Abstract: One of the most common questions in the early stages of designing a new facility is whether the normal utility supply to a fire pump is reliable enough to “tap ahead of the main” or whether the fire pump supply is so unreliable that it must have an emergency power source, typically an on-site generator. Apart from the obligation to meet life safety objectives, it is not uncommon that capital on the order of 100000to1 million is at stake for a fire pump backup source. Until now, that decision has only been answered with intuition – using a combination of utility outage history and anecdotes about what has worked before. There are processes for making the decision about whether a facility needs a second source of power using quantitative analysis. Fault tree analysis and reliability block diagram are two quantitative methods used in reliability engineering for assessing risk. This paper will use a simple one line for the power to a fire pump to show how each of these techniques can be used to calculate the reliability of electric power to a fire pump. This paper will also discuss the strengths and weakness of the two methods. The hope is that these methods will begin tracking in the National Fire Protection Association documents that deal with fire pump power sources and can be used as another tool to inform design engineers and authorities having jurisdiction about public safety and property protection. These methods will enlighten decisions about the relative cost of risk control with quantitative information about the incremental cost of additional 9’s of operational availability.
The requirement for a licensed electrician and a certified inspector to perform and certify any electrical work above $100 is prohibitive for homeowners and facility managers. To the best of our knowledge, no other US state imposes this requirement. There are more efficacious approaches to supporting effective public electrical safety services.
Of considerable importance is the criteria set by this board to determine whether a journeyman electrician is permitted to practice his or her trade in the State of Michigan.
We have been advocating for changes to the State of Michigan Electrical Administrative Act that currently requires all electrical work valued above $100 to be installed by a licensed journeyman electrician and inspected by an accredited electrical inspector. The $100 threshold was set decades ago and has never been challenged by another other advocacy enterprise representing the user interest. Almost all of the stakeholders on the present Electrical Administrative Board are stakeholders who benefit economically from the $100 threshold. Much of the reason for the apparent imbalance of interests lies in tradition; but also because no user interest has been present to advocate for an update of the formal, fee schedule.
This advocacy priority was on the Do-List of the original University of Michigan codes and standards advocacy enterprise which was focused on strengthening the voice of the user/owner/final fiduciary in the promulgation of regulations affecting Michigan educational facilities (CLICK HERE for link to the legacy Advocacy Project 14-1). Of all the trades covered in the parent legislation — Stille-Derossett-Hale Single State Construction Code Act (Act 230 of 1972)— the electrical power discipline is the only discipline in Michigan building technology regulations that sets a dollar criteria for electrical work to be performed and inspected. While we recognize the need for safe installation of the electrical power chain within a building; we propose another criteria for establishing the requirement for a licensed electrician and a licensed inspector should be determined (as it is in all other construction disciplines administered by the Bureau of Construction Codes, a division of the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs).
As a consequence of former Governor Snyder’s Office of Regulatory Reinvention significant changes to both the Bureau of Construction Codes, a division of the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs) have taken place within the past twelve months; which make us optimistic about political support for our proposals. We will be collaborating with our colleagues at Michigan State University to make necessary legislative changes we believe will lower the #TotalCostofOwnership of education facilities in the State of Michigan.
We will refer the Michigan Electric Code, and other state electrical codes to the IEEE Education and Healthcare Facilities Committee which hosts bi-weekly breakout teleconferences with electrical professionals in the education facilities industry as required by the demand for them.
The next meeting of the Michigan Electrical Board is November 2nd. We have been attending the meetings in Lansing and have made our proposal to revisit the dollar criteria known to the entire board. We hope the Electrical Administrative Board will develop another criteria; inspired by the electrical administrative boards of other states.
Issue: [14-1]
Contact: Mike Anthony, Jack Janveja, Richard Robben, Kane Howard
Abstract.This article makes three related arguments. First, that although many definitions of the smart city have been proposed, corporate promoters say a smart city uses information technology to pursue efficient systems through real-time monitoring and control. Second, this definition is not new and equivalent to the idea of urban cybernetics debated in the 1970s. Third, drawing on a discussion of Rio de Janeiro’s Operations Center, I argue that viewing urban problems as wicked problems allows for more fundamental solutions than urban cybernetics, but requires local innovation and stakeholder participation. Therefore the last section describes institutions for municipal innovation and IT-enabled collaborative planning.
So proud to announce the @ellisoninst is beginning construction on our new campus at the @UniofOxford and broadening our mission: Science & Engineering for Humanity. EIT develops & deploys technology in pursuit of solving four of humanity’s most challenging & enduring problems.… pic.twitter.com/vSkHWSS8EK
Dairy milk products remain a vital part of global food supply. Since 1970 an ISO Technical Subcommittee — ISO/TC 34/SC 5 Milk and milk products — seeks globally effective standardization solutions in the methods of analysis and sampling for milk and milk products, covering the dairy chain from primary production to consumption. The business plan of its parent committee is linked below:
The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers is the US Technical Advisory Group Administrator to the parent TC34 committee but ANSI does not have a Technical Advisory Group leader. As the U.S. member body to the ISO, ANSI is always on the hunt for its members and/or relevant stakeholders to participate in discovering standardization solutions in a broad range of technologies and markets with like-minded experts in other national standards bodies. The full sweep of ANSI’s participation in consensus documents developed by the ISO is described in the link below:
This committee has functioned since 1970 — long enough for many of the best practice titles it produces to have stabilized. There is other market action in the global dairy supply — notably the growth of non-dairy food supply — but we find no public consultations open on proposed standardization solutions as of this posting. When they are released they will appear in the link below:
Land grant colleges and universities are likely stakeholders in this domain. Apart from the passion that young people have for fair trade in any market, we see this as an opportunity for faculty and students to gain insight into the geo-politics of food supply generally and the subtleties of coffee markets. Business schools, agricultural colleges, international studies program developers who may be, and should be, interested in a leadership opportunity on behalf of the United States should communicate directly with ANSI’s ISO Team ((isot@ansi.org).
We devote at least an hour every month breaking down public consultations on food safety and sustainability. The work products of TC 34 appears on the standing agenda of both our Global and Food colloquia. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [19-46]
Category: Academic, Global
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Akkeneel Talsma
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
