Critical Operations Power Systems

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Critical Operations Power Systems

July 29, 2025
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Disaster 500


The original University of Michigan codes and standards enterprise advocated actively in Article 708 Critical Operations Power Systems (COPS) of the National Electrical Code (NEC) because of the elevated likelihood that the education facility industry managed assets that were likely candidates for designation critical operations areas by emergency management authorities.

Because the NEC is incorporated by reference into most state and local electrical safety laws, it saw the possibility that some colleges and universities — particularly large research universities with independent power plants, telecommunications systems and large hospitals  — would be on the receiving end of an unfunded mandate.   Many education facilities are identified by the Federal Emergency Management Association as community storm shelters, for example.

As managers of publicly owned assets, University of Michigan Plant Operations had no objection to rising to the challenge of using publicly owned education facilities for emergency preparedness and disaster recovery operations; only that meeting the power system reliability requirements to the emergency management command centers would likely cost more than anyone imagined — especially at the University Hospital and the Public Safety Department facilities.  Budgets would have to be prepared to make critical operations power systems (COPS) resistant to fire and flood damages; for example.

Collaboration with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Industrial Applications Society began shortly after the release of the 2007 NEC.  Engineering studies were undertaken, papers were published (see links below) and the inspiration for the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee developed to provide a gathering place for power, telecommunication and energy professionals to discover and promulgate leading practice.   That committee is now formally a part of IEEE and collaborates with IAS/PES JTCC assigned the task of harmonizing NFPA and IEEE electrical safety and sustainability consensus documents (codes, standards, guidelines and recommended practices.

Transcripts of 2026 Revision:

Public Input Report CMP-13

Public Comment Report CMP-13


The transcript of NEC Code Making Panel 13 — the committee that revises COPS Article 708 every three years — is linked below:

NEC CMP-13 First Draft Balloting

NEC CMP-13 Second Draft Balloting

The 2023 Edition of the National Electrical Code does not contain revisions that affect #TotalCostofOwnership — only refinement of wiring installation practices when COPS are built integral to an existing building that will likely raise cost.  There are several dissenting comments to this effect and they all dissent because of cost.   Familiar battles over overcurrent coordination persist.

Our papers and proposals regarding Article 708 track a concern for power system reliability — and the lack of power  — as an inherent safety hazard.   These proposals are routinely rejected by incumbent stakeholders on NEC technical panels who do not agree that lack of power is a safety hazard.  Even if lack of power is not a safety hazard, reliability requirements do not belong in an electrical wiring installation code developed largely by electricians and fire safety inspectors.  The IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee (IEEE E&H) maintains a database on campus power outages; similar to the database used by the IEEE 1366 committees that develop reliability indices to enlighten public utility reliability regulations.

Public input on the 2026 revision to the NEC will be received until September 7th.  We have reserved a workspace for our priorities in the link below:

2026 National Electrical Code Workspace

Colleagues: Robert Arno, Neal Dowling, Jim Harvey

 

LEARN MORE:

IEEE | Critical Operations Power Systems: Improving Risk Assessment in Emergency Facilities with Reliability Engineering

Consuting-Specifying Engineer | Risk Assessments for Critical Operations Power Systems

Electrical Construction & Maintenance | Critical Operations Power Systems

International City County Management Association | Critical Operations Power Systems: Success of the Imagination

Facilities Manager | Critical Operations Power Systems: The Generator in Your Backyard

Human Resources 100

July 28, 2025
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Office in a Small City 1953 Edward Hopper

 

“Choose a job you love,

and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

Kong Fuzi, Confucius

 

Today we dwell on titles that inform management of the education industry in the United States specifically; but also more generally in global markets where the education industry is classified as a Producer and a User of human resources.  It is an enormous domain; likely the largest.

Human Resources 100 covers skilled trade training in all building construction disciplines.

