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The SAWE provides many valuable technical resources to the mass properties community worldwide. This is a result of many years of participation, volunteerism, and corporate support. You have the opportunity to harvest information from these resources. You also have the opportunity to contribute by either adding technical content, development of standards, or actively supporting the SAWE organization’s committees, projects, and officers.
There are many career development opportunities within the SAWE’s activities. Some are technical, some administrative, and all of them build working relationships within an international infrastructure of the mass properties community that isn’t available anywhere else.
As you set your career goals each year, include opportunities within SAWE as an unrestricted avenue to extend your development technically, professionally, and as a leader.

The SAWE Board of Directors has approved a policy creating a Peer Review Committee (PRC) consisting of Subject Matter Experts within the SAWE who will review all technical Products prior to publication.  This committee has been formed in order to bring the SAWE in line with other organizations that ensure that Products published by the SAWE are technically accurate and useable by both our members and others who may access our Products.

The PRC is charged with reviewing papers, articles, Standards, and Practices, Handbooks, and Textbooks that the SAWE distributes for technical accuracy in logic, equations and calculations.  Any problems with these will be referred back to authors for reconciliation before approval for publication is issued. The Committee is primarily reviewing submissions for technical content accuracy, not for editorial problems such as misspellings or grammatical errors.  Guidelines for the committee are complete and distributed to committee members. The committee is checking submissions for inaccuracies in five (5) different categories. The first three categories define problems that must be reconciled before publication. The last two are essentially courtesy checks that reveal problems that are not technical in nature and will not result in mandatory reconciliation before publication approval is attained.

Category 1 (Equation Problems) checks submissions for inconsistencies within equations and incorrect equations.

Category 2 (Premise Problems) ensures that a submission supports any premises, plausibility and completeness of any examples, and for consistency between the stated objective and the conclusions drawn.

Category 3 (Logic Problems) checks submissions for illogical statements or references.

Submissions with Category 1, 2, or 3 difficulties will be returned to the author(s) with suggested remedies for reconciliation.  The revised products can then be resubmitted for review. Any Category 1, 2, and 3 difficulties must be resolved before publication approval will be issued.

The following two categories are general submission difficulties that are not technical in nature and will not be reasons for publication disapproval.  However, author(s) may choose to fix the errors before final acceptance for publication.

Category 4 (General Typos) are typographical errors spotted by the PRC which should be addressed.

Category 5 (Communication Clarity) The PRC can offer help in such areas as verb-subject agreement, run-on sentences, and use of colloquialisms.  The purpose here is to aid the author in increasing reader’s understanding of the submission. Authors may choose to ignore this advice.

Many companies already subject prospective Products to internal peer review, which is a positive that undoubtedly captures many of the impediments to publication that the PRC might catch.  In essence, the Peer Review Committee is but a final check by a panel of Subject Matter Experts and should be a welcome addition to the mass properties community.

The PRC is obligated to respond to submissions within one week (seven days) of receipt of a submission, with either constructive comments or approval as written.  The chairman of the Peer Review Committee has committed to respond to authors within the stated week whether or not a submission meets the Guidelines for publication, and if not, what actions must be pursued in order for a submission to be accepted for publication by the SAWE.  It is not the intention of the SAWE to prevent publication, nor impede the rate at which submissions are accepted, but to ensure that the SAWE is held in the high regard which the SAWE deserves.

 

Robert Zimmerman

SAWE Vice President – Technical Director

The SAWE Weight Engineer’s Handbook, is being completely reformatted and revised by a dedicated group of Gulfstream Mass Properties Engineers.  The committee is looking for your input about things to add, and any corrections or improvements that you may have to offer.  For example, the Houston Chapter is working on a completely new section for the Offshore Industry, with help from members in the Canadian Chapter and the UK.  Please contact Damian Yanexz (Damian.Yanez@gulfstream.com) or Andy Schuster at ( standards@sawe.org )with your thoughts.

The project plan is to have a Working Draft done by the middle of December, and a Committee Draft done by the middle of February.  The Committee Draft will receive a peer review by the VP Technical Director’s team, and a functionality review by SAWE’s Corporate Steering Council (made up of SAWE Inc officers and Corporate Partners).  The committee has a MS Word template available for any material that you would like to contribute.

If you would like to help the committee reformat the existing handbook into the new format, please contact Damian at the email above so he can get you started.

The society is very appreciative of this monumental effort by the Gulfstream team.  Many of the tables, figures and data were published in the 1940 edition. (you can find a copy in some libraries such as Seattle’s main public library).  This conversion will help us to use modern software tools to make the information more accessible.

Dear SAWE Members,

With the summer’s end fast approaching, so too does the 2018 Hampton Roads Coastal Virginia Regional Conference and Planning Meeting on Mass Properties Engineering.  I wanted to remind as many as I could that registration is available through the SAWE website here and more importantly, the deadline for registering is September 6th, to ensure that we plan accordingly with the hotel for all those in attendance.  The conference is being held on Friday, September 14th at the Hilton Norfolk, “The Main”, in downtown Norfolk, VA with training on Saturday, September 15th.

Exhibitors and Sponsors:

5 Exhibitors (Intercomp, HII, ShipWeight, Altair, The Scale People)

2 Silver Sponsors (Aerospace Corp – exhibiting, Space Electronics)

2 Break Sponsors (Intercomp, GEC)

Technical Conference – Friday, September 14th

We have scheduled a full day of technical presentations.  This will include the Executive VP of Engineering at Liebherr, Bryant Ward, giving a presentation titled  “Designing the World’s Largest Mining Truck,” which I think will be a real treat for all of us as they are assembled locally in Hampton Roads.  Also, our lunchtime speaker is Jeanne Willoz-Egnor, the Director of Collections at the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, dubbed America’s Maritime Museum by Congress, giving a presentation titled “The Technology of the America’s Cup.  The actual vehicle used in the 2013 race where America came back from being down as much as 8-1 is on display at the museum and worth a visit if you have time.

