MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

Chart Art

To show plant management what progress we had made I created a display of old recording charts from the bleach plant. One set was for a single day from the time when I had arrived, a second set from single day a few months latter, a third set from a few more months later, and a final set from recent time. So there was a set of 4 charts for each recorder. I hung the charts on the wall of the conference room, 4 to a column with a column from each recorder. In each column one could see the starting chaotic variations recorded on the charts from the time I started with steady reduction in the chaos until the last set of charts drawing almost perfect circles showing smooth operation for that day. I called it Chart Art and I invited all plant management to come at their leisure to view the progress we had made. It was a big success.

When the computer arrived I got it hooked up to the controllers. However, there was a personnel problem. The computer was purchased by a group from our New York office and they were in charge of the computer operation. They had told the guys from the computer company, that came to get the computer up and running, not to talk to me, that I was a trouble maker and didn’t know anything about the computer. Granted I could program a little in the FORTRAN language but didn’t know much about this particular computer, but it turned out that the information they had been given about the bleach plant operation was completely off base. It was a screwy situation. The computer guys would talk with the other two guys in my group who would then talk to me and then go back to the computer guys. It was a bumpy road for some time.

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