Sticky Toffee Pudding

There is this picture that I float around from time to time. As you might imagine, there’s a story behind it – one I have not recorded. But that’s what blogs are for, right? So, here it is ...

“If it weren’t for my career in compressor engineering,
I would never have discovered TREACLE SPONGE!”

 

Engineering, compressors, the Lancashire District in northwest England, and treacle sponge all came together. Not suddenly, by any means. And by “not suddenly,” I mean it is a long story. So, how to start? “It was a dark and stormy night ...” doesn’t really set the stage upon which this story played out; “I was born on ...” probably offers up a little too much room to wander. What did I decide? Read on ...

 

This is a story first about Chris and Jack. And Jack. That’s Chris on the left, standing next to Jack Hughes. The other Jack, me, is taking the picture. I ended up in front of the offices and factory of Holroyd Machine Tools and Rotors in Milnrow, Rochdale, UK because of screw compressor rotors. And, in particular, the complicated issues of designing and making them. Holroyd was a world class operation in the latter, Trane was learning much about the former. Together, and along with other engineers in our companies, we made tremendous strides on the engineering side of things in both categories.

 

Chris Holmes and Jack Hughes at the Offices of
Holroyd Machine Tools and Rotors, Milnrow, Rochdale, UK

 

Chris and Jack, with the exception of being very British, were quite different. Chris is brilliant in the theories of problems Holroyd faced when it came to manufacturing rotors and the machines that made the rotors. He invented a remarkable device that measures the clearance between a pair of rotors using light beams – the method in place at the time was for skilled technicians to use feeler gauges. That he could visualize the problem and turn that first into mathematical representations then an actual machine boggles the mind – my mind, at least.

 

Chris and his invention for measuring the tiny gaps
between two screw compressor rotors

 

Jack was, as I knew him, brilliant in knowing what to do based on looking and feeling the parts – truly a ‘hands-on’ engineer. He certainly had a working knowledge of, and appreciation for, the theories, but what impressed me was that he could look at a pair of rotors, take a few readings, spin them around together, then tell the operator of the machine that made them what to do so that the next pair was made more closely to the targets. He couldn’t exactly explain how he did it in a way that I could incorporate what he knew in the models I was developing - because he was so practiced that he just KNEW – but his contribution to our work was invaluable.

 

Jack Hughes was a master of the hands-on approach. He could translate his feel into instructions for machine tool settings needed to rectify deviations

And Jack was not just hard to understand in this way. He had a deep Lancashire accent and, I believe, a speech issue. I was barely able to speak with him on the phone as I found that I had to be able to look at him when we talked. So, we wrote back and forth, and I was able to make countless trips to Holroyd and spend face-to-face time with him and Chris.

 

It was on one of those trips ...

 

We went to lunch one day at the Black Ladd Free House on a windswept hilltop in the moors above Rochdale. It was a spectacularly beautiful / dreary landscape of rolling hills divided into sections by low stone walls, the fields being mostly grass or heather, peppered with stones. The pub itself was (and still is) a wonderful half-timbered structure with uneven floors and, well, everything else an American would expect in a British pub.

 

The Black Ladd

The view across from the Black Ladd

 

After we had finished our lunch, the waiter came over and asked if we’d like some sweets (dessert). It sounded like a properly good idea, so he brought us a menu. Jack (the other one) was looking it over when he spotted something that brought him up short. His eyes opened wide and he said, rather loudly and in his best Jack Hughes modified Lancashire accented voice, “Aye – ye gott tre’cle spounge! Ah ha’not ha tre’cle spounge since I’s a wee lad on the farm! I’ll ha the tre’cle spounge!”

When it came my turn to order, I had no choice but to order treacle sponge.

 

Treacle sponge pudding is a sponge cake cooked with and then smothered in treacle, “any uncrystallized syrup made during the refining of sugar.” The golden syrupy form of treacle is what we had on our puddings. The darker version is more familiarly known as molasses.

 

So that takes care of the connection between engineering, compressor, and TREACLE SPONGE on the picture. But why did I get the picture?

