Fourth Revolution of Industries. it Industrial or Digital?

The world is readily embracing the Industry 4.0 concept initially developed by the Germans. With this concept we have made a jump into the subsequent phase of manufacturing i.e. digitization of the industry and internet of things. Because the world is changing fast and so the paradigms and the trends too. With the increasing emerging trend of 'Connectivity', it has now gained a potential insight among the manufacturing domain. Moreover, the inter connectivity and the free data transfer is speedily heading us towards this mega 'Industrial Revolution'. 

Industry 4.0 concept is more than just an eye catchy phrase which enfolds four major trends impacting the revolution in manufacturing industry. This includes increase in data volume, computational analysis, connectivity and digital to physical transfer. In order to, cater the needs arising from these emerging trends has enabled us to create a pavement in artificial intelligence, human machine interaction improving interfacing, and progress in transfer of digital instructions to the physical world. Additionally, these evolving inclinations offers manufacturing industry to connect the digital world to autonomous physical world. 

Analyst have now converged to an idea that the revolution in manufacturing isn't industrial, its digital. There is a huge incoming tide of data volumes but inability to convert this data into an actionable information has rendered most of the data useless. An older saying 'Knowledge is power' has now transformed into 'Data is power'. With this, automation and digitization is now necessity than less of a choice. 

On the contrary, with such increasing pace of advancement the manufacturing challenges still persist in the society even while technology is continually improving. We have failed to address issues that are consistent in the manufacturing industry. Issues such as ensuring quality, customer responsiveness, production capacity and disparate technical systems still remains a challenge. 
All in all, the industry is now on the threshold level of Industrial Revolution 4.0. The revolution promises a confluence of trends and technologies and assures to reshape the things and innovate them in the best possible way. Additionally, Industry 4.0 is now gathering an army of manufacturing sector, this requires careful analysis and monitoring of the strategies exclusively devised to make the most of the new opportunities. 

Organizing data collection ability and driving it to stimulate production is what the 'Industrial Revolution 4.0' is all about.

                                                                               Iqra Pervaiz 

                                                                               BM-060 (2011-2012)

                                                                               Final year (BM-NEDUET)

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Automotive Assembly line

Automotive assembling started in Pakistan in 1984 with Suzuki Japan started assembling of the cars as named Pak Suzuki. Then after other car manufacturing companies stepped a head to start working in Pakistan with collaboration of Local Companies such as IMC (Toyota, Daihatsu), Atlas group as (HONDA Atlas)  and some industries invested itself. Nissan, Hino, Isuzu, Master, Daewoo. Today Pakistan’s collaboration in vehicle manufacturing is 45% by volume.

The assembling of the vehicle/cars starts from the body shop. Sheets are shaped in the required manner which is done by using several Mechanical and hydraulic a presses. All the sheet metal Body parts get assembled by spot welding in order to make a shell. The shell is then transferred to the paint shop where the body get painted. Usually process done using is E.D (electro-deposition) of powered paint on the shell. The E.D paint process comprises of following steps:

1.       Pre cleaning
2.       Pretreatment(ED deposition)
3.       ED oven
4.       Sealing
5.       Sealing oven
6.       Dry sanding
7.       Top coat(surface)
8.       Top coat oven
9.       Wet sanding
10.   Top coat(final paint)
11.   Top coat oven
After paint body is transferred to the trim line i.e. assembly line so that its main assembly can be executed. In order to reduce the complexity and to increase the production rate the assembly line is divided into different stages so, that the assembling can be done in a proper manner without having problems/Bottle neck. Every part of the vehicle is installed step by step on assembly line. Such as electrical wiring, dashboard, locks, Gates, etc.
This operation is occurred on one hand but on the other hand chassis drilling operation is simultaneously running on other side for the assembling of different brackets, fuel tanks, Pipes and radiator. During chassis assembly, special plates which is actually a jig that is clamped to the side drills, then with the help of drilling machine all the desired holes are drilled. Engine assembling is done in which all the pulleys, camshaft, pistons and other parts are assembled. In engine assembly some of the parts are first washed with water and then with chemical solution. These parts include flywheel, crankshaft and oil pan. Engine assembly is divided in different stages for the easiness of the worker. 

