So Much More To Learn

Hey everyone,

My time in California has continued to be fantastic.  Outside of work I have spent time with my cousins in Pasadena.  We have also gone hiking near Laguna, and went indoor rock climbing the other day.  All in all, it’s been fun to just explore the surrounding area.

Picture From Laguna

Okay but back to my research.  So it was brought but that in the commotion of trying to finalize where I will be working for this research project, I never mentioned the exact topic of my research.  Sorry about that, but here it is: I hope to find what current improvements are being made to the oil refinery process to increase productivity.  Well, lucky for me, the work I have been doing at Fluor are on projects that are revamping refineries to improve productivity.  

My first week (last week) was dominated by trying to get a grasp on what was going on around me.  I did a lot of research and asked a lot of questions, and by the end of the week I was able to generally understand the discussions going on around me.  I’ve had to learn quickly, and every time I feel I gain a footing I’m shown that I still have SO SO MUCH to learn.  I love that though, and the epitome of that was my second week.

In my second week at Fluor I was put on another project that is working on revamping a refinery.  They are at an earlier stage in the project, and the engineer I am working under graduated from Colorado School of Mines. On this project I have been given work to edit documents and drawings that will be used to plan the project.  This has helped me to learn the process directly, and has challenged how fast I can learn.  

During my time at Fluor, I have also had the incredible opportunity to have meetings with many different people at many different levels in the company.  Through these meetings I am able to gain insight into the difference roles of a mechanical and process engineers at Fluor.  In short the process engineers are more responsible for planning the project as a whole, and the mechanical engineers are responsible for implementing it.  This means that mechanical also has more business and logistical responsibilities.  These are by far not the only two groups working on making the project work, but they are the two I am most interested in myself.  I still do not know which one interests me more, but the biggest take away for me is that regardless of the choice I make, it will not be a bad one for me.    

As far as information pertinent to my project, I am working on organizing what I have learned, and will be writing about that in the coming weeks.

Stephen

And So it Begins...

Hey everyone,

So I have now found myself in Southern California, and I love it here.  I am staying with my cousins in Pasadena and just generally enjoying my time.  However, I am working in Orange County.  For those unfamiliar not caught up on their California geography, this is a 1-1.5 hour drive with little to no traffic, and a 2 hour at best at rush hour.  Luckily (kind of), on my way there in the morning I start driving at 5:30am so there is light traffic, on the way back, well I make good progress on my book on tape and make some phone calls (In car bluetooth, so don't worry I'm not breaking CA law) to pass the time.  I don’t like to complain though, I have an amazing opportunity at Fluor, and any way to take advantage of that is completely worthwhile.

Speaking of my time at Fluor, I had a great first week there.  I am shadowing engineers working on revamping a refinery.  Currently I am mostly working with Process Engineers (A type of Chemical Engineering), and next week I will also be observing some Mechanical Engineers.  Everyone is extremely helpful and is more than happy to give advice as well as answering all of my questions.  Furthermore, I have been very lucky with the amount of chances they are providing me to observe and learn about the industry.  I have been included on an incredible amount of meetings.  From what I can tell, there are three main levels of personnel on the project: Project Managers, Disciplinary Leads (Process, Mechanical, etc.), and Engineers.  I have been able to attend meetings that include all three levels.  I began with a team meeting between the Process Engineer lead and the Process engineers, and also attending the Project Manager meeting as well as the team meeting between the Project Managers and Disciplinary leads.

From these meetings and my time there so far I have been able to learn not only about engineering itself, but a lot about the overall industry and how business is conducted.  The day of the Project Manager meeting and team meeting between the Project Managers and Leads was on the same day.  This allowed me to see the flow of information from Managers to the Leads, and I was most impressed with how fast problems were dealt with.  For example, there were a few obstacles the Managers were debating how to solve in their meeting, and when the team meeting came a few hours later they had decided how they would like the problem dealt with, and only a few hours after that the Engineers were already working down that path to the solution.  

Overall, I am learning a lot in a very short amount of time.  I will share more of what I have learned that is industry specific in the coming weeks.  I will not be disclosing any material specific to the project for obvious reasons, but I will take what I have learned and apply it to my more general terms of wanting to learn how refineries will be changed and advanced in the future.  

Oh, and while this is a few weeks late, it still needs to be said: Go Broncos!

Stephen