 

Another connection my screw compressor focus had to Great Britain was the bi-annual “International Conference on Compressors and Their Systems,” held at City University in London. There was a good connection between City and Holroyd, the latter being a major sponsor of the event. In particular, Holroyd would host some of the social events. I attended and presented papers at every conference since 1999, skipping only 2017, something I missed enough to have returned to participate in the 2019 conference, mostly for the chance to meet with so many people that have become friends over the years.

 

Conferences were an important part of my work and I attended many. Notable are: farthest afield - St. Petersburg, Russia; the “big three” for me, with a total of 29 visits amongst them - Compressor conferences at Purdue University, City University London, and TU University Dortmund; least distant - the one at our offices in La Crosse.

 

It is that last one that set things in motion. Our engineering group decided it would be a good idea to have a company-wide conference. We invited people from other sites to come; to present papers; to spend time to share best practices. By any measure, it was a small affair. But it was harder than we imagined, arranging the logistics. Meeting rooms, meals, AV equipment, printing, mailing, etc. All the things needing to be in the right place at the right time. We pulled it off. But it was a lesson.

 

The conferences in London ended with a very nice evening dinner and reception during which toasts were made to the Queen and recognition given to the organizing committee for doing a fine job, And, they had done so. But I now knew that the WORK was being done by the students “recruited” to help with the arrangements and by the professionals of the events and facilities staffs. The people who knew all of the ins and outs of really big gatherings so well that they were not noticed. So, at one of the early conferences, I asked if I could share a toast. After the organizers were recognized, I stood and offered thanks to the secretaires, the students, the event specialists, the chair and table movers, the wait staff - pretty much all of the those whose efforts I had learned about in preparation for this time.

 

After that, I had time at the end of every conference dinner. Now this will be hard to accept, I know, but I expanded on what I had offered originally, mostly to recognize the value of the conference itself to the attendees, to encourage them to attend and participate, and to encourage their managers to let them come. One time, I recruited someone I had just met at the conference, Dimitri Zeitsev, by giving him an apple and asking him to just react at the right time, telling him he’d know. He accepted without pause. At the end of the meal, I stood up and held out an apple – Dimitri, as if we had rehearsed this a hundred times, stood up and held out his. I proceeded to have us exchange our apples then shared the quote, “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” The purpose, in my view, and real benefit of participating in the conferences.

 

And so it went over the years. I’d research ideas, usually with a nod towards something British, and offer some thoughts and thanks. One year, I thought I’d look into British inventions for ideas. I found a list with some intriguing entries: the “Puffing Billy,” and the “Grasshopper Escapement” got my attention. But then I spotted something that brought me up short. My eyes opened wide and I said, “Sticky Toffee Pudding” is an actually cited British invention. Treacle sponge is a sticky toffee pudding ...

 

So I planned a talk and wove in the story of Jack Hughes and his reuniting with treacle sponge at the Black Ladd.

 

A few conferences later I was on the verge of becoming retired. The evening gathering was held in the magnificent library of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers at their offices on 1 Birdcage Walk - my absolute all-time favorite address, by the way. As I was about to sit down at the end of my short talk, Chris and a colleague from Holroyd stopped me then pulled out a wrapped package. No doubt, you know what it was.

 

The Library at the IMechE Offices in London

 

I am, admittedly, a saver of things. Too many, no doubt, but I still do it. This one, this picture, is one of the most treasured of all. Because of its connection to many, many stories of a long and important time in my career during which I was privileged to have worked with such a great number of truly amazing people - many more than are mentioned in this ‘short’ version.

 

And, regrettably, it’s not really a bad likeness.

And, now you know.

Control Theory

There is a chance I learned something about control theory aboard the SS Bradford Island, the WWII vintage T2 tanker on which I had a summer job while in college. And, there’s a chance I didn’t. But I’ll go with the former.

