Why the Applied Studies Centre  exists is as follows:

 

The Applied Studies Centre is a for-profit consultancy which specialization is in power plant project construction and operations cost analysis.  This site exists as a downloadable library for capabilities development in both developing countries and in the industrial West.  It is created in response to an observed and measurable decline in expertise in the non-degree’d disciplines which support the activities of registered professional mechanical, electrical and civil engineers. 

 

In the mechanical contracting industry worldwide, there is a critical shortage of young persons who wish to work the white-collar end of things armed with but basic skills of mathematics, science and a solid business writing style.  This not only applies to purchasing and construction cost estimating functions, but also to proposal writing and pricing development in sales departments of construction contractors.  Not everyone wants a college education and the political and cultural baggage which goes along with being a degree’d licenced professional, and there is more of a need for good staff personnel than for yet more managers.   The staff of the Applied Studies Centre hopes to make good on making available to the apt student of power plant building the tools needed for an interesting and exciting career providing power to the people.

 

It is also our aim to aid and assist the technical writer, project tracking and reporting clerk, and regulatory permit writer to improve their skills in getting the point across to those whom they serve.

 

Lastly, it is a well-known quirk of our Western economy that most of the essential day-to-day methods of conducting mechanical construction on an industrial scale are rules of thumb passed on by cross-mentoring by peers, with the old and grey monkeys instructing the nimble but inexperienced young ones in the finer points of stealing bananas.  The apt pupil of the knowledge provided at this site will find many of these quasi-folkloric tricks of the trade both useful and profitable. 

 

Much of the tradecraft to be presented here quite possibly could be the first instance of these methods and assumptions being put forth in print form.

Who we are:

 

The Applied Studies Centre is an unstructured cabal of  “permatemp” (independent workers who prefer to work on a subcontract basis from project to project rather than hanging about with one company for their careers) mechanical cost analysts, proposal writers,  power plant, boiler and gas turbine sales persons, and jobsite clerks.  The Centre’s sole proprietor, site editor, and database manager is Walter James O’Brien.  As well as being  content editor for the HVAC and power generation costbook sections for Craftsman Book Company, he is a cost-estimating and project managerial thirty-one-year veteran of roughly 100-plus industrial boiler power plant construction projects, 200-plus boiler burner changeouts, over a dozen gas turbine generator installations, and twenty-odd steam turbine generator projects, including several plant decommissioning and demolition jobs.  As a cost analyst, development writer and documentation clerk, the number of feasibility studies to which he contributed since the introduction of the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 amount to over four hundred.  The above are all U.S. projects.

 

Mr. O’Brien has also been engaged as cost analyst, proposal writer, marketeer, and/or project management clerking jack-of-all-trades in several offshore power generation projects,  to include Wabamun, Genesee, and Sundance (Alberta, Canada), Israel, Nigeria, Haiti, Ecuador, Mexico, Viet Nam, Mali and Panama, often conducting such representation and agenting services alone or via the InterNet with an in-country partner.

Serving The Mechanical Fabricator

Serving the Power Plant Builder

Serving the Power Plant Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Organization

Mr. O’Brien with the Electricite d’Haiti generation planning team

Mr. O’Brien with the General Manager, EDH, the Minister for Public Works,  the Secretary of State for Energy and Telecommunications, and the Minister for Energy and Mining

Please post all enquiries to: editor at transactionsmagazine dot com

Alternatively, you may leave an answer-back number at 01.425.388.7384

All text, images and designs copyright 2009 Walter James O’Brien.  All rights reserved under North American, Madrid and Commonwealth Protocols.

Journal of the Applied Studies Centre