After assembling of the vehicle here comes the job of quality department. The basic job of quality inspector is to check whether all the equipment are installed and working properly or not. Some tests are done on the vehicle including brake test, head lamp test and several other tests. Final inspection is done on the body before road test to check all the components are installed properly. If any issue comes out then the vehicle is again sent back to the line for rework.

This is an over view of the car assembly shop.

                                                                                                Hashir Mahmood

                                                                                                IM-119 (2012-2013)

                                                                                                T.E (IMD-NEDUET)

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AUTOMATION - How it Changed Everyday Life

Process Automation or simply Automation refers to the use of control systems in manufacturing processes, reducing the need for human interaction. After Industrial Revolution in England in late 18^th century, industrialists began to realize the significance of transition from traditional to modern methods of manufacturing. Certainly it boosted the financial system and turnover of the industries. Next in the line after 'Industrial Revolution' was 'Industrial Automation'. However, the term “Automation” was not widely used till 1947, when General Motors established the Automation Department. Computerization helped to achieve greater productivity, efficiency, quality and it even altered everyday life. But has it really changed and improved quality of life? Take a while and think! Is automation “good” or “bad”? 

Undoubtedly! Automation has opened up an entirely new world. Many of the things that were done manually in weeks or even months, can now be accomplished in a blink of an eye. Consistency, Reliability, Safety and Accuracy are all terms that simply defines Automation. It also represents a level of efficiency and productivity that surpasses the abilities of humans in many ways to accomplish the same activities.

As stated by Founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates. 

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency”.

Automation has revolutionized those areas in which it has been introduced leading to innovation in different sectors including Architecture, Agriculture, Engineering, Transportation and Communication. It has provided a great amount of jobs for skilled populace; improving the quality of life. In addition many tasks that involved hard physical, monotonous or hazardous work can now be carried out without any setback and increased safety by automated systems and machines. At present age, Robots are used as to enhance or increase the system performance. It is a dedicated branch of automation in which the automated machine possesses human-like characteristics. We I fear that day, when human workforce will be entirely replaced by these artificial intelligence. 

Nevertheless, there is a dark side to everything so does Automation. Where increased use of technology has elevated the living standards of people, it has also led to ever-increasing redundancy which has given birth inflation in International Market. Moreover, Survival of the fittest is the rule of the day therefore small scale industries need to lay great stress on how to survive in highly competitive world market by introducing Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering which needs large initial investment and technological advancement. Further, Technology limit is another problem, still there are many operations that need to be done manually and cannot be replaced by machines.

Overall, the advantages would seem to offset the disadvantages. It won’t be wrong to state that countries that have embraced automation enjoy a higher standard of living. Today’s manufacturing is a blend of skilled workers with the precision of automated equipment and robotics. There is no doubt that productivity increases with the proper application of automation techniques. What do you think? Is automation providing advantages for manufacturing or are there long-term potential disadvantages?

                                                                                Jahanzaib jamil

                                                                                IMD (S.E) 

                                                                                2013-2014

                                                                                jahanzaibjaml@live.com

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An industrial visit to Atlas group

12 August 2015 SME-NED local chapter arranged an industrial visit of Atlas group of industries which are located at LANDHI Karachi for the students of industrial and manufacturing department. Some ATLAS industries that are located at Landhi with in the specified tertiary are Atlas Autos, Atlas Engineering, Atlas Hitec, and Atlas Metals. But we got a chance to visit only Atlas Autos and Atlas Hitec.

