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Engineering Drawing – A Quintessential Discipline 💯
Engineering Drawing, essentially a Mechanical Engineering subject, is probably the most talked about subject in any engineering institution. Maiden experience with Drafter & instruments, A1 sheet, First/ Third angle, Levels, Elevation/ Plan/ Side views, Scale/NTS and many more we encountered in the very first year of college. It is the language engineers and technicians use to interact with one another and deliver the desired product.
The technical drawings, conveying information about an object, can be categorized into various types, and a few are listed as:
1. Assembly: Popularly known as General Arrangement Drawing (GAD), It specifies the final product in a completely assembled condition. The drawing can have a Bill of Material (BOM) on the same/ separate sheet, as per the practice and extent of information shown in the drawing. Part drawings show the sub-assemblies, components etc. to be used in an assembly.
2. Layout: It depicts the placement of various facilities and equipments in a plant.
3. Piping & Instrumentation: Popularly known as ‘P&ID’, it shows the process piping, valves and instrumentations arranged in a sequence/ schematic. It, however, does not explain the arrangement/ dimensions of these components. Single-line diagram is its electrical equivalent.
4. Fabrication: A fabrication drawing provides information suitable for fabricating the component from raw materials like plates etc. Even, casting/ forgings can be kept in this category.
5. Machining: Information pertaining to converting a fabricated component into the machined component of the required dimensions in a machine shop is provided in this type of drawing. It also shows the surface conditions of the components.
6. Erection: Also, termed as Installation drawing, it is used by Site engineers to erect the components at a project site.
7. Architectural: It provides the detailing of any facility/ building and/or its elements from architectural aspects, such as how it will function and look, like type of materials used, doors/ windows/ shutters/ stairs/ elevators etc., when constructed.
8. Isometrics: It is a 3D representation of the piping routes across the equipments and interconnections. A 2D representation of an object is termed as Orthographic drawing.
9. Foundation: It specifies the requirements of casting a foundation of equipment/ facility and is a ‘Civil’ engineering domain. “Released for Construction (RFC)’ drawing is a final deliverable by the project team for use at site.
Sometimes, we use sketches or outlines for references. Companies employ 2D or 3D platforms to work on engineering drawings, as applicable. There is a set of standard Drawing Office Practices (DOP), integral to their winning strategy, being followed by every engineering organization.
This post is to disseminate the learning gathered over a period and any suggestion for improvement is most welcome.
Should Prices Rise? ⏫ – An Unpopular Opinion
Yesterday, it has been reported that India’s retail inflation has eased to a 3-month low of 5.02% in September from 6.83% in August. Food inflation has also declined due to easing of vegetable prices and is a welcome sign.
Bharat i.e., India measures inflation as Consumer Price Index (CPI), the most widely used indicator of inflation, is a measure of price change (usually every month) at the retail level based on 260 commodities, including few services. Wholesale Price Index (WPI), a basket of 697 items, is another measure of inflation (started from January 1942) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was using it for formulating the monetary policy until 2014. A base year is used to compare the rate measures.
The inflation target is set by the Government of India in consultation with the RBI once in 5 years. The prevalent inflation target (CPI) is 4%, with a ±2% tolerance band i.e., 2% – 6%. Over a period of 65 years from 1958 till 2022, Bharat i.e., India witnessed inflation of 0% in 2 years, negative in 2 years and >15% in 3 years.
Does this mean, we need to have zero or negative inflation? The answer is a firm ‘no’ and anything which signals this brings a worrisome scenario of gloom. In this context, it would be pertinent to mention a quote from the 6-May-2023 statement of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of Federl Reserve of the United State of America (USA) as: “The probability of an unwelcome substantial fall in inflation, though minor, exceeds that of a
pickup in inflation from its already low level.”
The scariest episode of ‘deflation’ in world’s history is known as ‘the Great Depression’ which lasted for 10 years from 1929 to 1939. A depression is an economic collapse, a social catastrophe.
1960’s India witnessed 2 wars (1962 & 1965) and 2 droughts (1965 & 1966) which spiked the inflation but was eased in 1968-69 due to bumper crop and Green revolution initiatives. 1975-76 saw the government resorting to stringent credit curbs causing widespread resentment in the industry which was already short of funds for maintaining its business as usual. The final data for this duration was an almost zero inflation. This led to the government to publicly state that priority and core sectors would not suffer from paucity of funds for legitimate purposes.
The current geopolitical scenario has the potential to disrupt the economy again. We hope this macroeconomics indicator remains good on this front and monetary policy of RBI responds suitably.
