Episode 10 - Brilliant Whiz Kid (featuring John Reynolds)

In episode 10, ‘Brilliant Whiz Kid,' Branden and Greg continue their conversation with industry legend John Reynolds. Join us as we look to the future of mechanical integrity and the integration of artificial intelligence. 

In the final part of this three-part series, listen to an in-depth discussion that starts with the application of artificial intelligence in fixed equipment mechanical integrity (FEMI) and ends with insights into the value of networking and building competency improvement plans. Once again, John Reynolds uses his extensive career to highlight the value of engaging with colleagues across the industry and within your company to help you grow professionally. Remember, your education will continue well beyond the completion of a university degree.

This was final segment of our interview with industry legend, John Reynolds. You may find part 1 “The Mountains We Still Need to Climb” and part 2 “RBI Was the Way of the Future” wherever you get your podcasts. 

00:45 AI and Big Data in Mechanical Integrity

05:58 Why Everyone Should Network

10:09 Developing Competency Improvement Plans

16:36 Participation in Process Safety & MI Audits

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Episode Acronyms & Abbreviations

AI - Artificial Intelligence

API – American Petroleum Institute

ASME – American Society of Mechanical Engineers 

FEMI – Fixed Equipment Mechanical Integrity

NACE – National Association of Corrosion Engineers, now known as AMPP (Association for Materials Protection & Performance)

NLP – Natural Language Processing

RBI – Risk-based Inspection

SCI – API Subcommittee on Inspection

SMEs – Subject Matter Experts 

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 We’d love to hear from you—connect with us on LinkedIn and share your thoughts on the episode. Have ideas for future topics or guests? Email us at inspectionpodcast@gmail.com.

Join us next time, wherever you get your podcasts. Until then, stay safe and stay informed.

Note:  The views and opinions expressed by the guest are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the hosts or the Upon Further Inspection podcast. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Listeners should seek their own qualified advisors for guidance.

Transcript

Branden 0:00

Upon further inspection, a Mechanical Integrity podcast goes beyond the data and dives into the people challenges and stories behind reliability and inspection. Whether you're in the field or in the office, this podcast is for you because mechanical integrity isn't about assets. It's about the people who keep them running.

0:20

This is episode 10, brilliant Whiz Kid. This is the final segment of our conversation with industry legend John Reynolds.

Branden 0:42

John, I know it's new technology. I don't know how, how much experience you have with it, but do you have any thoughts around people leveraging. artificial intelligence and big data conceptualization for helping support these inspectors and, and, senior level folks with looking at the data.

John 1:01

Oh, indeed, I do. I I think that that is, the eventual application I impact of AI software for FEMI benefits is enormous. And then probably one of the biggest opportunities we have to make further improvements in fixed equipment, mechanical integrity, it needs to be properly implemented by knowledgeable subject matter experts and not amateurs. I remember in a meeting that I was at recently. And I think Greg was there too. we were discussing the potential for AI and the benefits that we could, have from using AI properly and adequately in our business. And, one of the people who, one of the participants at the meeting said that we should treat AI based, FEMI software recommendations. Like we would treat the recommendations from a newly hired brilliant Whiz kid, fresh out of graduate school. Brilliant. You know, but with little or no experience. So those of us with the experience and with the knowledge and with the history would take these recommendations from. AI as if it was coming from a brilliant Whiz kid and, you know, overlap it with our experience and knowledge and go forth and do what really needs to be done. But I can, I can imagine a situation where AI might generate, a, a recommendation that really didn't make a whole lot of sense because of, the, all the other, issues involved that knowledgeable fixed equipment, SMEs, subject matter experts can, can bring to the table. So it has great potential, but We have to use it effectively and efficiently. Just like we, we use all other software. I remember very well back. 15, 20 years ago when RBI software came out, there were some sites who were using the off RBI software as if the results couldn't be questioned. You just ran the software and implemented the results. But unless those results are overview by knowledgeable subject matter experts, they sometimes are very inefficient and don't make sense. And I think the same thing will happen with AI unless we continue to have knowledgeable, skilled, subject matter experts in, in fixed equipment, mechanical engineering, overviewing. The, result of the API software. Does that make sense? Yeah,

Greg 3:43

yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm, I'm glad you said that, John, because, you know, one of the things that I've personally experienced and seen is, just for example, a project that was done that was a statistical analysis thing using forms of ai, and, they thought they could do it just using numbers and just using data scientists and not having any corrosion materials or inspection people involved in the, interpretation or contextualization. Of the data that they were looking at. And so they just ran their numbers game and you could immediately, any experienced person, metallurgist or metallurgical engineer inspector could see that, uh hmm I don't know if I feel comfortable with this because all you're doing is looking at raw numbers and you don't know when to reject them'cause they're not valid when you have data dropout these other things. and so the recommendations that were made off of that particular, exercise, did not make sense. And it goes back to what you just said about the SME, taking a look at it and saying. Does this make sense? And, you know, we have the ai, now you've probably heard of this NLP stuff called natural language processing.'cause they're wanting to be able to send, so to speak, bots into data lakes and be able to pull the data out. And they run into issues with that because of unstructured data and other issues. But I agree with you. I think it's very exciting. I think ai, is gonna pay off big time in the future. It's gonna help make a step change, I believe. And, uh, but I do believe we, we need to keep an eye on it.

