Technical- Business write-up

Today when I look back, there are plenty of systems that were ill conceived and tardily implemented. This malice exists in all sectors; be it Government, Public sector or Private sector. Most of the systems are designed to meet yesterday’s problems and have no thought for challenges in the future. Later on a patchwork is done to meet a problem faced. The focus is always on applying band-aid and not taking comprehensive action. The fault lies equally with both management and systems group. There is no clear understanding of the underlying problem and readiness to put adequate resources both human and financial. In PSUs there is no ownership of systems at board of directors level. There is no systematic review of existing systems for correction or upgradation. Management wants creation of Dash Boards for various things without ensuring a robust underlying system infrastructure. In private sector, many times the owner thinks, he knows everything and the systems are developed to meet his...

Status symbols In our day to day life there are many status symbols a man aspires to obtain. These include a trendy automobile; villa, house or luxury apartment in posh locality. Membership of elite social club, children going to high-end school and so on. In the childhood, the symbols start with book covers, trendy stickers on the books and notebooks. Cute pencil sharpener, erasers of different shapes and some of them with scent. Different types of pencils. Schoolbags, raincoat, water bottle, tiffin box all add to the stature. For the present day children, vacation and holiday locations are important. How many countries one has visited is a cause of envy or desolation. In our childhood, going to relatives' place was the idea of vacation. A good bicycle becomes status symbol in a town or township where everyone either walks to school or pedals. In bigger cities use of bicycle was not prevalent. Every organization has its set of rules by which it defines eligibility of individuals f...

Boiler FSSS When BHEL entered into collaboration with Combustion Engineering for boilers, FSSS was introduced. It was touted as the most advanced system for boiler safety. For initial few boilers, the equipment was imported from CE USA. Fuel Firing & Instrumentation ( FFI ) was the engineering group responsible for this system. Every Product committee meeting, we used to discuss manufacturing and site related problems. In Trichy, there was no identified shop for manufacture of Panels. Maintenance & Services ( M&S) department was given the responsibility to assemble and test the panels before despatch to sites. There were many problems right from sourcing to assembly and testing. M&S did creditable job. Initially, Eddy plate oil ignitors were supplied; later High Energy Arc ( HEA) ignitors were introduced. These changes also were addressed by FSSS system. Later when EDN was established in Bangalore, this manufacturing was shifted to EDN. In 1983, I was transferred to PPD...

 Declaring Outturn – Turnover  Recently there was  a message from TN Varadarajan (TNV), that his elder brother Dr TNS Rajan passed away due to cardiac failure at the age of 84. As a Director in MPM Bhadravathi he gave a tough time to MK Sridhar and Chawla. Many in commissioning group of those days knew him. This brought back memories of my days in Trichy. I joined BHEL Trichy in 1976 and after initial training was posted to Production Engineering department (PE). Actually I wanted to be a Shop engineer, but Mr Sridhar said I can’t be posted to shops as I didn’t know Tamil. The next best thing was to join PE to get feel of manufacturing. Production Engineering department was divided into Operation Planning & Control (OP&C) and Production Planning & Control (PP&C). I was given the responsibility of Fuel Firing, Oil Systems,  Recovery system and Training Centre workshops' OP&C. OP&C used to prepare bay-wise production plans and monitor them. Ever...

  Roadmap for Fabrication shop   To set up a fabrication shop for manufacturing Boiler supporting structure and TG Building structure for Power plants, the following roadmap is proposed.   1.          Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL)’s Tiruchhirapalli and Ranipet units undertake this work. Thermax Pune is another player. L&T has set up a JV for supercritical boilers and have recently won many orders. It is necessary to identify the key executives in these companies dealing with outsourcing and contact them. BHEL being a PSU has to follow the guidelines set by CVC and it is important to get registered as a vendor with them. All the three companies have their vendor appraisal systems. Registration forms need to be obtained as a first step.   2.          Appointment of a CEO to take care of this business. He should be Engineering graduate in Mechanical with extensive exposure to weldi...