COMPETENCY DEMONSTRATION REPORT

CAREER EPISODE 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 I am a professional degree holder in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Visveshwariah
Technological University of Aug 2002. On completion of my degree, I have always tried to shape my
career in such a way, so as to keep learning something new every passing day.

1.2 The following are some of the courses that I undertook which are relevant to my profession. (These
Courses are mentioned in the copies of Mark Sheets that are attached along with the CDR).
(a) Engineering Mathematics (b) Engineering Physics (c) Electrical circuits (d) Network Theory (e) DC
Machines and Synchronous Machines (f) Microprocessors (g) Power Electronics (h) Linear Control
Systems (i) Object Oriented Programming (j) Electrical Power Generation (k) Transmission and
Distribution (l) Solid State Electric Drives (m) High Voltage Engineering (n) Computer Communication
and Networking (o) Project Work I and II (p) Seminar (q) Electric Drives and Traction (r) Computer
Application in power systems (s) Renewable Energy Sources (t) Switch Gear and Protection (u) Digital
Electronics (v) Analog Electronics Circuits (w) Transformers and Induction Machines (x) Electrical
Drawing and CAD (y) Operations Research (z) Practical Labs

1.3 This career episode with Steel Authority of India Limited, Salem occurred during the period starting
February 2016 and ending August 2016 required me to commission auto flatness control system for its
20Z Hi Sendzimir Rolling Mill.

1.4 This project was carried out in a place called Salem, Tamilnadu, the southern part of the India state which
is about 200 kms from Bengaluru city.

1.5 The organization to which I did this project was called ABB India Ltd. located in Bengaluru and has its
headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland.

1.6 During this episode I held the position of Project Lead Engineer.

1.7 I did this project with one more colleague of mine. All though entire project comprising of mill
automation, drives, and power systems was delivered and executed by ABB India. It was a Turnkey
project.

BACKGROUND

1.8 This episode involved the errection and commissioning Auto flatness panel, flatness computers,
stressometer rolls, STU Signal Transmission unit, Humidifier unit and air purge system this entire
system is called Auto Flatness System, it was a very costly system totally patented by ABB Ltd, Sweden.

1.9 This entire system flatness system alone was 4 crores cost along with spares and other accessories. There
are only very few suppliers of such kind of system worldwide and ABB Ltd., Sweden in one of the leaders
and pioneers offering this system. Overall whole Project was 35 crores project.
1.10 I had recently got trained on this system, my organization sent me to ABB Ltd., Sweden for this training
and training was for 2 weeks duration.

1.11 The objective of this project was to run the newly procured flatness system and control the coil/strip
flatness in I units for rolling mill customers. Strip flatness is very important factor in production of coils
as it maintains a good quality of coils produced. Flatness and gauge accuracy of coils is of paramount
importance for end customer.

1.12 As far as my involvement in the project goes I was involved with the overall installation, power up,
communication, programing and tuning for the entire system. I had to apply my knowledge of
engineering studies in control system.

1.13 The nature of my work in this episode as listed below.

1.13.1 I did engineering of this project from initial stage of contract; I took all the inputs
from SAIL customer and sent to Sweden team for manufacturing of panel based on
mechanical design of mill.

1.13.2 I was instrumental in planning, installation of various system accessories, cabling,

and power up of panel, communication of panel with master PLC control system
and tuning of the system on a whole.

1.13.3 I was collaborating with SAIL customer during the process of installation and
development of the project there by making sure the project met the deadlines set
by customer.

1.13.4 I was keeping a track of day to day activities, adhering to stringent schedule and
making sure for satisfying the customer. I was also making a short progress report
for this project.

1.13.5 I was conducting daily meetings with customer on what job to do for today, what
all support is required from customer end, at the end of the day my intention was
customer must be aware of all activities and problems, this way maintaining a
good friendly and professional relationship with SAIL customer.

1.13.6 I played a major role scrutinizing the man power, allocating, inspecting and
supervising the installation, cabling & wiring connections and power up of the
panel and its accessories. There were lot of connections and cabling work to do
was under customer scope.

1.13.7 Finally I was instrumental in making project report and time sheets of hourly
logged time. Reports contained SOTs, Hazard Reports, Near Misses, Application
description, SOPs of operation, Operators instruction, maintenance, trouble
shooting and fault diagnosis instructions/description. Also there were standard
manuals, circuit drawings, mechanical and electrical 3rd party devices and
drawings.
 1.14 Theorganizational structure for the project indicating my position in yellow is as indicated
below

Managing Director India

VICE PRESIDENT
Process Automation

2 Vice Asst. Vice Asst. Vice Asst. Vice

Asst.
President WEST President SOUTH President NORTH
President EAST

LBU
MANAGER
BANGALORE

PA-PI DIVISION
Engineering Manager

PA-PI Site
Manager

Project Lead Project Lead

Engineer- PLC Engineer- AFC

PERSONAL WORKPLACE ACTIVITY/CONTRIBUTION

1.15 Described below is the following areas where I was actively involved with regard to this project
1.16 To start with I was very keen on correct practices to be followed in installation using right tools, right
method and errection protocol needed to be set right, which I ensured was happening, especially the
alignment of rolls inside the mill housing was very critical to performance of the AFC(Auto flatness
control) system. The margin of tolerance was in microns (one thousand part of millimeter) wrt to mill
alignment.