Branden 5:25

I like that comment of it being like a brilliant graduate student, because I think that's true. Like when you think about it, It can provide another, full-time equivalent or more, but you have to, provide oversight to that person, right? You bring somebody new on it's doing work for you. You just gotta make sure you provide the oversight and, and, and look at that context. I think that's a really cool way to think about it. whoever mentioned it at whatever meeting, I like thinking of it that way. I'll probably think of it that way when I use it for things outside of work too. if you are working 10 percent-ish, is there anything that you're researching, continuing to learn about? Is there anything, I know you're still kind of active in API codes and standards at this point, but is there anything else that you're doing to, at this point, do you feel the need to continue to expand your, your breadth of knowledge or are you kind of at that? I've handed it off and we're gonna kind of sit here and help advise?

John 6:24

Well, I'm pretty, pretty much in retired from active, API standardization activities now. As Greg knows, I still do a lot of writing for the Inspectioneering journal. And, so, and in fact, working on an article now that may very well be published in the next issue of the Journal, that emphasizes the, the need for everybody to continue to, learn. I'm a big fan of continuous learning and Im improving your knowledge base and improving your competency and, learning as much and more as possible. and then sharing that information with others. I'm a big fan of networking. I benefited immensely throughout my career from. Networking, meaning going to meetings where there were other FEMI subject matter experts at API, at ASME at NACE and various other industry forums where I would, speak with a lot of people and share my knowledge and gain from their knowledge. And, I think that's an en enormous benefit in that everybody who has the opportunity to do that, you don't have to do it just with intercompany, efforts like I just mentioned. But even larger companies have networks within their own company where you can share knowledge. So there are a lot of ways you can get with other subject matter experts and share their knowledge and share your knowledge and, and, help then pass that along to others in the form of, writing articles or giving presentations or giving advice. basically I'm, I've always been very convinced that companies don't compete on the basis of how well they protect their equipment. So we, you know, we, we compete on a lot of things, but not on, on process safety and fixed equipment, mechanical integrity. So we should share as much of that knowledge as we can with other people who can benefit from it. And so I'm continuing to do that, continuing to write articles and occasionally give presentations, in order to expand my knowledge and share my knowledge with, with others who might benefit and be able to put it to work to protect. facilities elsewhere.

Branden 8:50

Why do you think you were good at you? You said networking was really important. Why do you think you were good at it? Or what do you, what do you think made you good at, or what was the key for you to be good at networking?

John 8:59

Well, I don't know that there's any key, you know, the, to it other than my desire to do it and my desire for continuous, improvement in my knowledge base. But, probably the key to it for me was that my management throughout the years that I worked with Shell and certainly thereafter, also believe that that networking and sharing of knowledge with, others that would help. Other companies protect their equipment and avoid process safety incidents that would get them in trouble with the media, get them in trouble with regulators, and, and, and god forbid even cause loss of life, let alone huge catastrophes. I always worked for a management that, that I, that felt that way, that it was really well worth, worth doing. And, and so to me that's, that was the key to my being so interested in, in networking and I really appreciated that support.

Branden 10:04

Greg, you know, you've been around for a long time too. What, what's your take on networking?

Greg 10:09

it's essential. it's good to see what other people are doing and how they're attacking things and the experiences that they're happening. it's golden. And, I've been privileged too,'cause part of that is mentoring as well, so there's opportunities there to give and received in that respect. But I, I think it's huge. And, you know, that's one of the things that used to bug me was some of the. Research efforts is sometimes people will go in and do research, but they're only looking at their approach to it. They haven't really looked at, well, what's, is there something else going on somewhere else in the world that could help us here too? Not just look at what we developed. And like John's saying, I, I think it that we can answer that question by networking, having a commitment to continuous improvement, continuous learning and this kind of, and Branden, I'm glad you asked me this'cause it kind of leads into this question that you had written down earlier for John, and I think he's already answered it in part or maybe in whole, but what his best piece of advice is for others, that are MI professionals and inspection or reliability. what's your best piece of advice, John, I know you just gave some really good stuff. Anything to add to that?