The SS Bradford Island

It was an interesting summer, to say the least, and during my 3 month tour, I wore several uniforms. One was when I earned unheard of wages (for a college kid in the 1960’s) doing turns with the tank-cleaning squad; the other was for my primary role as waiter in the officers’ mess. You can sort out for yourselves how to match the photos with the jobs.

 Work Uniforms

The Gulf of Mexico was a quite a tranquil place in the summer of 1968 and that made for smooth sailing – not a bad thing for someone who had to carry trays full of food and drink from the galley to the officers' dining room three times a day. But there was this one day. When the swells rose to the level of the bridge and the ship actually bobbed and rolled. My first trip of the morning demonstrated I was neither in control of the tray nor the water in the glasses I was carrying. I was dreading the next trip when I’d have orange juice and coffee. But one of the veterans stepped in and gave me this advice: “Do not look at the tray as you are carrying it.” It worked!

 

Being the curious sort, I wondered how that could be. Several years later, and with some more education and work experience under my belt, what came to me was that looking at the tray allowed me to see the water sloshing around, first to the left of the glass, then to the right. My mind would step in to give instructions: "Quick! Tilt the tray to the RIGHT! Now to the LEFT! STOP moving it!" But the control system was not good enough. It took too long to see the issue, process it, come up with a plan, and send the instructions. And the response system wasn’t so good either, tilting too far, or too fast, or not fast enough. All in all, trying to react to the sight of the impending disaster actually hastened it.

 

All of this leads to, as I am sure you have anticipated, two editorials in the October 27 edition of Wall Street Journal. Each with its own story of good intentions and unintended consequences. One about dishwashers [1] and the other about "protecting Congolese citizens from warlords ..." [2].

 

In the first case, the authors report, "Regulations on energy and water usage—tightened in 2013 ... mean that dishwashers now take at least two hours to complete a full wash cycle. Dishes may still emerge with pieces of last night’s lasagna baked on.” The regulation was intended to reduce water and energy consumption. But, "People responded to poor dishwasher performance by pre-rinsing each dish before putting it through their washers, wasting more water, or running their dishwashers twice, wasting water and energy."

 

In the case of the Congolese miners, the issue started when, according to the editorial’s authors, a "last-minute provision (was) inserted into the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul in 2010. That law's Section 1502 forces manufacturers to disclose if any of their products contain 'conflict minerals' mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and nine adjoining countries in Africa." They go on to explain that "Under the law, companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges must audit their supply chains and disclose if their products contain even traces of the designated minerals—gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten—that might have been mined in areas controlled by warlords."

 

How did the citizens of the Democratic Republic of the Congo benefit? The authors explain, "... the effects of the conflict-minerals mandate proved to be devastating for those it aimed to help ... manufacturers spent about $709 million and more than six million man-hours attempting to trace their supply chains for conflict minerals in 2014. And 90% of those companies still couldn't confirm their products were conflict-free. Many decided to avoid the Congo region altogether and source materials from other countries and continents. When mining dropped off ... villages were hit by reductions in education, health care and food supply. In 2014, 70 activists, academics, and government officials signed a letter blasting initiatives like the Dodd-Frank provision for ‘contributing to, rather than alleviating, the very conflicts they set out to address.' Any lasting effects? The article points out that "... targeting 'conflict materials' has shrunk the medical supply chain for components of everything from ventilators to vaccine needles and syringes." Imagine why that's an issue now.

 

Regulators are going to regulate. But once the important, high level issues are addressed, maybe it would be best if they stopped. A law, perhaps, like the First Law of Holes: When you are in in one, stop digging.

 

When the regulation becomes a mandated, step-by-step, process covering actions from the supplier, manufacturer, and end user with the implied assumption that each incremental action will seamlessly mesh with all of the others to produce the intended results, you might, instead, find yourself carrying a tray of empty glasses across a wet floor.

[1] A Rule for Cleaner Dishes, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board; WSJ Opinion Section, October 27, 2020.

[2] Dodd-Frank Undermines the Fight Against Covid, John Berlau and Seth Carter; WSJ Opinion Section, October 27, 2020.

