Thread regarding General Electric Co. layoffs

Oh, I know a sh--load about what happened, but can’t say it without narrowing down who I am to a list of MAYBE 8 people and I’m unwilling to do that.

To the a--hole who said facilities aren’t equipped and that’s why they subcontract everything...eat a d--k. 90% of the sub-contractors they bring in are f---ing useless and f--- the facility up more than they make it better...kinda like your negative a--...I know a hundred people there just like you and you all should have been let go last year. The only thing I’ll agree with you on is that there are too many chiefs...Vic Abate and Eric Halas and all the c--ts they road in with need to exit stage left while they still have the time...clock is ticking...Flannery hates Abate and the feeling is mutual, I can’t believe he’s still there.

Zero Facts on this from anyone. don't you people have anything better to do then spread BS. When you and your job is perfect then maybe you can act like you know something.

Facilities are clearly not equipped to do the job at hand. Too many roosters, no proper direction, poor communication, poor planning, too many chiefs.. it’s all a friggin mess. The facilities group are just a glorified marginally skilled group that can barely maintain the facility. That’s why any real projects are subcontracted. That’s what needs to happen here. Speed is the key. This group isn’t equipped for it.

This is really pathetic. Its obvious that lack of knowledge caused them not to LOTO the energized line.

Then, I am sure when the accident happened, no one ran over and immediately isolated the line.

I can imagine them fumbling around for 20 minutes or so while they did $20 Million in damage.

Obvious lack of knowledge.

OSHA clearly states that LOTO shall be done by knowledgeable person, just like all other things under OSHA jurisdiction.

You’ve obviously never been involved in a complex LOTO procedure...isolating electrical energy is fairly straightforward in my opinion...check for voltage where you’re going to work to verify you’re dead, flip the power switch and if it doesn’t come on you’re good to lock out and work. Water lines in a place like GRC can be about as complex as they come to lock out and verify. Knowledge is power...and it’s not the fitters job there to close the valve or drain the system, it was the job of the Fireman on duty. And I can’t tell you what went through his head, but as someone with intimate (and innate) knowledge of what’s happened...I would imagine he didn’t think about it as critically as he needed to...and they definitely seemed to go out of their way to exclude someone from the planning process who would have known at a glance.

Ideally, you’d want to verify where you’re working to be sure you’ve rid yourself of potential energy sources...but when you’re talking about a 4” fire line, with no gauges and no drain points in line (as is normal), there is no way to do this, outside of travelling back in time to 1982 and making the contractors put an isolation valve in for every room.

So, IMHO, two things went wrong: first, management seemed to have gone out of their way to keep the person with the most knowledge out of the planning process (something that astounds me, and something I feel the most important person who signed off on this should be fired for). Secondly, the person who’s job it was to isolate and verify didn’t seem to have given this job as much respect as it needed; perhaps he was too busy chasing tail or trying to look awesome in front of his new trainee to ever second guess himself.

I look at every LOTO situation from big to small as though it will kill everyone if it gets messed up; you have to respect that process, it’s always the most important thing you do.

Lack of knowledge and expertise cost of quality $10-20M in damage not knowing what valve to LOTO.

Now GE will have to get rid of $10-20M in cost by laying off another 100 to 200 workers to meet the budget. Expect more lay offs because of this

LOTO is having the right line isolated.

Obviously the energized line was not locked out

We work on medium and high voltage equipment where a failure like this can be fatal

This is basic

The fitters wouldn’t still be employed if they didn’t follow LOTO. Their LOTO was sound, but that doesn’t mean sh-- if you don’t have the right line isolated

$10-20M in damage is a lot to pay for lack of basic knowledge of LOTO of a water valve.

Typical cost of quality that is destroying GE because of present system of not respecting expertise and promoting people who don't know what they are doing. This is basic stuff, and actually an OSHA violation. Did they even put a signed lock / tag on any isolation valve and follow OSHA protocal?

This is basic industry Lock Out Tag Out LOTO that is always performed by expert who knows the facility.

Same GE problem apparently - incompetent and people I n charge who don't know what they are doing, instead of experts. This is how most expensive mistakes and bad decisions are made - lack of expertise where expertise has no value at GE anymore

This is why GE is failing

The union is the only reason there isn’t $50M in damage...they responded immediately and had the place drying out by the time Quick Response showed up to give an estimate.

Honestly, the biggest share of blame lies with management, who approved and walked through the shutdown without ever consulting with a guy who knows everything about the building. If they’d have asked, this never would have happened. The wrong people were overly confident that they had the right valve.

Union fitters for the win

Sprinkler system was not properly isolated for work. Took 20 minutes to shut it down after it was put on line after "isolating" section they wanted to work on.

For those not familiar, what caused the flooding? What work was done there?

I can’t speak to any special “clean room insurance,” or to any upgrades INSIDE the fab, but I can say that neither would surprise me...and for a fact that the facility is self-insured.

I never said my SPECULATION of the move to SUNY was informed....but this is a doom-and-gloom website, so I threw it out there. IMHO, believing that nobody on the planet CAN, just because nobody on the planet HAS is a logical fallacy; this company is broke and motivated...nothing is off the table. Medical being one of the only businesses left standing would be the only thing that saves the clean room. In my opinion it’s too far gone...I’ve surveyed a lot of damage and I’ve never seen anything like this...you’re all in my thoughts.

Self insured... really? What about the insurance inspections every year or so and numerous upgrades to the facility to maintain compliance with the carrier standards?

I know people REALLY don't like the clean room because it's a white elephant, but thinking that SUNY or any other headless fab can run the level of crazy that is requested from the inside the center and the businesses is just about as misinformed as the fab being self insured.

Self insured… And with current partnerships at SUNY Nanotech, do they need to bother rebuilding, could they ever recoup that money? Bad news…

People in the facilities operation department would know but this may increase their premiums

Do you think the place isn’t insured for a possibility like this?