My reach outs
Equipped with an above average personal space and draped in an well qualified educational cloak, I voluntarily reached out post my graduation in 1994 to the call of my conscience to;
2. Graduate Apprenticeship - Six months into the above self employment learnings, I was presented with an opportunity to explore albeit not theoretically but practically, the engineering learnings I availed at MIT - Manipal through an initiation into apprenticeship programme (a goverment of India initiative) that helps fresh engineering graduates to honer their engineering skills prior seeking regular employment. This was to be a one year workshop cum in-situ training programme at NOCIL (National Organics Chemical Industries Limited) in Mumbai. Having already known the importance of time and labor management I took the opportunity here to put into practice the same in a process flow industry as this one, as any delay in one chain of the process seemed to effect the others thereby causing a tremendous waste of the raw material viz. the incoming naphtha that had to be bypassed from the main line, only to be wasted and burnt through the flare (naphtha cost approximately $180 per tonne; @1$ = Rs.33 for year 1995); all due to a choke up somewhere in the process line. Hence, the company then owed a lot to its excellent maintenance team that kept all the pumps, heat exchangers, steam turbines, electric motors, centrifuges, etc. in excellent working conditions. Being acquainted with the maintenance staff polished my skills on workshop maintenance activities that till then had been restricted to college workshop only. Pre-requisites of any machine overhauling had meant getting the machine drawings/blue - prints understood, compiling previous datas on the repairs/maintenance done and then finally a decision to undertake the maintenance or order a replacement when situation permitted. A continuous running plant needed continuous monitoring of various parameters such as temperature, pressure build up, etc. that was well served through the help of calibrated sensors that conveyed accurate information on to the control room operators. The in-situ plant maintenance also called for checking on any not so familiar noise emanating from the running equipment especially rotary as a rotary equipment may serve its purpose of delivering the needed working parameters at the control room but on site it may show up the same with uncomfortable noise and vibrations. The maintenance requirements such as fouling, corrosion, etc. of static equipment like heat exchangers however had a direct implication to their non performance as obtained from the control room datas. As my apprenticeship was in a period when computerization of datas was still in its infancy hence book keeping of records (for maintenance/purchase/etc.) was more prominent and only witnessed the gradual shift that were initiated to make the records computerized through softwares like ERP, SAP, etc. that again which I was to learn through my students during company visits as the institute representative - lecturer, during occasions calling for industry - institute interactions.
(Jan' 1995 to Dec' 1995)
3. Teaching engineering - One year of apprenticeship helps blend the theoretical and practical learnings for any budding engineer provided he/she allows for the same to happen and not fall into the illusion of seeking the perfect job, the dreamt salary, a secure future and the like thoughts. It was this thirst to learn more that enabled me to join a teaching-learning system in the form of an engineering diploma college. Apart from the primary responsibility of discharging lectures and practical sessions, syllabus revisions and exam works, I became actively involved with in-house administrative matters such as preparing exam result sheets (summary of results), maintaining history of students, eligibility of students, preparing list of students actually enrolled for regular and backlog exams, preparing the list of subjects for practical/oral exams, active participation in morning assembly, staff technical paper presentation activities, enrolling in students extra-curricular activities, etc. Also worked as a member of the Students Mentoring and Grievances Cell. As the college was affiliated to an external state government body viz. Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education (MSBTE), hence there were ample areas to prove one's ability to manage projects of the like; Course coordinator in model answer preparation, Controller of theory exams, Officer In-charge for question paper packets distribution and in individual capacity as question paper setter, examiner/moderator of answer books, sealing supervisor, invigilator, etc. A glimpse of the research activities undertaken along with quality improvement programmes attended/conducted are shown as separate pages on Certificates and Testimonials.
(Jan' 1997 to Jan' 2015)
4. Online problem solving - Due to inadvertent rise in online communication platforms today that have enabled convergence of technical solution seekers and solvers, I have of late been innovating ways and means to move that extra bit and find out the working scenario worldwide when it came to solving technical hiccups. It was overwhelming to find that anyone in the world could be approached to help solve a problem at hand rather than scout around for local or in-house solvers alone. A few such platforms have been on Ideaconnection, Innocentive and such...............
(Jan' 2015 till date)
Equipped with an above average personal space and draped in an well qualified educational cloak, I voluntarily reached out post my graduation in 1994 to the call of my conscience to;
1. Self employment - Scope for self
employment meant managing our ancestral household agriculture comprising
of coconut, betel nut, jack fruit plantations as these are the more
commonly grown plantation species in the coastal areas of south western
India in addition to rice plantations because rice happens to be the
staple diet of the natives in Karnataka state unlike the use of wheat in
the neighboring state of Maharashtra. Deep in my mind, I had wished then to follow the herd i.e. go in for a higher masters degree in Mechanical engineering but that would require appropriate preparations to clear the competitive exams. Hence, a self employment opportunity as this gave me the much needed time to steam out such self oriented necessities of the time without having to seriously worry about work loads and time management as would have been had I to report to work elsewhere. Because of household management I became familiar with the activities of the orchards viz. strengthening the base of the trees with red mud soil, good manure, seaside salt, build water retaining bunds, etc. post the rainy season. It dawned on me that such basic activities provide for an year round benefits in the form of good reaps literally every month such that a family of four could survive through the sales proceeds accrued out of it. Other activities needing attention were to be mostly of labor as in the last three decades there have been a scarcity of farming labors. The designated labors' would 1. Climb up the tall coconut/betel nut trees and bring down the ripened fruits, mind you not all are experts in this trade but unfortunately the art/skill is dying away slowly 2. Collect all the fruits scattered on the ground and carry it to the storage room/market, 3. Clean areas near the base of the trees off any plant saplings, weeds and rouge plants. A much needed storage room becomes evident with such agricultural products as competition amongst village folks who also grow the same plantation species could deliver the right quality and quantity of such products in the right time i.e. at the right price prevailing in the local market. So many a times a pile up of older harvests could remain in storage because of the market prices having thumbed down with sales dipping or sales executed at lower prices to avoid such pile up.