Atlas Autos:

First we went to Atlas Autos which manufactures three main parts of bike. Two of them are the main components of Honda bike engine and one is fuel cock. In short the Atlas autos consist of three department’s i.e.

• Die casting department
• Drum gear Department
• Clutch Department

 Clutch Department who does the complete machining and the assembly of the CD-70 clutch for Honda motorbike. Atlas autos also using its efforts and capacity to assemble the clutches of

·         CD-70

·         CG-125

·         CG-125 DLX

·         Pridor

All parts of CD-70 are manufactured in Pakistan, whereas of other bikes some parts are imported and some of them manufactured in Pakistan. Below is the list of those parts that are manufactured at Atlas Autos Karachi.

·         Drive plate

·         Clutch outer

·         Pressure plate

·         Lifter

·         Cutch outer

The machining of Drive plate which is used in the clutch of CD-70 comes within a very a long process of 7steps i.e. Casting .turning , after that indexing, spot facing, drilling, broaching and in the end balancing and after that it goes through the inspection where the part is finally inspected and goes ahead when 100% correct.

Drum gear department, where they manufacture drum gear for three models of bikes;

·         CG 125,

·         CD 70 and

·         Pridor 100.

 Almost more than 13 process are involved in the manufacturing of drum gear. Atlas autos finds the casted Drum gear as raw material then they perform the following processes to perfectly manufacture the drum gear. Centering, turning, gang drilling, drilling, cam grooving, tapping, hardening, washing, tempering, centerless grinding, angular grinding and at the last they perform 100% inspection for quality product.

In the die casting department fuel cock is made from zero to end product. In this department LPDC is used to cast different parts of fuel cock and then further processes are performed.

Atlas autos is the vendor of Atlas Honda Karachi and also of Atlas Autos Shakuipura.

 Atlas Hitec:

Atlas Hitec is another industry of atlas group whose purpose is to manufacture the CDI (capacitive discharge ignition)

CDI and regulator are the two main bike parts which are prepared there; they go through a complete process. PCA circuit comes from japan and they get checked. The material is aluminum. CDI is from Dynamic tester and waveform tester than this bike part is baked following aging and at the last they are stamped with the company details.

Hitec plant consists of 2 shops i.e.

·         ACG shop and

·         Corner CDI shop

The visit to atlas industry was some serious piece of information as we all got to know about the ATLAS WAY. (People, culture and systems of ATLAS industry). Their main products are CDI for CD70 and CG125, and ACG for CD70, CG125 and CG125DLX. China and Malaysia are their name worthy importers. Whereas parts like case, bracket, and nameplate are manufactured locally. The visit was quite interesting as we discovered the dust free environment in the CDI area where workers were instructed to wear antistatic gloves and shoes.

The ACG shop which consisted of three different sections;

·         Rotor line-1,

·         Boss rotor line-2

·         Stator line.

The steps that are involved for its manufacturing are; facing, pressing by pool magnet , preheating the metal , then is passed through 3 bond lubricant and then placed in an oven, boss rotor where rotor is riveted, projection , date stamping , balancing check and then the process is completed. Similarly for CD-70 the procedure is different but it is likely done in the same steps like winding, from which connection is made, soldering, bond is made then through buffer wire and then the machine part is placed in oven for 2 hours at the Last the part is inspected.

We ended our visit by visiting the store which comprised of imported parts and local parts. The imported parts were in bulk quantity which is enough for 2 to 3 months but the local stock wasn’t like more than a week.

ATLAS Hitec plant is the vendor of Atlas Honda plant Karachi and Atlas Autos Shakuipura plant. 

Note: This visit was only possible by the efforts of Director Industrial liaison (SME-NED). MUHAMMAD ANAS QADRI.  Sir Students of IMD and members of SME thanks to you for your great efforts.

                                                                                Javeria Saleem

                                                                                IMD (S.E)

                                                                                2013-2014

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How 3D glasses work?

