Episodes
Tuesday Oct 26, 2021
Tuesday Oct 26, 2021
One lesser-mentioned reason for the sustained and worsening supply chain disruption is that manufacturing has entered the “transfer portal” between JIT and 3D printing. In other words, an old technology is being usurped by a new technology. The pandemic hastened the process and the question centered on in this episode is how the baton pass will occur as the race track is quaking. WAREHOUSE to JIT to 3D PRINTING. In the 1990s, manufacturing experienced an evolution from warehouse manufacturing (or creating excess product and to ship as needed), to Just In Time (JIT) manufacturing - which meant products would skip the warehouse and go directly from the manufacturer to the store / business / consumer. JIT was clunky at first, but as computers improved, RFID to quickly track and improve asset management, and sophisticated transportation logistics, the JIT system was proven, and improving, by the early 2000s. 3D-PRINTED HOUSES GO MAINSTREAM. (Yahoo News’ Joann Muller, Monday, October 25, 2021) Doc shares a story about 3D-printed cement houses. Instead of conventional materials like steel, aluminum and lumber, 3D-printed structures are built by a robot squeezing a cement mixture out of a nozzle, layer upon layer, like a soft swirl ice cream cone. It's the same additive manufacturing process used to make everything from dental implants to airplane parts — just on a much, much larger scale. Texas-based ICON has delivered two dozen 3D-printed homes in the US and Mexico and has raised $207 million to expand. The homes are printed on-site. While something as disruptive as 3D printed houses seems far-fetched, Doc noted that from 1908 to 1940, you could choose from over 400 styles of homes to purchase through Sears, Roebuck and Co. mail-order catalog. HOW 3D-PRINTED FOOD COULD CHANGE THE WAY WE COOK AND EAT. General Electric's GE Additive Manufacturing branch released a report in 2020 describing 3D-printing of food as entering mainstream testing. “At one gourmet restaurant in the United Kingdom, everyone is eating 3D-printed food because that is all that is served. The enterprising entrepreneurs at London’s Food Ink decided to push additive manufacturing to its logical extreme. Everything is 3D printed, including the utensils, plates, tables and chairs. At Miramar, a gourmet restaurant in Spain, food printers take on more mundane tasks, freeing chefs to better focus on their creative cuisine.” BENEFITS OF 3D PRINTING (Statsys.com) (1) Advance time-to-market turnaround; (2) Save on tooling costs with on-demand 3D printing; (3) Reduce waste with additive manufacturing; (4) Save weight with complex part designs; (5) Eliminate shipping of finished products, along with packaging. ISSUES WITH 3D PRINTING (1) Need for raw materials - you won’t be able to harvest from your backyard; (2) Intellectual property enforcement - while some open source and public domain, it’s most likely 3D printers will have a subscription service like Amazon; (3) Unclear as to how 3D printed items will be recycled; (4) What is liability if you 3D print something that fails - like a part for your car; (5) Ransomware and hackability. What prevents 3D food printers from being corrupted? FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests. The show seeks to bring forward productive discourse on topics relevant to personal or community safety. This is episode 156 of The Safety Doc Podcast published on 10-26-2021.
- Purchase Dr. Perrodin’s Book: School of Errors – Rethinking School Safety in America. www.schooloferrors.com.
Tuesday Oct 19, 2021
Tuesday Oct 19, 2021
Doc clarifies the issues around threats toward school officials, discusses the National School Board Association’s (NSBA) under-informed hyperbolic letter to president Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s knee jerk memo directing the FBI to figure out strategies to address school threats within the next 30 days, reactions from state-level school board associations, and how your local school district board of education might implement changes including recording audiences attending board of education (BOE) meetings. Doc matches solutions to these issues and also refreshes our minds to how similar matters have been effectively addressed in the past, including FDR’s 1930s letter writing campaign. NSBA LETTER TO BIDEN REGARD THREATS TO SCHOOLS. On September 29, 2021, the NSBA, an advocacy group, sent a letter to President Biden with the heading: Federal Assistance to Stop Threats and Acts of Violence Against Public Schoolchildren, Public School Board Members, and Other Public School District Officials and Educators. In the letter, NSBA rolled off this 97-word sentence in which it put some parents in the arena with domestic terrorists: “As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes. As such, NSBA requests a joint expedited review by the U.S. Departments of Justice, Education, and Homeland Security, along with the appropriate training, coordination, investigations, and enforcement mechanisms from the FBI, including any technical assistance necessary from, and state and local coordination with, its National Security Branch and Counterterrorism Division, as well as any other federal agency with relevant jurisdictional authority and oversight.” AG GARLAND MEMO TO FBI. On October 4, 2021, US Attorney General Merrick Garland send a memorandum to the Director of Federal Bureau of Investigation directing the FBI to convene meetings with federal, state, local, Tribal, and territorial leaders in each federal judicial district within 30 days in order to facilitate strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response. STATE SCHOOL BOARD CHAPTERS NOT ON BOARD. The organization Parents Defending Education is curating a running tally of state school boards that have withdrawn from NSBA over the Biden letter (18 state school board associations have bailed from NSBA) as well as state school board associations answers to the following three questions: (1) As the [state association] has not yet commented on the National School Board Association’s September 29 letter to President Biden that requested federal intervention in local school board issues – which likened civic participation to “domestic terrorism and hate crimes” and cited the Patriot Act – Parents Defending Education (PDE) would like to know whether your organization was involved in the creation of this letter and whether you agree with its substance and tone. If not, have you