Vocational Education Act of 1917, or Smith-Hughes Act of 1917

February: Association for Career and Technical Education | #CTEMonth

Human Resources 200 covers the range of skills needed to manage the real assets of educational settings — school district properties, college and university campuses

Human Resources 300 covers higher level management of these settings.  (Representative Organization Charts)

Human Resources 500 covers everything else

Human Resources 500

Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

Engineering a Fair Future: Why we need to train unbiased AI

Recommended Reading:

“The Human Side of Enterprise” 1960 by Douglas McGregor | MIT Management Sloan School

University of Chicago Press: Readings in Managerial Psychology

I've searched all the parks in all the cities - and found no statues of Committees. - Gilbert K. Chesterton

 

More

Lee Webster

Virginia Commonwealth University: “Self Reliance” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Paris Review: The Myth of Self-Reliance

Using ANSI Human Resource Standards to Create Business Advantage in the Workplace

Colleges and Organizational Structure of Universities

Apprenticeships: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice

“Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” James Damore

 

The Pause

July 28, 2025
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Standards Minnesota | St. Olaf College Net Position $1.185BFacilities

St. Olaf College | Dakota County Minnesota

The Lion’s Pause, often simply called “The Pause,” is a fond, student-run café and social space located in Buntrock Commons at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Its origins date back to the 1960s when students recognized the need for a dedicated recreational and social hub on campus. The name “Lion’s Pause” reflects the college’s mascot, the lion, symbolizing school pride and community spirit.

Over the decades, The Pause has grown into a multifunctional venue, serving as a café, dining spot, and event space. It offers a range of casual foods like its iconic pizza, snacks, and beverages, all prepared and served by student workers. Beyond dining, The Pause plays a vital role in campus life by hosting concerts, dances, movie nights, open mic events, and other activities, fostering a vibrant and inclusive atmosphere for the St. Olaf community.

Richard Wolff: How Socialists Win in Farm Areas

200: Norway & North America

Boe Chapel

Lorem ipsum:

Sinclair Lewis, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Jesse Ventura, Al Franken, Tim Walz, Ilhan Omar

Human Resource Management

July 28, 2025
mike@standardsmichigan.com
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“The best men are molded out of faults”
— William Shakespeare

Famous People Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante | CLICK ON IMAGE

The American National Standards Institute  is the Global Secretariat for ISO Technical Committee 260 (ISO/TC 260); organized to develop policy templates for standardization solutions that improve management of the workforce in any nation; in any sector or industry.   These human resource management standards offer broad, evidence-based guidance to individuals with people management responsibilities, whether formally or informally assigned, in organizations for the benefit of both internal and external stakeholders.

Gleaned from inputs from human resource experts globally, these products are designed to provide guidance on key HR functions in support of its workforce and its management, and sustainable organizational performance.   TC/260  is focused on the following tasks:

• Ensuring wide market relevance of its HRM standards.
• Facilitating international business.
• Providing guidance on professional standards of practice.
• Facilitating measurement, comparability and consistency of HR practice with the aim of transparent benchmarking.
• Improving internal processes.
• Enabling organizations to better achieve optimal organizational outcomes with improved management of human capital

The business plan is linked below:

STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLAN ISO/TC 260: Human Resource Management 2018/19 (3rd edition)

 

The original University of Michigan user-interest advocacy enterprise was participating member in this project* but that engagement was interrupted suddenly in October 2016 (See ABOUT).  We have since picked up where we left off with the same people collaborating with Standards Michigan.  ANSI remains the global Secretariat.

We maintain this project on the standing agenda of both our Global and our Human Resource colloquia.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Issues: [14-99] and [15-52]

Category: Administration & Management

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Lee S. Webster, Richard Robben

ANSI Contacts: Michelle Deane (mdeane@ansi.org)

US TAG Contacts: Lorelei Carobolante, Jim Lewis

*We left off just as the ISO/TS 30411:2018Human resource management-Quality of hire metric (QoH) standard was rolling out.   The QoH was, and still is a performance metric for talent acquisition teams, critical for determining the effectiveness of the recruitment process and has a consequential impact on an organization’s performance.  The QoH structure is intended to be scalable to the needs of any organization regardless of size, industry or sector and is relevant to people with an interest in workforce planning, organizational design and development, talent management succession planning, recruitment, and human capital reporting.  Read more about ISO/TS 30411:2018 on ISO’s news site, and access it on the ANSI Web Store.


More

The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, Max Weber

Materiality of Human Capital Metrics | Lee S. Webster

ISO Focus January 2015 Anthony-Robben – Education Enterprise pp 33-37

ISO Guidelines Help Measure Employees’ Impact on Company Performance

International Labor Organization

Readings / The Administrative State

Human Resources 500

July 28, 2025
mike@standardsmichigan.com

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“The Destiny of Man is to unite, not to divide.

If you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys

throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.”