Perfectionists

“Lock, stock, and barrel.” You’ve probably heard this used many times. I know I have. But I never knew – actually I never even thought about – where it came from. That all changed when I read Simon Winchester’s book, “The Perfectionists – How Precision Engineers Changed the World.” This book, also published in the UK as “Exactly – How … ,“ is either history told against the backdrop of engineering progress or the story of the development of extreme precision and accuracy with historical anecdotes. Whatever...

The book highlights some watershed events in the development of effective and efficient manufacturing processes, the underpinning for virtually everything we use – and often take for granted. One example is the story of the flintlock rifle, the go-to weapon of its time. Perhaps its biggest weakness was revealed when one failed due to wear, manufacturing defects, or damage. The soldier with such a weapon had only one recourse – find a gunsmith to make new parts. There was such a lack of precision and accuracy in the manufacturing processes that each gun was made of tediously selected parts to fit with each other. There was almost no chance that a spare lock mechanism part or wooden gunstock would fit with parts in the damaged weapon.

The solution involved war, a US President, French technology, and a competition with a bit of subterfuge – but, no spoilers here. In the end, a wide range of manufacturing disciplines and processes were developed such that whether the lock mechanism, the gun stock, or its barrel were damaged, a replacement part could be taken from an inventory of spare parts. Lock, stock, and barrel.

This is an engaging book. Perhaps a bit more so if you are an engineer, but the writing and connection with the history of things with which we are all familiar make it, in my opinion, a good choice for anyone.

There is this Thing ...

Water is life's . . . mother and medium. There is no life without water.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Water is life, and clean water means health.

Audrey Hepburn

There is this thing, the “rule of threes:” You can live for 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food. Look into this and you’ll find that there are, of course, exceptions. But it does put into perspective the sense of urgency required when addressing insufficiencies in these vital elements of life.

The purpose of Global Hope Network International’s (GHNI) Transformational Community Development (TCD) program is to bring villages mired in extreme poverty to a state of sustainable self-sufficiency. There is structure to the approach. When a village is engaged, projects are planned in the areas of Water, Nutrition, Wellness, Education, and Income Generation. Project details are based on the current state of the village. But the village is ALWAYS expected to actively participate in planning and executing the projects, to engage in the coaching that is central to TCD, and carry out their roles to the best of their ability.

You might guess from the rule of threes that water is a big deal. And it is. But it might be even more important than you imagine. This is the first of three four (I had more to say than originally planned, I guess!) posts in which I share my experiences with TCD water projects in two villages in central Kenya.

It was a water project that introduced me to TCD in action during my first visit to central Kenya in 2011. Then, in 2014, I saw first-hand the issue of water in a new light; it broke my heart and steeled my commitment to provide whatever help I could to the TCD program.

One of the homes in the village of Bulesa Dima (2011)

Bulesa Dima was my introduction to the villages in the area around Isiolo Town in central Kenya. It is at once beautiful and terrible. Stunningly picturesque; hot and dry. OK to visit; hard to live in. I have had five opportunities for the former, but never the struggle of the latter.

After the stop there, we moved on to visit the four other TCD villages. Of particular interest to me was the time we would spend at Ola Nagele, then the newest village in the program and the one for which I had become one of one-hundred sponsors in 2010.

Ola Nagele is conveniently located just over 3 miles north of the center of Isiolo Town and just off the paved highway that runs to the Ethiopian border, 257 miles away. Convenient, because the people have access to the town with its markets and because there is a municipal water line running alongside of the highway. But nearby and accessible are not the same thing.

People in Ola Nagele, as did those in villages farther out in the rough bush, had to go out and find, collect, and carry water every day. Here is how Wubshet and Habiba Mengesha, GHNI’s National Leaders in Kenya, described the early days as GHNI began to bring the village into the TCD program:

“When GHNI started their program in Ola Nagele, the main challenge which the community faced was water; no borehole or water stream nearby, but rather the people walk over 5 to 10 km in search of this precious commodity. The main Isiolo water pipe could not supply this village simply because the communities are poor and they could not afford the pipes to pull the water from the main pipe which passes by the main highway.”