The technology that makes you able to see a 3D (three dimensional) scene happening in front of you in a theater was launched in 1922 and the movie was named “The Power of Love”. A 3D movie would see as if a Blur or out of focus movie if seen without 3D glasses, so how does these glasses convert 2d to 3d? That’s the question everyone is curious about.

A normal person is usually equipped with two eyes, this normal vision is termed as Binocular vision. Under normal condition we can sense the rough distance of many objects are placed in front of us, as which is nearer and which one is at approximately 10 feet or 20 feet etc. but doing this with one eye close can create difficulty. Our eyes are approximately 2 inches (5 centimeters) apart that allows us to see the world from a slightly different perspective, then our brain correlates the vision.
A 3D glass usually comes in colors as Red/Green or Red/Blue are necessary to wear as to feed different images through your eyes. The colors on the glasses are actually filters. The screen shows two pictures at a time with a different perspective, one in red and the other in green or blue. Hence only one type of image enters through the dedicated filter, i.e. the images in red passes through the red filter on the glass and similarly with the other filter. The images then combines and your brain have to do the remaining effort to sense a three dimensional effect in front of you. As told earlier a slightly different vision is fed in both of the eyes and the brain then allows us to approximate distance of objects nearer or away from us, which is actually not the real distance between the objects but the distance between the two colored images fed through the 3D glasses. That is the reason why we feel objects flying and coming closer to us even though we are at a great distance from the screen of the theater. Finally we are a part of the action happening in front of us

This technology of Red and Green/Blue filters is a bit new and emerging technology. Another technology that allows 3D viewing is “Polarization”. Here the glasses contains lenses with different polarization. Two different projectors project the scenes onto the screen containing different polarization, the lenses in the glass allows only specific polarized radiation to pass through it and then you are able to see a 3D scene.
3D LCD are also available nowadays, on which you can see a 3D movie at home also without any type of special glasses. So how do they work?
Answer is simple. The LCD is equipped with slits of two types on the LCD. When one type of slits are opened they show us one perspective blocking the other, and the other perspective is shown when the other slits opens. This transaction of slits happens so quickly that we can’t observe it with our naked eye, but we can witness a 3D movie with our naked eye .

                                                                                         Wajahat Jamil
                                                                                         Third Year
                                                                                         Industrial & Manufacturing Dept.

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Is Bio-fuel an alternative of Flossil fuel ?

Pakistan seemed to tremble by unexpected crisis of oil which occurred in month of February. This was due to the fact that Pakistan is not sufficient in production of crude oil and imports 85% of the oil to meet nation’s oil requirement and spend a lot of foreign exchange. As the government was unable to clear the debt, PSO can’t import more oil and oil crisis occurred.
This is an era in which the world is looking for an alternative fuel and Pakistan have one of the best alternatives, Ethanol the future fuel.
Pakistan is mostly an agricultural country, with sugarcane as its main cash crop which is used to make sugar. Pakistan holds 7th position in world in terms of sugar cane production. In manufacturing sector sugar industry is 2nd largest after textile industry and contributes 2% of the total GDP, with 78 sugar mills operating in Pakistan. During the past decade the production of sugar have increased.
Ethanol is obtained as a byproduct during fermentation of molasses, a process occurs in sugar industry. In this process sugar and other components are converted into ethanol and CO2  in presence of enzymes. About 10 L of ethanol is produced per ton of sugarcane.
Ethanol is low carboned fuel. It is an oxygenated fuel which means it has more capability of complete combustion than gasoline and has an octane rating of 110 ( normal gasoline have an octane rating of 87).

