station. A pipeline engineer designing a station AS2885 requires design of everything but the piping. The piping is then designed to piping standards, like AS 4041 or B31.3.

So: station design to AS2885 is about the station layout, the electrical, the communications and corrosion protection. It’s about the location of the separators and filters, generators and heaters, vents and flares. The odorant and the meters. But AS2885 doesn’t state design rules for the piping in the station.

Hydraulics, design basis, route selection, location classification, SMS, MAOP, stress analysis, low temperature design, welding, fatigue, pipe specification, HDD, buoyancy control, corrosion mitigation, alignment sheets, GIS, instrumentation and control systems, SCADA, procurement support, hydrotesting…

The pipeline engineering competency system (PECS), which we are journeying through during this August, lists 33 dot-points for the pipeline design engineer to “know”.

The PECS already has 240 competencies to it, and the one for pipeline design lists another 33. It’s clear that a pipeline design engineer needs to know a lot! And yet, it seems there’s no one clear place to find that knowledge.