Training – Saturday, September 15th

We have scheduled three training opportunities for the conference to include a class on Developing Basic Parametric Methods, which pertains to all of our industries, a new class titled Introduction to Marine Weight Engineering for Non-Naval Architects, and finally, Marine Systems Weight Estimating Methods based on SAWE RP-14.  Registration for training is available through the registration process.  Please see the conference website and the August 7th blog post for more details.  If you are attending the conference, these are great opportunities to take advantage of while you are already here!

As always, these conferences are a great opportunity to continue our involvement with the SAWE, stay connected on mass properties engineering related topics, exhibit our products and services, provide support through sponsorship, attend training, and visit a new location to take advantage of all the area has to offer.

I sincerely hope to see as many of you there as possible and the Hampton Roads Chapter Host Committee is standing by to support you!

David S. Cash – Hampton Roads Chapter President

The SAWE has been a member of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) since 2012, and an accredited Standards Developing Organization (SDO) since 2014. We are proud of this role and our association with 285 other SDO’s in the United States. We also do not do this to avoid responsibility as an International standards developer, but to enhance that as well. SAWE is legally incorporated in the United States and so to participate in International, ISO, sanctioned standards development work, it does so as an SDO for the United States’ sole member to ISO, which is ANSI. But all SAWE work thru ANSI is open to full participation by members and corporations from any country. Through this process we develop ANSI/SAWE STD documents with full international participation in our voluntary consensus manner. We also develop Recommended Practices, SAWE RP’s, in an open consensus manner which is fully accessible and in cooperation with our International Membership.

 Benefits for belonging to SAWE with the above focus are manifest at several levels. First, as SAWE has a long tradition of doing, the work brings together technical and programmatic insights from the best Mass Properties Engineers in the world. It is motivational to know that the work ongoing within SAWE can have US and International impact to products from under the sea to outside our solar system. As an individual, participation in ANSI process brings recognition as someone who cares about defining and improving the world of Mass Properties Engineering. Our corporate members are key to providing the resources and strategic guidance the SAWE uses in creating new standards and assuring existing standards are up to date and relevant to modern acquisition programs and product operational needs. Corporate membership gives our sponsors insight into the issues of currency in Mass Properties Engineering, and SAWE activities are vitalized by receiving such guidance. Secondly, for our corporate support the American National Standards Institute wants you to know that “Standards Boost Business” (https://www.standardsboostbusiness.org ) Millions of dollars are saved thru implementation of standard practices, business is provided assurances in product quality across corporate and regional borders. Engineering artifacts, technical and managerial in nature, may be contractually assured to merge more easily between buyer / supplier relationships.

Recently ANSI organized a meeting with some current Captains of Industry regarding an “Executive Roundtable on Strategic Standardization and Competitiveness”. Based on past meetings between U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and ANSI President S. Joe Bhatia, the issue of “Underinvestment in Standards” was the basis for this recent roundtable activity. These meetings called for “… sustained investment in terms of funding, manpower, and participation by both the public and private sectors to make that leadership possible”.  SAWE corporate and individual membership provides a direct path for such an investment opportunity and for fulfilling leadership roles in the field of Mass Properties Engineering.

 The role of SAWE thru its ANSI membership and our associated International standards development goals is a proud and growing opportunity for the Society. We encourage you as members, corporations, government organizations, product suppliers and product users to share in our eagerness to define this International journey in the future of Mass Properties Engineering.

Jeff Cerro

The Hampton Roads Chapter of the SAWE is pleased to offer some exciting opportunities for training at this fall’s Regional Conference in Norfolk, Virginia!

Three classes will be offered on Saturday, September 15:

Developing Basic Parametric Methods:  In this full day class, Andy Walker describes how to parametrically and statistically estimate the weight of a complex vehicle, allowing for an estimate when little is known about the vehicle, particularly useful early in the design process.

Introduction for Marine Weight Engineering for Non-Naval Architects: In this brand new, half day course taught by former NAVSEA Technical Warrant Holder Dominic Cimino, participants will obtain a basic understanding of the weight engineering process relative to marine vehicles and consider the effects of buoyancy, wind, and sea conditions.  The course will also include a discussion of some basic naval architecture principles and an overview of how mass properties in the marine industry are different from those in the allied industries.

Marine System Weight Estimate Methods based on SAWE Recommended Practice 14:  This half day class, delivered by Andy Schuster, builds nicely on Cimino’s introductory course.  It covers the fundamental and practical methods of estimating the weight for marine systems, includes practical examples, and an exercise where students will develop a weight estimate for a 200 ft ship.  A complimentary copy of SAWE RP 14 for review is provided to all who register for the course.

Space is limited, so sign up today at https://www.regonline.com/registration/Checkin.aspx?EventID=2524062.  For additional information about the Hampton Roads Regional Conference, check out the website athttps://www.sawe.org/hamptonroads/2018regional/

From Al Tilley’s daughter Lynn: 

 I afraid I have sad news to share with you.  Dad passed away in the early hours of July 13th.  His heart and replaced valve began to fail and he was not a candidate for invasive measures given his overall condition.  

 His obituary can be found here: http://www.funeralcremation.com/obituary/albert-tilley, the service has already been held.

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This message was sent to Glen Matthews and forwarded to me by Kevin Tharp

Al Tilley was an SAWE Fellow associated with the San Francisco Chapter.  I will attempt to find someone to write an article for the Fall Journal.

Ron Fox

Executive Director