It can be used as standalone fuel for modified engines but in normal conditions a blend of 5% to 10% can be done. The total consumption of gasoline is 1.6 million which means a blend of 10% ethanol can save 160,000 tons of gasoline.
It is widely used in Brazil and US, together both countries are responsible for 87.1% of world’s ethanol production. But in Pakistan in spite of large sugar manufacturing, 75% of ethanol is drained into rivers. Pakistan State Oil (PSO) launched E-10 gasoline which contains 10 % ethanol with collaboration of Hydrocarbon Development Institute of Pakistan (HDIP). The product was introduced in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad but it failed badly due to lack of awareness among people.
Steps should be taken in order to introduce ethanol fuel which will save precious foreign exchange. Also introduction of Ethanol based fuel will lead to less load on CNG sector.

                                                                                          Noman Raza
                                                                                          Second year
                                                                                          Chemical Department.

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Internships offered in IM dept. in spring 2015

Companies which offered internships to the IM students in summer 2015 are;

1. Shan Technologies
2. Atlas Honda
3. Byco Petroleum’s
4. IMC
5. HinoPak
6. English Biscuits Manufacturer (EBM)
7. Pfizer Pakistan
8. PMTF
9. PIA
10. Dawlance
11. Thal Engineering
12. Pak-Suzuki
13. PSO
14. Ali Brother Forging
15. International Automotive Engineering
16. Pakistan ordinance Factory
17. WAPDA

                                                                                               An effort By Asghar Ali Saeed

                                                                                               IMdian (2012-2013)

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Are you Planned or Unplanned for internship?

What type of your internship is?

The first thing that should come to one’s mind when he/she is planning to go for an internship is that “I am going to do internship soon, so what sort of internship it should be?”
Remember don’t let your this act of hard work goes in vain, so here’s a piece of advice that can help you before you go for an internship.
1-GO FOR PLANNED (PROJECT BASED) INTERNSHIP
2-GO FOR A MULTINATIONAL COMPANY THAN A LOCAL MARKET (no matter how small their setup is)
First let us discuss the types of internship then we will go in a little detail;
There are generally two kinds of internship
1-Planned
2-Unplanned

Planned: 

A planned internship is the one in which things are being prepared by the companies before hand for the incoming internees in their Industry, like they will prepare projects for interns to work on also this is a single department based internship in an industry you are not gone take a tour of entire facilities of the industry you will go to one room work their come out. However this is quite challenging one and at the end you will learn a lot, companies offering this sort of internship are generally Multi-National, Upper Level companies. These types of internships are generally of longer time period as compared to unplanned one to be very precise at least 6 weeks.
A planned internship helps you in realizing that what can be your responsibilities being an engineer after graduation, this sort of internship make you more responsible and mature and your interaction with different people working in an organization help you in improving and enhancing your communication skills, the best part of this internship in which students show more interest is about a big amount of Stipend.
Companies that recently offered planned internships are
Engro, P&G, Unilever, Midas Safety, PSO, Pfizer, GSK, and Abbott.

Unplanned:

An Unplanned internship an internship for which i will say don't do it. Enjoy your holidays at home, this is a sort of internship in which you will be given a tour of different departments of a single industries but at the end ask yourself did u learn anything? Answer is nothing just wasting your time "acha yahan yeh bhee hota hai bht tyt yaar lush hai" this is what you are going to say every day but once you are out you know nothing you didn't learn anything did u?
Companies offering this type of internship are generally government controlled, controlled by ministry of production. Moreover these sort of internship generally do not have any stipend.
The reason I am against these sort of internship is that they don’t help you during your job interview and when you are sitting in an interview you have forgotten almost everything just because you have visited so much departments in your internship that you didn’t understand a single thing at all and after 1 or 2 years you don’t remember anything in the same manner as we don’t remember our course after giving exams.
There is a long list of companies offering this sort of internship but I will name only few of those companies so that you can have an idea
PIA, PMTF, Lottee, Oil refineries and some other known companies.
So after reading this I hope you will be capable of deciding what to do and what not to? Internship helps you in your job while internships interview helps you in your job interview so go for it and have some real life examples of engineering and get some experience as this will be helpful to you once you enter in your Professional life.
                                                                                  Asghar Ali Saeed
                                                                                  Engineering student 3rd year
                                                                                  Industrial and Manufacturing Dept.
                                                                                  NEDUET
                                                                                  Asghar.92_ali@yahoo.com

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Is There any Need to Optimize the Manufacturing Process Management?