John 11:26

I'm not sure. Yeah, I think you're right. I, I've already spoken about it, but, continuous improvement in your knowledge base is probably been one of my lifelong goals. So I, you know, I, not a day went by in my career when I, when I wasn't focused on learning something new that would be useful for fixed equipment, mechanical integrity. So indeed, I think that's extremely important. Networking is a, is a big part of that. But another part of it is having a personal plan for, competency improvement. There are a number of companies that have competency improvement plans. I was glad to work for a company like Shell that had one, but even for those companies that, that don't have a competency improvement plan for, you know, whole departments, you can put together your own competency improvement plan of what kind of training do I really need or want in order to be able to, really contribute better throughout the years in my chosen field of endeavor and pursue that training, pursue outside courses, pursue videos, obviously book learning and, and various other things. Put together your own personal training and, and share, competency improvement plan and, and share that with your boss, so that, that he or she can see what, what it is you want to accomplish and the things that, your management can provide you in order to achieve, a better, body of knowledge within your chosen field of endeavor. And, and improved competency. I've done that all my career and, modified my, my objectives for competency improvement, every three or four years and, continuously, and I think it's been one of the keys for. my ability to improve my, my competency over the many years that I've, 57 plus years now, been in the industry.

Branden 13:34

I love that response because it's, it's taking ownership of your life and your career is really what it is. It's, make a plan for yourself. See where you want to be and, and take the ownership to get yourself to that point. we, we just went through here. We just went through goal setting and, and, and I had some folks ask me, okay, what, what should my goals be? And I said to them, I go, I can't set your goals. If I set a goal for you. It's a task. I need you to decide what you want. Where you want your path to go, and we can work together to develop, you know, writing a goal. But if I tell you what I want, it's a task. It's not a goal, it's not helping you. I want you to come up with a goal that's gonna improve yourself technically, business wise, or professionally or personally, something that's gonna be able to help you. I love that you said that because that really resonates for me with how I've been working with my folks.

John 14:31

Good. Well said, Branden. I agree with you. Yeah. Thank you.

Branden 14:35

John, you've had, I mean, we've, we've heard a couple d we've heard a lot of different stories here. as you've mentioned, 57 plus years of, experience. One, do you think that there is a person or an event that has really made the most impact? I know you mentioned the coker issue, mentioning that, that that one made a big impact on you. is there a person or anything else that has really made an impact and really helped move your, your career in, in the direction that it's gone over, you know, again, 57 plus years?

John 15:06

Well, you know, there's, there's not just one person. Of course, the good Lord stands out, first of all, as number one in, in, guiding my career and helping me along. But in terms of humankind, I can't point to any one person. As I've already said, my father gave me the love of nature that that has really added to my enjoyment of life, beyond my, chosen discipline. But within my discipline, there's, there's so many people that I've encountered along the way in my networking that we've already spoken about, that, you know, I could, I could rattle off very quickly a dozen or more people that had a significant impact, but then I'd be leaving out a dozen or more people that I should have mentioned, and, and didn't. And I, I really wouldn't want to do that. But, as a result of, My networking, I've, improved my knowledge base and my competency by, interacting with a lot of people along the way over the last 57 and a half years. and I can't think of just one who really stood out, but, there were an awful lot of them, including Greg.

Branden 16:27

well, I mean, you know, can't imagine the number of people that you've met and, hands you've shaken over over 57 years.

John 16:33

indeed, it's been a great ride.

Branden 16:36

Yeah. Any, I mean, when, when we asked you to come onto this, I, I know you, I'm pretty sure you weren't totally sure what, what exactly this was or what we were asking you to do, but, anything, anything we didn't, we didn't bring up or anything that you wanted to kind of make sure you mentioned, before the end?

John 16:52

No, I can't think of anything offhand. perhaps one that we didn't emphasize, we spoke about, but didn't emphasize as much as, I did a lot of audits within Shell, but then after retirement, full retirement of full-time work with Shell, I really enjoyed the, the participation in well over a hundred audits that I did all over North America. And then sometimes, even a few outside of North America where we got together with a bunch of process safety, experts and a few of us were mechanical integrity experts, and so we focused on that particular aspect. But I've, since retirement from Shell, I've really enjoyed and benefited by a huge increase in my knowledge by participating in, in audits of plants. As I say, multiple plants and seeing how other people are accomplishing things and what they were doing well and what they were not doing well, and then leaving them with recommendations for how they could improve. And these were all voluntary audits. They weren't regulatory, they weren't forced on anybody. These were, these were audits that were just, through the process safety side assessment and, and even outside of that, an opportunity for people to just learn from one another and implement, improvements so that they could avoid mechanical integrity issues. That's one of the things that, in the last 20 years of my career, I've enjoyed the most. And I just wanted to emphasize that the, the value of that. And I hope that, in fact, I do know that, that, that that's still going on and I, am, really endorse the opportunity to, for, for sites to do that as well as, auditors to have the opportunity to participate.

