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This month’s Guest Blogger, Jeff Sines is the Training Lead for Engineered Software, and co-authored the second edition of the Piping System Fundamentals book. Sines brings over 20 years of experience in plant operations, process engineering and over 500 hours training instruction experience.
Ok, I’m not a woman and I don’t really know how it feels to give birth, but I watched my wife deliver my two boys and I remember the look on her face, her complete and utter relief. How she looked then is how I feel now as we wrap up the final touches on the second edition of Piping System Fundamentals: The Complete Guide to Gaining a Clear Picture of Your Piping System, (affectionately known as the “Green Book” here in the office because of the cover).
My first project when I first joined Engineered Software in early 2008 was to read and comment on Ray Hardee’s nearly completed Green Book. I made a few suggestions and some minor edits, but overall it was a good read. It was a great foundation for the 2-day, Piping System Fundamentals course that Ray developed and he and I began teaching later that year. As we conducted over 75 classes with almost 2,000 attendees, the feedback from our customers gave us some great input about the strengths and weaknesses of the course and the companion book. We made changes to our PowerPoint presentations, deleted some material, and added additional topics that enhanced the value of the course.
After so many changes to the course, it was time to come out with the second edition of the Green Book. When Ray tasked me with co-authoring the second edition, I felt like Dr. “Bones” McCoy telling Captain Kirk in Star Trek: “Darn it Ray, I’m an engineer, not a writer!”
Perhaps the most difficult part of this project was learning how to use the InDesign® software to write the book. Why can’t this program be easy to use like our PIPE-FLO® software? After learning just the basics to do what I needed the program to do, I was going full steam ahead with the second edition, jumping from InDesign to Microsoft® Excel® to Microsoft Visio® to PIPE-FLO then back to InDesign seamlessly.
Of course the internet was an invaluable resource as well. What better way to explain how a pump works than with a nice cutaway drawing? It’s amazing what you can find on the net nowadays. With permission from numerous companies, the use of their images adds tremendous value to the book. As a note, I would like to thanks all those again who were willing and helpful enough to lend their images to the book and training materials.
Now that the Green Book is on the verge of publication, there’s an urge to kick back, take a breather, and relax. But just like giving birth to a bouncing baby boy, this is only the start of the journey. More projects await me. There is another book to write, a new version of PIPE-FLO to work on, and new products to develop. Beam me up, Scotty!
This month’s Guest Blogger, Jeff Sines is the Training Lead for Engineered Software, and co-authored the second edition of the Piping System Fundamentals book. Sines brings over 20 years of experience in plant operations, process engineering and over 500 hours training instruction experience.Ok, I’m not a woman and I don’t really know how it feels to give birth, but I watched my wife deliver my two boys and I remember the look on her face, her complete and utter relief. How she looked then is how I feel now as we wrap up the final touches on the second edition of Piping System Fundamentals: The Complete Guide to Gaining a Clear Picture of Your Piping System, (affectionately known as the “Green Book” here in the office because of the cover).My first project when I first joined Engineered Software in early 2008 was to read and comment on Ray Hardee’s nearly completed Green Book. I made a few suggestions and some minor edits, but overall it was a good read. It was a great foundation for the 2-day, Piping System Fundamentals course that Ray developed and he and I began teaching later that year. As we conducted over 75 classes with almost 2,000 attendees, the feedback from our customers gave us some great input about the strengths and weaknesses of the course and the companion book. We made changes to our PowerPoint presentations, deleted some material, and added additional topics that enhanced the value of the course.
After so many changes to the course, it was time to come out with the second edition of the Green Book. When Ray tasked me with co-authoring the second edition, I felt like Dr. “Bones” McCoy telling Captain Kirk in Star Trek: “Darn it Ray, I’m an engineer, not a writer!”Perhaps the most difficult part of this project was learning how to use the InDesign® software to write the book. Why can’t this program be easy to use like our PIPE-FLO® software? After learning just the basics to do what I needed the program to do, I was going full steam ahead with the second edition, jumping from InDesign to Microsoft® Excel® to Microsoft Visio® to PIPE-FLO then back to InDesign seamlessly.
Of course the internet was an invaluable resource as well. What better way to explain how a pump works than with a nice cutaway drawing? It’s amazing what you can find on the net nowadays. With permission from numerous companies, the use of their images adds tremendous value to the book. As a note, I would like to thanks all those again who were willing and helpful enough to lend their images to the book and training materials.
Now that the Green Book is on the verge of publication, there’s an urge to kick back, take a breather, and relax. But just like giving birth to a bouncing baby boy, this is only the start of the journey. More projects await me. There is another book to write, a new version of PIPE-FLO to work on, and new products to develop. Beam me up, Scotty!
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