The Need to Optimize the Manufacturing Process Management

Toyota Motors has been a mark of engineering exce
llence in the day by day evolving world of Manufacturers. But when in 2010, 51 deaths in USA were linked by the mechanical failure of the products of this company (due to which 8 million of its cars were recalled), Toyota’s established claim of supreme quality was questioned and its long-lived reputation was at stake. But what exactly caused a decline in the quality of world’s one of the best manufacturers?
 ‘The pace at which we have grown may have been too quick...Toyota’s priority has traditionally been first: safety; second: quality and third: volume. These priorities became confused...We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our products and our organization’, Toyota commented on its wrong approach. This unnoticed downturn of quality was preceded by a $10 billion cut of operation and production costs in six years. But it took years for Toyota to clean up the mess the pursuit of growth had created.

 Like Toyota, in today’s world, almost every other manufacturing company is set to ramp-up production with minimal time-to-market, predictable cost, and required quality. To maintain the mission statement of the company and to avoid the Toyota’s foot-mark in the competition of global expansion, the manufacturers’ only tactic can be their improved and safe Manufacturing Process Management. MPM represents a huge step in the quest to link product design with production with a number of beneficial outcomes.
MPM includes all aspects that should be taken cared of during production, from product design to manufacturing processes and packaging and sending out to market. Human resources, quality control and cost calculation also fall under this category of manufacturing management. The manufacturing companies to fulfill their need of a reliable growth by improving, must optimize their MPM process. The optimization of MPM process will result in improved efficiency of manufacturing engineers, desirable productivity and reduced costs.
For every manufacturing company, the process of optimization should take a start from the manufacturing engineers, who are provided with mere designs to work on without any former engineering data of the product. If the manufacturing engineers are given a direct access to the design data then they can evaluate the design requirements and manufacturing processes and the strategy that should be used to meet the need of product. Furthermore, a fine collaboration of manufacturers and engineers is also one way to expand the company by optimization while remaining within the vision of company.
Manufacturers can never lead a successful company if their focus of optimization remain on manufacturing engineers only. A good manufacturer knows that companies, along with a vision, need a sound business plan to stand firm in the market. In this way, finance and accounting is also a section to be taken under consideration of optimization process. For that subject, ERP has a great impact on finance and accounting. ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) early were purchased and used primarily for financial applications, order management, purchasing, and manufacturing, Today’s ERP systems are designed for broader use across the enterprise.
They can include specialized applications for supply chain management, customer relationship management, human capital management, product lifecycle management, enterprise asset management, and expense management.
In a continuously growing and changing manufacturing, a little flexibility is expected from manufacturers if they want to maintain their position in the market

                                                                                            Syed Sahal (S.E)
                                                                                            Industrial & Manufacturing
                                                                                            syed_sahl@yahoo.com       

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PILLARS OF AN EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT ?

PILLARS OF AN EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT ?

To achieve the mission statement of any organization, it is necessary to have effective and efficient management at all levels. It can ensure through providing a room of creativity and innovation to the employees, so that rigid environment of an organization can be curtailed. For example; if we read a blog, the first thing a reader look forward is the unique and abstract thinking of the writer.  In same way, innovation gives the employees an insight to think and implement new idea

as while creativity provide them a path to link those ideas to achieve organizational goals.                       

Now a day, many organizations do not provide a flexible environment to their employees due to the risk of failure. As a result, they did not progress and management remains inefficient. It is essential to provide a room of thoughts to employees so that raw ideas can be converted into dynamism at higher level.

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."

                                                                                                       Attaf (F.E)
                                                                                                       Management Science

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