Career Episode

CAREER EPISODE (CE) 3

a) Introduction:

This career episode describes my on the job activity for water transmission project from June 2004 to December 2004 as the Estimation, Project and Design Engineer (EPD) at Electrical & Electronic Industries Corp. in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

b) Background

Water transmission project's prime purpose was to provide reliable water supply for residents of Riyadh, capital of Saudi Arabia and up grading of SACDA system was granted to our parent company (Abunayyan Trading Company, ATC). Scope of my company, ECO was to manufacture Programmable and Logic Control controller (PLC) and Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) panels as per the designs enforced by the client. The project was owned by the state-owned Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) and assumed to flow about 830,000 m³ of water per day from the Desalination plant in Al Jubail to Riyadh capital. On the course of this 465 kM route, there are 6 remote pumping stations in the desert, monitored and controlled by the central station in Jubail through SCADA system. The design of the PLC and RTU panels were the responsibility of ATC and my company had to manufacture the panels according to the customer drawings. All the PLCs, power supplies and other peripherals were issued as free issue materials from the customer. My main responsibilities during the process as follows; 

Prepare all the Bill of Materials (BOM) for the each panel upon the receiving the "Approved for Construction" drawings from the customer.

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Accept and maintain the records of free issue materials.

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Update the system using Business Planning Control System (BPCS) and order the required raw materials for the fabrication of the panels.

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Follow-up with Materials Management Department (MMD) to ensure on time arrival of the materials.

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Prepare the ferrules (Wire Identification System) and release the drawing and ferrules list for the production.

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Supervise the fabrication and assembling of the panels.

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Invite the customer representative for the Pre-Factory Acceptance Test (Pre-FAT)

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Rectify the issues raised during Pre-FAT and invite all concern parties for the FAT.

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Supervise the packing and delivery of the panels from the factory.

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Request to prepare As-built drawings from engineering department and submit them to the customer after ensuring the necessary modifications according to the changes done during the process.

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Prepare all the financial variation records against initial contractual documents and submit them to the customer for the final approval.

c) Personal Workplace Activity.

Upon receiving the approved drawings I had to prepare the complete Bills of material and segregate them to identify the materials which I had to purchase from our suppliers. Since the time line was very limited, I had to find many new suppliers due to unavailability of materials with our regular suppliers. Ordering materials had to be done through BPCS system and followed up continuously with materials management department to collect them on time to ensure the continued production. Due to the time constraint I had to send several emails each day to remind the priorities and requirements of the project. In addition to that, I personally searched for new suppliers and coordinated with purchasing department to collect all the materials required.

All materials including wires needed to be approved by the client prior to the fabrication works start. Though some of the materials purchased directly from the local market many nonstandard materials had to be ordered from foreign countries. Further, I had to find local

fabricators to minimize the waiting period to start the production. One such incident is the below mentioned punched rails initially ordered from Germany and I was able to find one fabricator locally to manufacture and galvanized them. This helped to cover up the delay of waiting for the rail since the entire PLC and many other components were installed on top of the rails. Without the rails production staffs were helpless to start assembling.

Time consuming task of the project was to generate the wire numbering ferrule according to the client's requirements. Approximately 150,000 ferrules had to be generated manually representing from device, from terminal number, to device and to terminal number respectively. To accomplish this task I used CONCATENATE function in Microsoft Excel to expedite the generation of ferrule list. Production staff had to print them in the heat shrinkable sleeves and inserted them in the wire ends before they made the terminations. This was strictly followed in the production floor for each and every wire, as it was the only acceptable wire identification system approved by the customer. Some instances I had to print them in the production floor to complete the assembling and wiring to prepare the panels for Pre Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) on agreed days. Later, it was revealed that this was the first such occurrence that someone from the Design and Project department support to accomplish the task in the production floor. One practical problem I faced during the process was defective heater issue where I could not figure out the reason initially. The panel heaters fixed for the anti-condensation, started to blown after installing the panel in the sites. All the delivered panels continuously worked for around 12 hours daily in the production floor and passed the internal QC, Pre FAT as well as FAT without any apparent problem. After discussing the matter with our supplier they highlighted that voltage surges could be the reason behind the matter. Metal Oxide Varistors (MOV) could be the most economical solution considering the number of panels delivered. As such, I agreed

with the customer to install MOVs in parallel to the panel heater of selected panels in the site to find out a solution. Unfortunately, it did not work and MOVs were physically blown and damaged upon switching the panels. Finally, I decided to visit the site personally to investigate the issue and find out a permanent solution for the problem. I witnessed the heaters are damaging after switching on the main power supply to the panels. I suspicious the main power supply of the panel, since all panels worked properly whiles the testing where fed from the transformer supply. It was confirmed by the site engineers that the panels were fed from nonlinear switched power supply. As assumed, the operation of ballast incorporated with the fluorescent light magnified the voltage surges produced by nonlinear voltage supply caused to damage the series connected panel heaters. Thus, I recommended connecting only the heater to minimize the voltage spikes of the system to examine the operation without fluorescent lights. It worked perfectly and finally we replaced all fluorescent lights which were connected in series with heaters by incandescent lights to close the issue eternally. Once the panels were assembled and passed the internal quality control process I had to invite the customer representative for the Pre Factory Acceptance Test (Pre-FAT). Upon rectification of punch list which identified the necessary modifications during Pre-FAT period, I had to invite the all concerned parties for the FAT. Packing and delivery starts immediately after completion of the FAT. I agreed with the customer to complete and partially delivery based on the priorities of their work in the respective pumping station. It facilitated to clear the factory space and more importantly we received payments for the completed panels without keeping them pointlessly in the production floor. Finally all the necessary documents needed to be sent to the engineering and drafting department to prepare the As-Built drawings. I had to review all the drawings before dispatching to the customer to ensure that the modifications are reflected as per fabricated panels. In terms of commercial perspectives, the initial estimated value of the project of SAR 940,000.00 increased to SAR 1,900,000.00 due to the complex requirements, continued changes of the projects and special requirements raised by the client during the process. Finally I was able to achieve 12% profit margin, though it was considered to be lost due magnitude of changes happened during the process. I had to summon many meeting to convince the customer for the variation which I claimed finally. d) Summary It was the first project that I handled after starting the work in Saudi Arabia. I had extremely busy period of finding supplier and completing the manufacturing task as agreed limited time period. I had to plan the priorities of production to meet the delivery schedule agreed with the customer. Continuous follow up with Material Management Department to acquire the essential material promptly, Production Department for assembling, testing, packing and delivering the panels on time and Engineering Department to prepare the As-Manufactured drawings for testing and commissioning work at site were my contribution to the success of the

entire project. I was really satisfied with the achievement of delivering the all panels during the allocated period. On top of everything, I completed the project with profit where everyone expected considerable loss form this particular project owing to changes during the manufacturing process. Top management appreciated my effort and devotion to the competition of the project and even financially rewarded