Is Good Enough, Really Good Enough?

July 2024

I had the pleasure of working with a gentleman I referred to as an " engineer's, engineer." John could design a refinery from the ground up. In the two black notebooks on his shelf, he had examples for piping design (to include stress analysis), instrumentation design, electrical design, and everything in between.  

We became fast friends when I started to work with him on a major refinery expansion. We were the client representatives for a grassroots Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit. We were in the final stages of preparing the Authorization for Expenditure (AFE) for submittal to management. We sequestered ourselves into his apartment for two weeks, developing cost estimates for the entire project. We emerged victorious and approached our Program Director with our estimate in hand to present the case for the funding AFE. We spent one hour discussing our summary cost estimate when the Program Director stopped us in our tracks. He stated that we had a strict budget of $250MM for the entire project, and it was crucial to keep the cost within this limit. Our cost estimate was around the $300MM mark…

We were devastated and worked another three weeks trying to reduce our cost estimate agree with the lower cost.  We never reached a final agreement…With all the detailed backup to support our estimate, we were certain that our cost was a true reflection of the project's future final cost, a figure that carried significant weight in our decision-making process.  

John's attention to detail was unbelievable. Fast forward to a few years after John retired. My office phone rings, and I pick it up to hear John on the other end of the line. I had not heard from him for over a year. After the usual pleasantries, John said he had an important question for me. His question was this – what did I know about nails? He said he did not want to have to re-paint the house if the nails bleed through the paint due to inclimate weather. Now, John lived in the swamps of Texas – so it was a valid question.  

My answer was short and to the point – there is one end with a flat head and the opposite end was sharp and pointed. Use the hammer on the flat end…there you have it – all I know about nails. But John would not let it go…he asked if I could connect him to my company's Metallurgist, and the conversation ended abruptly.

This is a story that I have told over and over again : When do you stop with the design and go build the project? Sometimes the toughest decision is made on a single project.  So when is good enough, good enough?