Month: August 2016

Biofuels: As Bad As Some Say They Are?

Here in Ann Arbor, there have been plenty of fireworks on this press release “Study: Biofuels increase, rather than decrease, heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions” about a new paper published by the University of Michigan. After reading this paper, I can understand what the brouhaha is about because there are quite a few other factors, for evaluating carbon emissions from bio-fuels, that were not included in the paper. If I were writing it, I would also have included information about carbon sequestration, for example. Plants take up carbon dioxide and expel oxygen. This respiration is what grows the plant and in point of fact, all the carbon in the plant is sequestered from carbon dioxide. If we look at corn, for example, The ear of corn is about 10% of the total biomass of the corn plant and the kernel is about 25-50% of that ear. The rest of the plant is ground up and plowed back into the ground. The point being is that a small portion of the sequestered carbons dioxide is actually used for fuel production. We can never get 100% conversion back into fuel from biomass so our sequestration of carbons dioxide is always net positive. This is, of course, just one example. There are many other factors that could have been included.

David Slomczynski, Ph.D; Geometrick Enterprises

 

SOP’s aren’t for SAPS (Why you need SOPs and what they are) part 2

In part 1, of my SOP blog post, I described why you need to use SOP’s (SOP’s aren’t for SAPS (Part 1))  and now I will describe what has to be in an SOP and what needs to be documented by an SOP.

An SOP is a living document that describes any process and/or assay. It is a document that
covers anything where standardization is involved.

So, what needs to be in SOP? Think of the SOP as a pedantic, step by step description of your process.  Every little step, detail, manipulation, etc. If you, in a step, stand on one foot and bay at the Moon for 5 minutes, well then that has to be included. Leaving out any step or detail, no matter how trivial, will result in others not being able to exactly reproduce results from your SOP. This is important since an SOP is your document which all employees will refer to.

It can be a daunting task, writing down every step you did in an assay, a fermentation process, or even writing for an SOP, and for most, that is what makes SOP’s such a daunting document. But, once it is written, you have a document that everyone can use and can be trained with. It is basically a little pain at the beginning for a big reward later.

David Slomczynski, Ph.D; Geometrick Enterprises

SOP’s aren’t for SAPS (Why you need SOPs and what they are) part 1

SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures) seem obvious to many but aren’t understood, utilized, or not even written. Too many times SOP’s seem to be written by lawyer or some savant to whom the language is obvious. That being said, an SOP is important for several reasons. They are:

  1. It standardizes your methods and procedures. (Internal)
  2. It shows there is a standardization in your company (Internal and External)
  3. Makes it easier to train new employees. (Internal)
  4. When an audit is done, SOP’s help with tracing issues. (Internal and External)
  5. Show them to customers and/or Funding  Agencies to indicate your proficiency. (External)
  6. SOP’s should be used when you are involved with one of the various ISO designations. (External)

So, there are reasons to have and to write SOP’s.

In the next part I will describe what is needed in an SOP.

David Slomczynski, Ph.D; Geometrick Enterprises