Further read:
1. https://lnkd.in/dX6UWxzc
2. https://lnkd.in/d7_tzbaW
3. https://lnkd.in/djEN5Qzu
4. https://lnkd.in/dHNyYAEg
5. https://lnkd.in/dmSeTrug
6. https://lnkd.in/dMn5R4ib
Manager with the Team – A Fire Breathing Dragon 🐉
Indian team beat Australian team in World Cup Men’s Cricket match yesterday, October 8, 2023. It was a convincing win, and the scoreboard would illustrate it did see exciting moments the game is known for. It was no surprise, and the odds were equal for win or lose. More than a decade in history, a match against Australia used to be a big thing. We have read and heard several editorials and commentators that Indian team lacks the ‘Killer Instinct’ Australians were especially famous for.
The scenario changed with the legendary captain Sourav Ganguly – the ‘Dada’ of Indian cricket. He instilled a champion mentality, nurtured young talent, and transformed the Indian Cricket team in his captaincy into a formidable force to reckon with at the world stage. The Natwest Trophy Triumph of 2002 and Dada’s iconic T-shirt celebration at Lords against England team is recorded in history.
In a similar context, the biography on Elon Musk published in September ’23 mentions about non-suitability of Parag Agarwal as CEO of Twitter (now renamed as ‘X’). “What Twitter needs is a fire-breathing dragon and Parag is not that,” Elon Musk told Walter Isaacson after his meeting with Parag in March 2022. Musk termed Parag as “a really nice guy” and quipped that managers should not aim to be liked. We can debate on what a manager should be or not, leader versus manager traits, etc. It also depends on the organizational and cultural requirements and many other aspects of team building, survival & transformational needs, agency problem between executives and owners etc.
Whatever be the case, a manager with the team, must be A-Fire-Breathing-Dragon. In the mythological stories, a-fire-breathing-dragon has been a symbol of power, strength, good fortune, fear, & destruction. The dragons are believed to possess magical powers and they are revered in some cultures (Chinese) and feared in some (European). Irrespective of their place in cultural milieu of various geographies, the dragons are go-getter and possess the ‘killer-instinct’ we just talked about.
It is right that the managers need not aim to be liked; rather they are required to become an example of getting the things done for realizing the organizational objectives. Manager and the team are one in the pursuit of the goal.
Anything you may like to add…
Hydrogen – ‘JP’ of ‘Energy Transition’
October 8 marks the death anniversary of Jaya Prakash Narayan, one of the greatest revolutionary voices against dictatorship in modern India. He is fondly remembered as ‘JP’ by the people and the 1974 anti-establishment movement in the country is synonymously known as ‘JP movement’ which had a strong following from the student community that time.
We are celebrating Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day today, October 8, chosen for the atomic weight of Hydrogen i.e., 1.008.
Hydrogen is becoming a symbol of energy transition today. We have known Hydrogen in recorded scientific history since 1671, when Robert Boyle discovered the production of hydrogen gas from the reaction between iron filings and dilute acids. In 1766, Henry Cavendish was the first to recognize hydrogen gas as a discrete substance, by naming the gas (“inflammable air”) from a metal-acid reaction and is usually credited for the discovery of hydrogen as an element. In the year 1783, Antoine Lavoisier named the element as Hydrogen, when he and Laplace reproduced Cavendish’s discovery that water is produced when hydrogen is burned.
Traditionally, we have been using Hydrogen in various applications such as Generator cooling in Power Plants, Oil Refineries, Ammonia in Fertilizers, Methanol, Steel, Rocket Propulsion, et al. Natural gas is currently the primary source of producing Hydrogen which can also be obtained from fossil fuels, biomass, and of course, electrolysis of water. The scientific community and governments across the world is leaving no stone unturned in ensuring this transition happens sooner and safer, by enabling advancements in generation, storage, transportation (embrittlement effect of hydrogen in pipelines, trucks, as Ammonia etc.) and other usage of Hydrogen as an alternative.
JP used to say that real politics is about ensuring happiness among people. Hope to see a prominent role for Hydrogen, the ‘JP’ among fuels in the ensuing ‘energy transition’ revolution the humanity is looking forward to in the decarbonization of areas such as transport, industry, renewables, power generation and many more, by replacing the ‘polluting’ sources for a happy planet ‘Earth’ and her inhabitants.
Anything you may like to add…
Image from internet
Divergence & Coherence – Equally Important
What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?
Generally, it is believed that we must have coherence in working. This stems from the assumption that divergent views and/ or actions lead to conflicts and are undesirable in the socio-cultural milieu. I also used to subscribe to this belief.
With time and anecdotal experiences, I came to realize that differing views are equally if not more, important than the conforming ideas. We must give space to both sides and allow it to germinate into bigger.
