DANotes: Design: Somerville answer

Woodside critical of Aust suppliers

"Sure Australian costs are high but . . . ."

critique

". . . . Woodside chose the site so far from civilisation . . . ." What choice did Woodside have ? The plant obviously had to be situated close to the gas reserves !
Is any client such as Woodside obliged to site its plant conveniently for the suppliers of the plant ? How much closer is the NW Shelf to local suppliers than to overseas suppliers ? Yet these offshore suppliers still managed to out-perform the locals.

". . . . and imposed the stringent requirements" What option did Woodside have in setting its requirements ? Probably very little !
It's a truism that the more demanding the requirements set, the more costly will it be to meet them. So Woodside would not have set the 'stringent' requirements and incurred the extra expense unless the stringency was technically necessary for the efficient and reliable operation of the plant.
Besides the 'stringent' requirements did not prevent the offshore suppliers from again out-performing the locals.

So, of the three key service criteria here :

ability to meet rigorous technical requirements,
ability to meet delivery promises, and
ability to offer competitive prices,

. . . . the locals were found to be sadly wanting in the first two. It is not known whether or not dumping affected the last.

It is concluded that the last sentence of the article reflects an attitude on the part of providers in keeping with their failure to perform. It's up to the provider to meet rather than question customer requirements, or at least to take the trouble to find out the reasons for these requirements.

Budding designers, take note !

return

	critique
". . . . Woodside chose the site so far from civilisation . . . ."	What choice did Woodside have ? The plant obviously had to be situated close to the gas reserves ! Is any client such as Woodside obliged to site its plant conveniently for the suppliers of the plant ? How much closer is the NW Shelf to local suppliers than to overseas suppliers ? Yet these offshore suppliers still managed to out-perform the locals.
". . . . and imposed the stringent requirements"	What option did Woodside have in setting its requirements ? Probably very little ! It's a truism that the more demanding the requirements set, the more costly will it be to meet them. So Woodside would not have set the 'stringent' requirements and incurred the extra expense unless the stringency was technically necessary for the efficient and reliable operation of the plant. Besides the 'stringent' requirements did not prevent the offshore suppliers from again out-performing the locals.