Conducting a Capital Project at the optimum pace is a serious matter. I have seen all extremes in pace or scheduling of projects. Some engineers want to make a career out of designing projects. Others want to set a speed record. There is no correct pace for a project. If you are trying to adopt some of the ideas I had in this column last week, you may have to proceed cautiously and slowly. If you are putting in a conventional pump base, you ought to be able to design it before I get done writing this column.

The demands on today's design engineer are greater than ever. For a long time, we said, when in doubt, make it stout. If the aerospace industry followed this saying, they would never get anything off the ground. Actually, there is a more complete version which is: "when in doubt, make it stout out of stuff you know about."

I wear a stainless-steel ring on the little finger of my working hand. Engineers in Canada wear an iron ring. Here in the states this means I have taken the "Engineer's Oath." It goes like this...

Unless for some reason, your company is keeping an extremely tight watch on the assets v. liabilities ratio (such as covenants with lenders; comparison with peers), I would guess that your company is underutilizing asset assignment opportunities. In other words, more expenditures need to be capitalized within the limits of the tax code in your country, less need to be expensed.

We come to the end of another Pulp Rats season, our 13th. We try to capture malfeasance, of various levels, done by the humans that work in our pulp and paper mills as well as the people affiliated with those mills such as suppliers, contractors and so forth. Every year, our fearless reporter, Fos the Rat, brings these thinly disguised stories to you. We disguise them, not to protect the guilty, but to protect us from the potential of libel suits. Some of these bad characters would sue us in a minute if they had enough of a case. I want to push a little deeper as we wrap up this year.