In the end, unbiased analysis and commensurate action play a significant role. Proving hypotheses by assuming otherwise initially is one example. Let us listen to alternate ideas and implement the learnings gathered from constructive criticism.
Trust the human ingenuity and the process of continual evolution. The future is bright.
25 June 2019
Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.
It was a normal day on an official tour to one of our clients, a Steel manufacturing giant, in the southern Indian city of Bellary. We were having project related discussions and in the process of formalizing the modalities of execution in the coming months. It was an important project won against stiff competition and will always be cherished one for me.
The date 25th June is a day of promotions in the organization and is probably the most awaited day for the officials. In the afternoon, I got a message from a colleague and friend in Hyderabad that I got promoted to the next higher grade but there seems to be a transfer indicated in the order. It was not sure, however, if the transfer was in any other function at the same location or there would be a change of location.
It was a mixed feeling. Sometime later, it was confirmed that I got transferred to the Noida Engineering centre of the organization. That’s the moment, I felt out of place trying to recollect all the courage I could gather to face this. Just last week only, my daughter got admitted to the school and my wife was about to join a new job in 15 days.
More than four (4) years hence, it seems like a flash of light. Now, I am looking to adapt to new work, colleagues, place and everything which is different from what I had for 16 years prior to that. My wife and both our kids are also part of this transition and they accepted it with grace and an open heart. Proud to have them in my life.
Resilience
What skill would you like to learn?
We face hindrances and have to tide over adverse situations in our daily life. Resilience is what makes us stand up and run again without complaining.
The elasticity with which we bounce back in pursuing our goal is what I would like to learn and build upon. Learning new skills to perform in assigned tasks, taking the team along even when someone is unwilling and resistant to the team goal – are some skills I would like to nurture in my work.
Every day is a nice day and we must start afresh without negativity.
In the service of our valued Customer 🤝
What’s your #1 priority tomorrow?
We undertake to serve our customer – internal as well as external – to the meet and exceed their needs and expectations, wherever possible. This is foundation of building a strong relationship between the two. We can categorize this relationship into four (4) types: (a) transactional, (b) functional, (c) affiliative, and (d) strategic.
Further, four (4) basic sales strategies people use are (a) script-based selling, (b) needs-satisfaction selling, (c) consultative selling, and (d) strategic-partner selling, to build and maintain the required relationship. We use various customer relationship management (CRM) tools to bring intelligence into nurturing the long-term partnership between the two agencies – giver and receiver.
Today, we remember two of greatest human beings in Indian history on their birth anniversary – Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri. Both knew how to build a lasting and inspiring relationship with people and we must learn it from their life-acts.
As the second Prime Minister of India, Shastri is known for his leadership defined with a deep sense of public service. He called upon the fellow countrymen to give up one meal a week to save the country’s self-respect and manage with the grain available in the country. It was responded well by the people. Probably, this was the motivation that the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a clarion call to the people to give up subsidy for “Ujjwala’ scheme with an objective to make clean cooking fuel such as LPG available to the rural and deprived households and to mitigate the detrimental impact on the health of rural women as well as on the environment.
Mahatma Gandhi, as we know him, was an architect of a particular form of non-violent resistance, one of the greatest mass movements the world has seen – ‘satyagraha’- meaning ‘holding firmly to truth’. He was nominated on twelve (12) occasions for the Nobel Peace Prize but didn’t get it. Several of the prize winners – Martin Luther King Jr (1964), 14th Dalai Lama (1989), Nelson Mandela (1993) et al. – have contributed to spreading Gandhian principles in their lives. Incidentally, the Nobel committee will be announcing 2023 prizes starting today with the Physiology or Medicine area.
In the United States of America (USA), October 2 is celebrated as ‘National Custodian Day’ to recognize the low-wage workers and the hard work they put to keep the public facilities in good shape. It was on this day when the Prime Minister of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014 and under the mission, India declared herself “open-defecation free” (ODF) by 2 October 2019, the 150-th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, by constructing over 100 million toilets in rural India. Still a lot more to be done, and it started well.
Image from internet
Conquer the task!
In what ways does hard work make you feel fulfilled?
Facing and overcoming a challenging assignment always fills us with a fulfilling emotion. The effort is worth the hard work it calls for.
Succeeding in a competitive examination or doing a difficult trek culminates into the joy of accomplishment. Invariably, such an occasion enhances the confidence as well and prepares us for taking up more challenging work.
The best compliment a person can ever receive would be: “we didn’t think you could do it, but you pulled it off.. ” Happy to have received it on more than one occasion.
Effort. Win. Do it again.
Rajesh Ranjan's Weblog 