Archive for June, 2009

Shift Reporting Service: Part2

June 5, 2009

Upon inspecting the shift reports available it’s obvious that the daily report doesn’t rely purely on the shift logs. It seems that the only information that end up in the daily reports are the shift notes [written text which describes important event in each shifts]. It seems that these most of the values captured in shift reports are the values aquired at the end of the shift. 

This is different from what we’ve originally anticipated. With the data from the shift log being less important it was decided that shift reporting will be left alone for the time being.

So the next level of document is the daily report. Unlike the daily report, which shows equipment status/reading at the time of the shift, the daily report only contain data on the total generation and fuel consumption. The format used for one of the Plant is very simple and it fits within a single page. Aside from generation and consumption there’s data on the coal stock, efficiency, running days and a few other key information. But there is a graph. These documents are prepared in excel.

To understand more on the process of the preparation of the daily report we’ve gone down south to our power plant in Johor. 2100MW at it’s peak, but mostly we’re at 1800MW. Upon talking with the OE onsite we’ve found out hoe these daily reports are completed.

  • The first thing that OE do every morning is completing yesterday’s report [each report cover from 00:00 to 23:59].
  • The first part is on the generation details;
    • Generation details can be acquired from the LTDS (Long Term Data Storage Server), faster then there is this problem on getting to the control room [LTDS is not remotely accessible]
    • or a webportal for the LTDS. [Slower and for some reason data is in 2 decimal point]
    • data acquired is in average of 30 minutes block.
    • data transfered exported from both method will be in .csv
  • Then they will acquire data on the fuel side [coal handling], this can either be through e-mail, or the old way phone. Even thorugh email it’s in pdf form. [she point out there's a problem with consistency(yes we have girls as an engineer), but somebody pointed out to me this is common in coal stock evaluation]
  • transfer everything into an excel template. 
  • Read note from the 2 shift logs and important item will make it’s way to the daily report. [I wish to be able to make this automatic, but processing sentence, that's NLP, not yet]
  • Repeat the same process for the two other units.

And every Thursday she’ll prepare a weekly report. 

on to part 3: coding

The cobbler among blacksmiths.

June 5, 2009

For an engineer who is working in the power industry as programmer things hasn’t been easy for me. The title may have pointed out the little akwardness of this whole thing. 

When you’re doing something that everybody else can’t really appreciate it’s hard to keep on a straight face. Just like a cobbler who is working in metal workshop. Everybody else is busy forging metal why you sitting alone sewing some shoe. While all of the other blacksmith has already have many shoes, and of the best brand, redwings, nike etc. You in your cubicle with no support whatsoever, just keep on sewing and sewing. And then all the other blacksmith comes to your cubicle and says “still sewing those shoes, bah nobody is using it”.  The shoe I’m sewing will not turn out to be redwings or nike, it’s very unique, . .  just say it’s a magical shoe, you can find a few in the market, but it wouldn’t come witth any known brand.

What makes things even harder is that, on of the shoe that I’m sewing is for the blacksmiths themselve. But they already have something another shoe for the same function. And this shoe that they like to use, . . .  let just say it just like “selipar Jepun” not even a shoe on my count. When I went to their workshop they would say, your shoe is no good, I we already got a “selipar jepun” and we’re fine with our “selipar jepun”. 

If I want to blame somebody I would blame my boss. Asking me to be a cobbler, even he knew that I’m a blacksmith by trade. But to blame him for asking me to do something that I really like would be a moot point. In any case I should be thanking him.

How would a cobbler gain a little respect in a blacksmith’s world.