It might have been fairly easy for GHNI to arrange a connection to the water line, but that is not the way the program works. Here is more from Wubshet and Habiba on how things progressed:

“… we established the (village water) committee and brainstorm on how to go about this problem in conjunction with Isiolo Water and Sewerage Ministry ...”

There is important information in this statement. All villages engaging in the TCD program appoint leaders and form committees for TCD focus areas. GHNI staff mentor the committees as they look for low cost, low tech, locally appropriate solutions to the problems they are charged with solving. Some of the most important contributions to the village occur in meetings with the GHNI staff.

Wubshet meeting with Ola Nagele leaders

Habiba discusses water project with the village elder

It was probably obvious that connecting to the municipal supply would be the easiest way to supply the village. So, discussions included the Isiolo Water and Sewerage Ministry. Through their active participation in the meetings, village leaders learned important skills in relating their situation to others who might be engaged in a solution.

What happened as a result of the meetings? Again, we hear from Wubshet and Habiba:

“...we bought pipes and community digged the trench over 2 km and we also built a tower tank in a central position where everybody could come and fetch the water at small fee for maintenance ...”

Building the base for the first water tank in Ola Nagele

Raising the tank onto the base

The village welcomed the flowing water as soon as it was let through the pipe from the municipal supply and further celebrated when the large storage tank was mounted on its base and connected to the piping ...

Water is flowing into Ola Nagele

The tank is connected and showering residents from its contents

The village could, for the first time, look forward to a nearby, ready supply of clean water. It was a good time for sure.

Coming up next: Life’s not all Daisies and Hot Dogs

Life’s not all Daisies and Hotdogs

Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.

John Adams

There was understandable excitement in the village of Ola Nagele when water started flowing into the large, black tank sitting atop its newly constructed wooden base. People had a nearby source of clean water; true, they had to collect it in the ubiquitous 20-liter yellow jerry cans and haul it back to their meager homes, but the trip was now one of meters, not kilometers.

Connecting to the municipal water line with a large buffer tank was a low cost, low tech, locally appropriate solution to the village’s water problems. Much of the cost of the tank and piping was provided by village sponsors and donors through Global Hope Network International. But, as the water came from the municipal system in Isiolo Town, there was a charge and the bill had to be paid monthly for this solution to be sustainable. The village water committee’s decision was to have each person drawing water from the tank pay a small fee, just a few Kenyan shillings, an amount of about 5 cents. The committee would then arrange to pay the bill on behalf of the village each month.

And thus, it was settled. Or was it?

Not long after everything was in place, the base collapsed. The tank, which, if just half-full of water, would have weighed 5,500 pounds, crashed to the ground, splitting asunder as it came to the dramatic and disheartening end to its all-too-short useful life.

A setback for the village

The tank was, without doubt, destroyed. The villagers? Dismayed, dispirited, despondent, distressed, disenchanted, disillusioned? How could they not be? During my 2011 visit to the area, after this setback, I met Priscila, an intern with GHNI and collecting data for her thesis work. She summed up the difficult life people in the villages faced this way: “Life’s not all daisies and hotdogs.” No ma’am, it certainly is not.

But there’s this thing:
Visits to Africa have allowed me to experience a variety of mishaps, one of serious significance, others not so much except for the magnifying effect of being in Africa, where I am at home about as much as a tuxedo at a square dance. I try achieving an appearance not reflecting internal turmoil. It is easier to pull this off as my African companions invariably exude calm. About the only evidence that something has happened is their smooth, easy shift from what was engaging us before to attention to the calamity at hand. The calmness is only surpassed by their problem-solving abilities; by themselves or with the help of “bystanders,” people not connected with our mission but who gather to help to set things straight. At times the “African Swiss army knife,” the ubiquitous mobile phone, is used to call in reinforcements.