T. H. White


Earl Grey Supreme Black Tea

July 26, 2025
mike@standardsmichigan.com
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College of the Ozarks: 2024 Revenue $116M

Earl Grey Supreme Black Tea 6pk

“A work college since its inception in 1906, College of the Ozarks® Work Education Program provides over 130 unique work stations where students earn their education. Students do everything from mowing the grass to overseeing the campus fire station, and they produce some of the most delectable treats around. That’s what you’ll find here, a showcasing of College of the Ozarks students’ talents and trades – small-batch, handcrafted gifts and baked goods, including world-famous fruitcakes, delicious fruit spreads, and student-milled products.

When you choose our campus store and online gift shop, know that you’re supporting our students and that you’ve made a purchase with a purpose.”

College of the Ozarks Missouri

College of the Ozarks | Taney County Missouri

 

 

 

No Logo Fashion

July 25, 2025
mike@standardsmichigan.com
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Fine Arts 300

July 25, 2025
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Public Input on the 2029 Edition will be received until January 6, 2027

Comments on the Second Draft of NFPA 909 — Cultural Resource Property Protection — will be received until 3 October 2024

“Wir haben Kunst, damit wir nicht

an der Wahrheit zugrunde gehen”

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Not every student is passionate about Graph Algorithms, Green Policy or coding the Internet of Things but wants to devote their energy and talent to making the world a better place by making the world a more beautiful place.  Spaces for the “creatives” among them are elevated risk spaces.   Today we examine the literature for designing, building and maintaining these occupancies in the safest and most sustainable way; among them the spaces for textile research and fashion design; usually co-mingled with drawing, painting, and textile creation space.

The garment industry is multi-disciplinary and is larger than the energy industry.  It contributes to the standard for civilization; even though subtly so.   For this reason, starting 2023, we will break down our coverage of the literature that supports the fashion industry from the fine arts domain in separate colloquia every quarter.

Fine Arts 200.   Exploration of best practice for spaces used for various forms of creative expression that are appreciated for their artistic or aesthetic value, often involving skills and techniques that require specialized training and expertise. 

    • Painting: The application of pigment to a surface, such as canvas or paper, to create images or visual compositions using techniques like oil, acrylic, watercolor, or tempera.
    • Sculpture: The creation of three-dimensional artworks by shaping and manipulating materials such as stone, wood, metal, or clay.
    • Drawing: The use of lines, marks, or other materials to create images or representations on paper, canvas, or other surfaces.
    • Printmaking: The creation of multiple copies of an image from a master plate or block, using techniques like engraving, etching, lithography, or screen printing.
    • Photography: The use of a camera to capture and create visual images, often through techniques such as exposure, composition, and processing.
    • Architecture: The design and construction of buildings and structures, involving artistic elements such as form, space, materials, and aesthetics.
    • Ceramics: The creation of pottery or ceramic objects using techniques like wheel throwing, hand-building, or glazing.
    • Mixed media: The combination of different artistic materials or techniques in a single artwork, such as collage, assemblage, or installations.
    • Conceptual art: The creation of artworks that prioritize ideas, concepts, and intellectual or philosophical aspects over traditional aesthetic or material considerations.

Fashion 300.  Best practice literature for the spaces needed for the creation of artworks using textiles and fibers, such as weaving, quilting, or embroidery.  Research and teaching spaces in this domain; at the foundation of the garment industry — one of the largest sectors in the economy in any nation — present surprising challenges

See our CALENDAR for a schedule of those session.

Fine Arts 200

US-based standards developers with a footprint in the fine arts domain:

ASTM International

Committee D13 on Textiles Celebrates a Century

International Code Council

2021 International Building Code: Section 305 Educational Group E

Underwriters Laboratories

Lorem ipsum (product testing: kiln heat specifications, fabric and paint flammability, wet and dry fire extinguishing systems, etc.)

National Fire Protection Association

Art, Design & Fashion Studios

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers

Leveraging User-Provided Noisy Labels for Fashion Understanding

Fuzzy Logic in Personalized Garment Design

Institutional Guidelines

St. Louis Community College

Federal Regulations & Recommendations

Environmental Health and Safety in the Arts Guide for K-12 School, Colleges and Artisans

Global standard developers:  (partial list)

Eurocodes

Illumination Art

Textiles

Labeling of Hazardous Art Materials Act

Open to everyone.  Use the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.

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