(June' 1994 to Dec' 1994) and (Jan' 1996 to Jan' 1997)
(June' 1994 to Dec' 1994) and (Jan' 1996 to Jan' 1997)
2. Graduate Apprenticeship - Six months into the above self employment learnings, I was presented with an opportunity to explore albeit not theoretically but practically, the engineering learnings I availed at MIT - Manipal through an initiation into apprenticeship programme (a goverment of India initiative) that helps fresh engineering graduates to honer their engineering skills prior seeking regular employment. This was to be a one year workshop cum in-situ training programme at NOCIL (National Organics Chemical Industries Limited) in Mumbai. Having already known the importance of time and labor management I took the opportunity here to put into practice the same in a process flow industry as this one, as any delay in one chain of the process seemed to effect the others thereby causing a tremendous waste of the raw material viz. the incoming naphtha that had to be bypassed from the main line, only to be wasted and burnt through the flare (naphtha cost approximately $180 per tonne; @1$ = Rs.33 for year 1995); all due to a choke up somewhere in the process line. Hence, the company then owed a lot to its excellent maintenance team that kept all the pumps, heat exchangers, steam turbines, electric motors, centrifuges, etc. in excellent working conditions. Being acquainted with the maintenance staff polished my skills on workshop maintenance activities that till then had been restricted to college workshop only. Pre-requisites of any machine overhauling had meant getting the machine drawings/blue - prints understood, compiling previous datas on the repairs/maintenance done and then finally a decision to undertake the maintenance or order a replacement when situation permitted. A continuous running plant needed continuous monitoring of various parameters such as temperature, pressure build up, etc. that was well served through the help of calibrated sensors that conveyed accurate information on to the control room operators. The in-situ plant maintenance also called for checking on any not so familiar noise emanating from the running equipment especially rotary as a rotary equipment may serve its purpose of delivering the needed working parameters at the control room but on site it may show up the same with uncomfortable noise and vibrations. The maintenance requirements such as fouling, corrosion, etc. of static equipment like heat exchangers however had a direct implication to their non performance as obtained from the control room datas. As my apprenticeship was in a period when computerization of datas was still in its infancy hence book keeping of records (for maintenance/purchase/etc.) was more prominent and only witnessed the gradual shift that were initiated to make the records computerized through softwares like ERP, SAP, etc. that again which I was to learn through my students during company visits as the institute representative - lecturer, during occasions calling for industry - institute interactions.
(Jan' 1995 to Dec' 1995)
3. Teaching engineering - One year of apprenticeship helps blend the theoretical and practical learnings for any budding engineer provided he/she allows for the same to happen and not fall into the illusion of seeking the perfect job, the dreamt salary, a secure future and the like thoughts. It was this thirst to learn more that enabled me to join a teaching-learning system in the form of an engineering diploma college. Apart from the primary responsibility of discharging lectures and practical sessions, syllabus revisions and exam works, I became actively involved with in-house administrative matters such as preparing exam result sheets (summary of results), maintaining history of students, eligibility of students, preparing list of students actually enrolled for regular and backlog exams, preparing the list of subjects for practical/oral exams, active participation in morning assembly, staff technical paper presentation activities, enrolling in students extra-curricular activities, etc. Also worked as a member of the Students Mentoring and Grievances Cell. As the college was affiliated to an external state government body viz. Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education (MSBTE), hence there were ample areas to prove one's ability to manage projects of the like; Course coordinator in model answer preparation, Controller of theory exams, Officer In-charge for question paper packets distribution and in individual capacity as question paper setter, examiner/moderator of answer books, sealing supervisor, invigilator, etc. A glimpse of the research activities undertaken along with quality improvement programmes attended/conducted are shown as separate pages on Certificates and Testimonials.
(Jan' 1997 to Jan' 2015)
4. Online problem solving - Due to inadvertent rise in online communication platforms today that have enabled convergence of technical solution seekers and solvers, I have of late been innovating ways and means to move that extra bit and find out the working scenario worldwide when it came to solving technical hiccups. It was overwhelming to find that anyone in the world could be approached to help solve a problem at hand rather than scout around for local or in-house solvers alone. A few such platforms have been on Ideaconnection, Innocentive and such...............
(Jan' 2015 till date)
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