Not being there, I cannot say for sure how things evolved, but the result tells me it was not much different for the calamity of the collapsing tank than for the lesser inconveniences I had seen incurred, attacked, and dealt with. First, GHNI and the water committee sought the cause of the collapse; it seemed the rather small, round poles used to support the base upon which the tank sat were too easily pushed into the soil; since not all the poles sank at the same rate, the base tilted until the tank, leaning beyond the point of no return, toppled to the ground.

It’s never good to have problems and for sure a big one in a place where every day is full of them. But, once done, it is best to extract as much benefit from them as you can. In this case, the village, GHNI, and local experts in the town identified the problem, determined an appropriate solution and executed the new, robust design in the dry soil of Ola Nagele.

   

A strong concrete platform atop rebar reinforced pillars sitting on deep, sturdy footings

New base, new tank and a new day for Ola Nagele

 Once again, and this time for good, water flowed into the village. Life’s not ALL daisies and hotdogs. But there are those special days …

When I arrived in Ola Nagele in 2011, the new tank was serving the village well; so well, in fact, that work had started on laying pipe from it to the location of a second tank. Some had already been put down with about 200 yards to go to bring it to the site identified for the new tank.

It was sunny, hot, and dry in the village. We walked along the road, wispy clouds of dust marking our footfalls. It seemed even the parched soil could not muster the energy to rise much above our shoe tops. It does rain in Ola Nagel. Not so often, though, and it is not unusual for what rain that does fall to come in on a brief, intense storm. We experienced this during our visit. The ground turns to mud - until the sun comes out and quickly bakes it back into the more familiar hard, cracked surface. 

Road in Ola Nagele

Occasionally muddy, it is most often this hard, dry, sun baked surface

We arrived to find the water engineer, retained by GHNI to handle a few of the technical details, busily engaged in preparing piping in anticipation of completion of the shallow trench. In the pictures below he is making a joint by heating the end of a pipe section; when it gets soft, he gently inserts a short section of pipe, prepared just for this purpose, expanding the warmed plastic to just the right size for it to fit over end of pipe already in the trench. Low cost, low tech, locally appropriate …

Preparing pipes with a small fire and homemade “joint sizer”

There were several people at the site when we arrived, but only the water engineer was busy. After introductions, Wubshet provided us a brief review of the project to date and expectations for the day. A group of men were to be here to continue digging the trench though that had obviously not happened yet. Wubshet and Habiba had conversations with a few of the women from the village and we waited. Eventually, a group of eight to ten men carrying rough made and well used digging implements arrived, but stopped short of coming all the way to where Wubshet was waiting.

So, Wubshet walked across the short distance and engaged the men in what would turn out to be about a 30-minute discussion. When he came back to where we were waiting, he explained that the men had said they needed to be paid for the work. They would normally go into town to get work, they told him, and what they made in a day was what they would have for food for their families the next. I cannot imagine this was news to Wubshet, but he engaged them in a negotiation, starting off by reminding them that the materials and the water engineer had been provided for water for THEIR village; and, the village had an obligation to participate as they were able. The question of how long the project would take them came up and, eventually, all agreed it would be a two-day job.

With that settled, Wubshet offered to provide them with the equivalent of one-day’s pay for the two days’ work. The men agreed.

Now, as this was going on, one of the women from the village picked up a shovel and started to dig. I cannot say for sure, of course, but I do believe she was sending a message ...

Digging at the trench ... and sending a message?

Soon the men were hard at it, making good progress towards the target of a second tank making water more easily available to all parts of the village.

Hard work it is, digging in the hard, dry soil under a cloudless sky

 A good portion of the trench was dug before the end of my visit and some of that saw the piping laid and backfilled.

The water engineer laid in the pipe as the trench was dug.

Later, the men filled the trench to finish up

 During the months after I returned home, the project was completed with celebration of a second tank in the northern part of the village and a plan to keep the village in clean water. Ola Nagele had found the opportunity in the problem, making a big step forward in their journey to a sustainable, self-determined future.

Coming up next: It's Complicated