1.17 The next step was to check all the wiring and cable connections. Once all the connections and
earthing of panel was ok, I cross checked the input supply voltage and finally powered up the panel. After
powering up I checked the version of software and ip address set in the system. All settings were as per
project specifications.

1.18 I set up the communication of AFC panel with master/superior PLC system which was used to, send
the all the necessary inputs required for the AFC system and in turn AFC system will send the corrections
values to the mechanical actuators governed by the master plc. The communication protocol used was
VIP (Vendor internet protocol) - TCP/IP protocol. After setting up communication I checked all the hand
shaking/interface signals one by one to ensure, no data was wrongly sent or received. I faced problem in
string data type communication, for which it took some time to establish communication, which I dealt
convincingly.

1.19 Parallely the cooling panel for the rolls and STU which was called air purge and humidifier unit were
powered up, all the necessary settings like pressure, flow and level were set, simulation was done to
check any unhealthy signals was immediately shown as alarm in main window pc. Cooling plays a very
vital role in afc system smooth running.

1.20 I designed a proper cable route so that mains signals cables dont get mixed with power cables which
can cause noise and hinder performance of the system.

1.21 I also designed a proper route for hose pipe air cooling supply cables going from humidifier panel
to measuring roll so that they dont cut in future.

1.22 Now came the main part of commissioning, for which I was specifically trained for, that was tuning
the system, once all the signals were mapped and were in proper place, initially I simply did monitoring
job of the system, observed for various thickness, width and grades how the system was behaving.

1.23 As there were 4 types of closed loop control in 20 hi afc system that was Skewing control and
bending control inside crown control, lateral shifting control. Again in turn the system was subdivided
into Coarse, Fine and ESVD control. I kept all the PID gains at low level and switched on Auto control of
simplest actuator i.e. crown control.

1.24 I kept the correction limits to a low values and observed the direction of correction and response
time of the system, once I saw everything ok, I did tuning, in tuning we do step test and observe how the
actual signals follows the step reference change, I saw response was sluggish so I increased the gain
values of PID and increased the correction limits.

1.25 Then I put next control loop in auto and did tuning, this way I switched on all the modes of AFC
system one by one, I found in certain grades of coils especially hard material the flatness system was not
working properly, so I had to devise an algorithm wherein I had distinguish between soft and hard
material and tell the afc system to act accordingly to get desired flatness in all kinds of coils.
1.26 I also prepared a list of all possibilities (permutation and combination) and worst scenario
occurrence, wherein afc system had to work and perform fine.

1.27 My other group member gave the final touches to algorithm code by segregating and adding strip
thickness and strip width criteria into picture also. This gave more accuracy and better control strategies
for afc system. This part was time consuming and took some time. Running different grades, thickness
and width of coils and setting the penalty and weight factors.

1.28 We faced some more problems in our way one was rolling oil was seeping into the roll which made
force signals noisy after every one month of running, customer complained to us and was not happy with
our system, I raised a zero tolerance complaint in our process portal service help desk, they did a good
job in analyzing the problem and came to the root cause of the problem, which was customers air supply
was contaminated(it contained moisture particles in excess) , we put extra fine filters in the air supply to
rectify the problem. So after 2 months of running the system we were able to solve this problem.

1.29 Other problem what I faced was bearings and Plummer block was getting heated up to 130 degree
Celsius, I went through the commissioning manuals to find the possible reasons for this problem, finally i
came to conclusion that type of grease used and quantity was not correct, so I requested customer to
change the grease type to Shell Abida EP2 and quantity was to be not more than 40 g/30days on both
sides. Finally this problem was also dealt with ease.

1.30 Now the fine tuning of the system and achieving the performance guarantee parameters was next big
test for us, for this I went through almost all the iba data recordings software under which afc system was
active in auto mode, did thorough study , I found performance can be further enhanced by increasing the
response times and making the system to act faster , I increased the gains further and found the all the
parameters were meeting the contractual 2 sigma performance guarantee parameters values.

1.31 Finally, I was also instrumental in training customer about the system and in future what all things to do
regular and periodical maintenance, how to troubleshoot a problem and how to analyze/read alarm
/events and log files for further understanding and gaining in depth knowledge about the system.

1.32 I also documented all the changes done in site during commissioning, and prepared commissioning
report which will help customer in future.

1.33 One More thing I did was involved one SAIL engineer with me, so that he sees and observes all the things
I do on daily basis , this was he will come to know about the work I do and he in turn will get familiarized
with the system, in turn he can train his other colleagues.

SUMMARY

1.34 The project/episode resulted creating of a new database of installed system which will act as a
benchmark and mile stone and pave way to other projects to come in future for ABB India Ltd. Seeing the
quality of output product outweigh and outnumber the overall cost of the system, customer will reap the
benefits of AFC system within one year. Apart from the maintenance benefit and higher reliability, the
payback period of 12 months due to efficient running was a driving force for SAILs decision to go in for
this unique technology. Within one year it will make up for the money spent on this system and start
making huge profits from this investment.
1.35 The project was a great learning experience for me and was very satisfied, as the final end product
was able to meet all the specifications of international ISO standards set forth.

1.36 As regards to my personal role towards the project, it greatly enhanced the speed with which the
project was executed as I carried out things both technical and otherwise in an organized manner.