Technical- Business write-up

Spares & Services Every business understands the importance of spares and after sale services. Product sale is a one-time activity, whereas spares and services are perennial repetitive business during the service life of the product. The margins during initial are lower in a competitive market, but the margins on spares are always higher. BHEL management had understood the importance of this business and a created a separate division named “Power Project Spares & Services” (PPS&S) division around 1975. Persons with maintenance experience were recruited to man the servicing function.  Spares in a Capital Goods industry are categorised as  • Vital  • Essential  • Desirable They are also identified as • Capital • Insurance • High cost • Overhaul  • Wear and Tear  During the contract stage every bidder specifies spares as • Commissioning spares • Essential spares • Recommended spares Commissioning spares are part of original supply and order for ess...

The first manufacturing unit of BHEL was established at Piplani, Bhopal in 1956. Subsequently in 1964 manufacturing units were established at Haridwar, Hyderabad and Tiruchirapalli. At that time, Tiruchirapalli was connected by Meter Gauge railway and a separate broad-gauge line was laid in 1929 from Erode to Tiruchirapalli for transport of equipment from BHEL plant. In view of poor road infrastructure, equipment from plants was transported by railway to the project sites. Project sites developed railway siding to receive the equipment and coal. For the Hydro projects, railway siding was not feasible and the equipment had to be transported by road only from the nearest station with siding. For this the equipment was sent in dismantled condition and site engineers had to virtually manufacture the sets at site from first principles. Apart from the difficulties in transportation of equipment, the sites suffered from poor infrastructure. Unreliable power supply was a major issue, in addi...

Problems of plenty BHEL recruited us with a slogan “Future is Bright”. Prime minister Indira Gandhi had declared an internal emergency in June 1975. While coming from Trichy town to BHEL township, a huge hoarding greeted us. It said “There is no substitute for hard work” As part of National integration, a large number of North Indian Trainees were posted to Trichy and South Indians posted in North India. After joining, we realised that our batch had the maximum number of Engineer Trainees across BHEL. Initially we were 180 divided in four batches as A to D, later to meet the government regulations on SC/ST quota additional ETs were recruited as E batch. In 1975, BHEL as an organisation had recruited 600 ETs. In 1976, 750 ETs followed by two batches in 1977. This means more than 2500 ETs in 3 years of emergency. This recruitment was not a well-planned activity, but more of appeasement to the wishes of government. The infrastructure was not planned for accommodating these execu...

Team Work After initial training, we were interviewed by MKS and allotted to different departments. I wanted to join the Production shops, but my not knowing Tamil language was quoted as a problem. MKS wanted me to join either Engineering or R&D which I was not interested in. The next alternative was to join Production Engineering and be close to production so I opted for the same. Myself, AKS, JM Ghosh and TVK were posted in the OP&C section of Production Engineering while PK Sinha was posted in the PP&C section. Mr Venkateswaran headed the Production Engineering department. Mr Guruswami headed OP&C Tubular Products. He was assisted by CR Sankaran and Avtar kishen Jafrani. Mr P. Ramakrishnan headed OP&C RM that included Material preparation bay, MSTR  and Training centre workshop in addition to Rotating machines and structure/ NPP.  S Balakrishnan was senior engineer attached to Mr P Ramakrishnan and he was responsible for plan preparations & distrib...

As a Trichy Engineer Trainee, I was well aware of DSS/ DESS and PGMA concepts for Bill of Material.  After joining Power Projects division, I was exposed to the package system followed by Hardwar unit for Steam Turbines and Generators. For monitoring the projects we used depend on the Shipping lists provided by Manufacturing units and then check material receipts against Packing list and arrive at pending list. In addition to the main supply, there are additional items, commissioning spares and replacements against Insurance claims. Based on these we would prepare pending list. However a friend in Baroda told that pending list for Hardwar supply cannot be complete without deletion list. It was quite intriguing statement. He explained that Russians/ Germans had standardized number of packages and their contents for TG set. A package was to leave Works only when all items were there. To get the outturn, the unit devised a system of completing a package by deleting the items not ready...

Safety and Quality The discussion on Drum Lifting brought Safety and Quality  related issues to mind. BHEL management has always been giving lip service to these areas. In plant, we were issued safety shoes. Most of the employees didn't use the same. In sites, there is a reimbursement scheme for safety shoes. Most of the people buy something with a bill for safety shoes. I have once purchased jeans in lieu of safety shoes. Hardly somebody uses safety shoes. Even helmet use is considered to be a requirement only in boiler area. In TG hall nobody wears helmet. As far as Safety is concerned, putting Safety posters and celebrating Safety week describes the efforts in this area. As far as management and executives are concerned, Quality and Safety is contractor's responsibility.  The contract also spends many pages on describing requirements and how contractor has to take care. Most of the sites, Safety and Quality are attached to some person as additional responsibility. In SLPP M...