contacted the NSBA to let them know? (2) Can you please tell us how, going forward, your organization defines “intimidation,” harassment,” and “threat”? (3) Finally, do you plan to report individuals in your state to the U.S. Department of Justice – or do you believe that concerns can be adequately managed by local and state law enforcement? STATE RESPONSES BURN NSBA. It’s apparent that state’s are displeased with NSBA and the Garland Memo. Here’s the Delaware School Board Association response to PDE’s questions: “The DSBA has seen school board meeting protests, some of which have become quite impassioned, however we have received NO reports of violence or threats of violence toward school staff or school board members. The DSBA does NOT condone violence or threats of violence toward students, staff or board members. After consultation with the Governor’s office, the Public Health Department and the Delaware Department of Education the DSBA developed and issued guidance to school board presidents regarding how to best handle school board meeting protests, which included the ultimate use of LOCAL law enforcement if absolutely necessary. This guidance was issued prior to the NSBA September 29 2021 letter. The NSBA letter to President Biden was unnecessary and quite frankly not helpful.” ARE THERE OTHER OPTIONS? Doc believes threats of violence toward school officials is happening, but over-stated by NSBA and Garland. Also, the National Threat Assessment Center has been effective in mitigating school threats for 20 years. Reviewing school board meeting video footage is at the bottom of the FBI’s prioritization list. FDR ASKED FOR LETTERS. When FDR was president, the country was hammered by the Great Depression and fears of war. In his fireside chats, he asked listeners to write letters to him describing their plights. More than 8,000 letters a day arrived at the White House - many accusatory and fiery. Doc described why this approach worked, and how it might be one of the strategies considered to make people feel that they are being heard. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests. The show seeks to bring forward productive discourse on topics relevant to personal or community safety. This is episode 155 of The Safety Doc Podcast published on 10-20-2021.
- Purchase Dr. Perrodin’s Book: School of Errors – Rethinking School Safety in America. www.schooloferrors.com.
Wednesday Oct 13, 2021
Wednesday Oct 13, 2021
Doc peels apart the big sticky questions about K-12 school mask mandates. What’s kicked off the flurry of mask/mitigation lawsuits filed by parents? Have county health services abandoned their obligations to school districts? Are school boards spending pandemic funds on football fields? Why are doctors invited to present at school board meetings instead of environmental services experts? Learn what is happening and what should be happening is schools around America. MASK GUIDANCE. Schools are frantically seeking guidance from county health departments. While some counties have stepped up, others have stepped away and turned off the lights. Boards of Education (BOEs) then attempt to align decisions to the CDC, state recommendation, advice from legal counsel, or local doctors. MASKS IN THE REAL SCHOOL WORLD. School officials are unable to define what is an effective and acceptable mask. Hundreds of students might wear old masks, homemade masks, or fashion masks. Should schools issue masks to students and staff to ensure some baseline of quality? How are students educated about mask wearing and how are schools responding to medical exemption orders for some students with disabilities? CONTACT TRACING. We’ve all heard this concept. In practice, it’s messy for schools providing in-person instruction. What frequently happens is that a student tests positive for COVID-19 and then the district notifies parents that their child was in “close proximity” to a child that tested positive for COVID-19. The parents are advised to observe their child for symptoms, but typically aren’t required to have the student self-quarantine or receive a rapid test. How does a parent distinguish symptoms of colds, seasonal flu, allergies, COVID-19, and fatigue? ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES. The Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund (March, 2021) pumped cash into schools in the form of block grants that allowed schools to spend the dollars to increase student achievement or mitigate pandemic concerns. Some districts spent their dollars on staffing and cleaning. Others installed artificial turf athletic fields, tracks, and new weight rooms. There was much, and unchecked, interpretation of what measures promoted student health during a pandemic. Doc also notes that few schools spend the funds on HVAC upgrades due to the technical barriers of upgrading existing systems. For example, filters that remove viruses decrease air flow through the system and strain circulation motors. Furthermore, equipment and installers are in short supply as supply chains fell apart in 2021. SHOULD SCHOOLS TEST FOR COVID-19 ON SURFACES AND IN THE AIR? Yes. Schools have utilized professional environmental services to test for mold or MRSA, remove impacted areas, and help to prevent future problems. Environmental companies that offer those services are able to test surfaces and air samples for the presence of COVID-19. Doc states that professional environmental services should be informing school boards about COVID-19 management in schools. PARENTS SUE SCHOOLS - MY CHILD GOT COVID-10 AT SCHOOL. Doc notes very recent lawsuits that parents have filed against schools in his state alleging that the school “failed to implement reasonable COVID-19 mitigation measures.” How might schools respond to the lawsuits? Will parents prevail. If so, then what happens? Doc describes how foreseeable tort law might be something we begin to hear about and what that term means for BOEs. FOLLOW DR. PERRODIN: Twitter @SafetyPhD and subscribe to The Safety Doc YouTube channel & Apple Podcasts. SAFETY DOC WEBSITE & BLOG: www.safetyphd.com. The Safety Doc Podcast is hosted & produced by David Perrodin, PhD. ENDORSEMENTS. Opinions are those of the host & guests. The show seeks to bring forward productive discourse on topics relevant to personal or community safety. This is episode 154 of The Safety Doc Podcast published on 10-13-2021.
- Purchase Dr. Perrodin’s Book: School of Errors – Rethinking School Safety in America. www.schooloferrors.com.