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Efficient and Sustainable Manufacturing

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Control System Integration Jobs: Hire a SWAN

Engineering is a very diverse discipline. At Avanceon we need thinkers and doers, inventors and implementers, designers and troubleshooters. Sometimes one person contains all of these skills, though more often a team comes together to complement each others' skills. The whole is greater than the parts.

When it's time to hire most of us look for the standard requirements, probably including some sort of specific experience or skill set. However, many innovative companies are now focusing more on an individual's personal attributes than where they obtained their degree or what their specific experience is

This successful practice is known as following the SWAN Model: Hiring employees that are Smart, Work Hard, Ambitious and Nice. Though hard to gauge at an interview, these qualities almost guarantee a decent worker. When hiring a non-entry-level person, the SWAN model, coupled with what they've done in the past, is a far better indicator of success than any resume.

 

SWAN TEAM

Photo by: suvodeb

 

 

WHAT IS A SWAN?

People at Avanceon share a common set of attributes: we are all SWANs! We have found that SWANs likely have what it takes both to help our clients and to be successful at our company. "SWAN" is an acronym for people who possess four qualities: Smart, Work hard, Ambitious, and Nice.

Smart

We are looking for people with keen minds who may have pursued a variety of academic interests and demonstrated achievement in their chosen fields. Once these people join Avanceon, they can turn their intellects on the problems facing our clients and develop creative, effective solutions.

Work hard

Being smart is not enough to succeed at Avanceon; you must also be willing to apply yourself every day. We look for people who have demonstrated their ability and willingness to work hard through academic/professional achievement and extracurricular involvement.

Ambitious

We look for people who set high goals for themselves and then strive to achieve those goals. Implementing our solutions allows us to validate our designs at an operational level, and it takes an ambitious individual to propose and then implement a system that could potentially change the way a company does business.

Nice

Many companies seek to hire people who are smart, hard working, and ambitious. Avanceon, however, has one additional requirement: you must be nice. Being nice is more than just a measure of one's integrity and character. We work closely both with each other and with our clients to solve problems and implement solutions. We encourage cooperation and sharing among all of our associates and one of the best ways to ensure this high level of cooperation is to hire nice people.

 
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Stimulus Package and Saving Industrial Energy?

Trying to understand the so called "Stimulus" package and its impact on industrial business is hard to figure out around all of the hype.  I have found the government's own website at http://www.recovery.gov/ to be lacking in detail and mostly centered on selling the value of the stimulus package.

I recommend the web site for the Alliance to Save Energy at http://www.ase.org/.  I don't know if this site is always accurate but they appear to be a good source of information. 

Since energy is a big part the plan I looked around and found this article on Energy-Efficiency Home and Vehicle Tax Credits and found it very informative although it doesn't apply directly to Industrail Energy I thought it was worth sharing.

http://ase.org/content/article/detail/2654

Your thoughts and ideas on saving industrial energy are always welcome so please comment if you have something to add.

 

Industrial Energy Management

I find it interesting that the world talks about energy management all of the time, but we too often focus on the most visible items around us without really attacking the areas where it can make the biggest difference.

According to the US Department of Energy, the industrial manufacturing industry is one of the largest users of energy and subsequently also one of the largest opportunities to reduce energy waste.   Water, Air, Gas, Electric, and Steam produce the acronym WAGES.  For each letter in WAGES, the opportunity to save energy can be 10 times the savings gained by taking every SUV off the road.

Not that I am advocating that gas guzzlers are ok, but should we be putting more time and money into areas that give us the biggest return?  Stay tuned and I will elaborate more on this subject in the coming weeks.

In the mean time, visit www.eere.energy.gov/industry/ to get the unbiased information.

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