About

Thanks for visiting my site. Take a look around, check it out, and please let me know if you see anything that doesn't look right. (See the Contacting Me section below for the necessary info.)

Who Am I?

I am a nuclear engineer with a Master's degree from Mississippi State University, and I did some work at Argonne National Lab while I was in grad school. My first real job was with Entergy Nuclear, where I worked in Reactor Physics Support and then as a Reactor Engineer at River Bend Station. I also worked at TransWare Enterprises for a while, primarily doing reactor analysis code development; I used Fortran everyday in that job, and I liked it!

Since mid-2002, I've been working at Ontario Power Generation in a variety of roles. I've done a lot of work related to Performance Improvement, including Root Cause Analysis, Trending, Human Performance, Operating Experience, and Self Assessment. I also spent some time in Engineering Training, Work Management, Equipment Reliability and Aging Management, Fire Protection Programs, and now eLearning and Instructional Design.

Yes, I like switching things up every now and then.

Other Profiles

Are you interested in finding out more about me? I have profiles that you can check on some other sites; check the links below.

Bill @ LinkedIn
Bill @ Google+
Bill @ Twitter
Bill @ Facebook
Bill @ Pinterest

Publications

The only thing this list really says about me is that I haven't published anything in a really long time.

S. Baker, W. Wilson and K. Buckwheat, "Evaluation of the CM-PRESTO Nodal Code Accuracy in Modeling A SVEA 96/GE9 Mixed Core", Proc. PHYSOR 2000 ANS International Topical Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, May 2000.

D. B. Jones, S. P. Baker and W. J. Wilson, "TRANSMGU, A Model Generator Utility Code", Proc. PHYSOR 2000 ANS Intl. Topical Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, May 2000.

S. Baker, B. Wilson and K. Buckwheat, "Benchmark of CPM-3 2X2 Calculations to Support Evaluation of SVEA 96 Reload", Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc., 81, 304 (1999).

W. J. Wilson, J. L. Vujic and A. G. Gu, "Parallel Multiple Assembly Calculations in GTRAN2/M", Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc., 69, 204 (1993). View Abstract

J. L. Vujic, W. J. Wilson and A. G. Gu, "Multiple Assembly Calculations in GTRAN2", Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc., 68 (Part A), 460 (1993). View Abstract

Contacting Me

The best way to get in touch with me is to leave a comment on the site; just scroll to the bottom of this page (or almost any other) and you should see the Reply form. Your comment won't get posted immediately, but will instead be saved in a moderation bin for my review. Please be sure to tell me if you don't want the comment to be posted after I've seen it!


by Bill Wilson
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Last updated: April 18, 2015 at 14:05 pm

3 Responses

  1. Serge says:

    Hi,

    I’m working in a big industry and I manage a program for “problem solving”.
    I’m fan of your web site. I found a lot of valuable information.

    After many readings on different root causes analisys methods I’m curious to know which one you would suggest to use.
    Currently in my industry we use 8D for problem solving which is using Ishikawa and 5Why for the RCA, but if it is fine for minor problems, it is very limited for major and complex ones. As we have automotive customers 8D is mandatory for us. So I would like to improve the RCA Inside the 8D (which is step D4) with a better method. Which one would you suggest?

    Best regards
    Serge

    • Bill Wilson says:

      Hi Serge,

      Thanks for leaving a comment; I appreciate your kind words. Regarding 8D… yes, I am somewhat familiar with it, and have participated in processes that are generally similar, but have never called what I was doing “8D”. As you mentioned, the analysis step of 8D often uses 5 Whys and Ishikawa/Fishbone methods, but others could be used. One simple enhancement would be to step up from 5 Whys to 5×5 Whys; the change is minimal in terms of process, but the change in results can be significant. Once you’re comfortable with 5×5 Whys, you might consider the methods discussed on my RCA Tools page. You could even keep Ishikawa/Fishbone in the mix as an adjunct tool for exploring potential causes and identifying possible avenues for corrective action. In general, though, the biggest improvement will probably come from simply considering that the answer to any “Why” question can be of the form “this and this and…”

      Regards,
      Bill

  2. Phil Murray says:

    Hi, Bill —

    I just found your site as a result of a search on “wicked problems.” I need to explore what you have written, but I think we share at least one basic viewpoint: Thoughtful, systematic analysis of problems trumps reliance on blunderbuss approaches that rely on questionable analysis of large amounts of data and information.

    I believe that there are a bunch of folks who have similar interests. It’s just that we have slightly different perspectives, often very different life histories, and inevitably use different terminology for similar things. So we only find each other by accident.

    I tried to capture my understanding of the related disciplines and technologies in a graphic on my blog.

    BTW, have applied Bayesian networks to your techniques?

    Phil Murray

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