Branden 18:57

I, I know your audits are famous across North America. the number of times I talk to folks and they say, oh yeah, we just had, John Reynolds out and, you know, we went through the audit and now we have these findings and, you know, not as bad as we thought it was gonna be, or worse than we thought it was gonna be. but always everybody takes, everybody takes what you, what you provide, and, and they really listen to it. I think it's a, a real testament to the, to the expertise and, and the, the, the career that you've built over the last 57 and a half years. So just, and it wasn't case you didn't know. I wanna make sure you do that, that there are a lot of people out there who, who know your audits and, and really respect what you, what you, what you recommend.

John 19:41

Well, thanks for that feedback, Branden. But it wasn't just me. There was always, it was a group, group of five or seven of us and well, it depends. Sometimes there was only two of us, sometimes three or four, but a maximum of seven. And so there's a lot of people involved. It wasn't just me. and yeah, it's a, it's a great opportunity to persist, participate, and a great, great opportunity for those receiving the audits. So is a, an equal, sharing of information and value.

Greg 20:11

well, let me just add one thing there, John. I, I, I thank you. I wanna thank you, for, Something we talked about years ago, I don't know if you remember this or not, but we were talking about all this work we were doing with, with the, the, SCI with 580 certifications, 571 certifications, all this, all the hard work that, the teams put in an API over the years. And I remember years ago, I don't know if you remember this conversation, but you had said that part of your motivation, and please correct me if I'm wrong'cause it's been a long time, but I thought that part of your motivation was that you really had a passion around wanting to develop, something to help inspection professionals have a career growth opportunity without necessarily having a degree. And, and I always thought that was very noble of you. That was, A bit profound, and I wanna thank you for that. I wanna thank you for all the hard work that you've done, and of course, the time that Shell was willing to invest in your being so involved over the years in the industry activities and what you did after that. John, you've made a big impact on our industry and, I just wanna thank you for that.

John 21:26

Well, thank you Greg. And yeah, I do remember that conversation and, and I remember it was very eye-opening to me after spending six years getting two mechanic, two engineering degrees and coming to work and suddenly realizing that in my chosen field of endeavor, I learned 98% of what I needed to know to be where I am today after I graduated from the University of Wisconsin. I learned a vast majority of that from people who didn't go to graduate school, didn't go to get an advanced degree. I learned a immense amount of information from inspectors and, and others like them, who had, would take me inside of an equipment, for instance. I remember. Back in Shell, we'd have, discussions about problems, that people were having. And as a result of inspectors taking me through equipment, through, through hydro crackers, through, tall fractionator towers inside huge, 300,000 barrel tanks, storage tanks, et cetera, et cetera, that was an immense learning experience from people who had learned their skills and their knowledge base. Not from a professor somewhere at school, but the school of hard knocks. And they were willing to pass that along to me. And, and when I'd get in a meeting talking about a problem, I, I'd often have an advantage. Over others in the meeting.'cause I'd been there and I'd been inside that equipment. I'd been, I've seen it and done it as a result of, where I'd been in the training I'd, I'd received from others in problem solving. So I'm, you're right, Greg, I, I benefited immensely by, again, networking with people who knew more about fixed equipment, mechanical integrity in my younger days, than I did. And, I have a great deal of respect for all of those people. Thanks for bringing that up.

Greg 23:40

You got it buddy. Branden, anything else or is that a wrap?

Branden 23:43

I think this has been absolutely wonderful. it's been, John, I, I'd met you once before and, definitely live up to the hype. So, I, I appreciate you taking the time and, and coming on and talking with Greg and I, and yeah, I think that's, I think that's it. So, Greg, till next time,

Greg 24:02

hey, keep inspecting John. Keep telling us, you know, helping us, stay between the lines and looking forward to your next journal article, my friend.

John 24:11

Enjoyed it. Thanks guys.

24:13

Thank you for listening to part three of our conversation with John Reynolds, in case you missed any of the other segments with John. Those episodes are now available wherever you get your podcasts.

Greg 24:22

Thank you for listening to Upon Further Inspection, a Mechanical Integrity podcast. This episode was co-created by inspection, hearing, and Core solutions. Our producers are Nick Schmoyer, Jocelyn Christie and Jeremiah Wooten. This podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional's advice. Listeners should seek their own qualified advisors for guidance. If you enjoyed this episode. Please join us next time wherever you listen to your podcasts. Until then, stay safe and stay informed.