Now Hiring!!!

After carefully determining all the tasks ahead and the possibility of parallel executions, a list of jobs openings was created.
Here is what we are hiring:


1. Plumber capable of working with thermoplastic, PVC, carbon steel, FRP and galvanized piping
2. Utility specialist with experience in maintaining boilers, air compressors, chiller and cooling towers.
3. Pump specialist capable of installation, repairing and maintaining closed-coupled, open coupled and mechanical and seal-less centrifugal transfer and circulation pumps.
4. Power electricians with work experience with industrial power distribution and other related field.
5. Chemical lab technician to run routine quality and calibration tests on a daily basis.
6. Chemical engineer
7. Electrical engineer
8. Mechanical engineer
9. Industrial engineer
10. Technical manpower
11. Welding specialist

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Planning is everything!

After almost 9 months of doing research and self-training , an implementation plan is in place. Learning from my experience back in GM, I belive in planning more than any other phase involved in a project. I have a long list of tasks that are ready for implementation. The most important step for performing all these tasks and making the project practical was having the resources needed. In another word, without money you can't do anything. Planning doesn't cost much but having the right one will save you some!


Now that the resources are available, I am ready to rumble!!

Big Brother is watching you !!!

Experience has shown that people work more efficiently when they feel they are being watched. Something I learned about couple months ago, when driving from Tehran to Yazd on the freeway was that there were multiple fake police cars (made out of wood) at different parts of the road where made people slow down, thinking they were speed traps. The funny thing is that cops in Iran could be replaced with wooden cars and still have the same influence.

Knowing how there have been multiple incidents of theft, arson and most importantly lousy workers performances in the past due to the lack of proper supervision and security, I decided to put a system in place which would be "supervising" production and the property. In order to make crew feel that they are being watched, I had to watch them even when I am not there. That task luckily can be handled by using surveillance cameras.
The cameras are to be installed through out the key points of the production line and also important areas of the plant, such as parts warehouse and storage tanks. The main purpose is to protect the system and increase the effect of unsupervised supervising.

The systems required 15 indoor IP cameras, 3 outdoor IP cameras and also one high speed dome IP camera which watches the entire property.
All come to a single point server that records simultaneously all 19 cameras 24/7.

This will also enable me to watch everything going on at the plant in my office. There are microphones on every camera which will even let me hear the environment without being there.

Yes....... big brother is watching and this time, I am "The Big Brother"!!!

You have to supervise EVERYTHING !!!!

A lesson learned from few years of working in the industry, if you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. But of course there is so much you can do yourself before running out of time and energy.

Since time is very valuable in a project, the next best thing is to supervise something you want done right.

When you supervise, check on things every so often, you can correct it if it is not being done right or at least make sure they are working on what they are supposed to work on.

What I learned in Iran's workplace is that your presence at the site is VERY important. In fact the only way to make sure things are getting done is to make your presence felt!!!

In order to accomplish that, I had to come up with a way to spend as much time as I can on overseeing things by being there physically. That's why I made sure I can have a space that is comfortable, can be used very productively and most importantly close to everything being done at site. I call that place my "work shack". I have everything at this shack that helps me stay focused, interested and best of all conveniently located at where everything is being done. This shack had to be created at the plant where the project is happening!!!

So the plan was to turn an existing building to such a place in short amount of time with least cost to the project.

That shack will be all ready in less than a week and I am already very excited about that. I will be moving in, on Thursday, which will officially mark the start of implementation phase of this project!

Added twist to the project

Assuming the project is done tomorrow, the biggest challenge after that would be selling the product. Even though that should be always separate from the production side of things, but since "I" have to worry about everything, that quickly became my territory as well. For the past month, I have been drawing up a plan to make a product that has a market and is in demand.

Since the main purpose of the plant is producing Chlorine gas (Cl2)and Caustic Soda (NaOH), whatever the final product is should be made from these two chemicals.

As any household wife would know, bleach is that chlorine smelling thing that everyone uses as a whitener for clothes or disinfecting solution for cleaning purposes around the house. That is made from, you guessed it, chlorine and caustic soda. So the plan is to market that to consumers. In order to do so, we almost need a whole plant, packaging it, suitable to be sold at stores.

I started researching the industry for machinery required to complete that task. The packaging line consists of the following overall equipments:

1. A machine that makes bottles

2. A machine that fills bottles

3. A machine that caps bottles

4. A machine that labels bottles

5. A machine that puts the bottles in the cartons

6. A machine that tapes off the cartons

There is an expo in China that is specific for this industry, called ProPak China.

It is held in Shanghai, China July 14-16 2010.

I am planing on attending this expo to pick a supplier that meets our needs.

Integration of the new controls with the current system

One of the challenging task after designing all the required control systems is making it work with the current system. For example, if you design an automated system that can send the right command out to control the rectifier to have the proportional load and flow of caustic and brine to the cells but your rectifier interface is manual, your control system is useless!

So in order to make the control systems useful, it is needed to make sure all the interfaces are compatible and integrate them appropriately.

Documentation on all the current systems is a good starting point to understand what needs to be changed or redesigned to play nice with the upgraded controls.

I was able to find the supplier for the rectifier and have them retrofit their control box so it could be automated. I also needed to come up with many actuated valves in order to actuate the control signals, coming out of the Programmable Logic Controller. The rest of the tuning happens when the control system is in place and the process is being carried out.

Most common control commands are either analog signals (4-20mA) or digital output (10VDC). All the sensors give you a similar outputs except RTDs (Temperature Sensors) which most of the PLCs have interface modules that accommodate RTD also.

What are all the key processes that need to be controlled?

The key processes need to be identified so the proper control system could be designed. The followings are the main ones.

1. One of the most important process for the chlorine production is the brine making. Some might even call it the bottle neck. To be more specific, the last part of brine making, which was mentioned in the flow diagram few postings ago, is the ion exchange purification. The is the last stage of brine treatment which takes care of the hardness (Ca and Mg) down to 0.02 parts per million (PPM). It is particularly important to keep the hardness just under 0.02 ppm to prolong the life of the electrolyzer cells (membrane part of the cells). In order to satisfy this need, the ion exchange columns need to be regenerated as soon as the resin exhaustion occurs. Think of resins, as elements that substitute Calcium and Magnesium ions with Sodium ions. At some point they run out of Sodium ions (exhaustion) and need to be regenerated. If this regeneration doesn't occur at the right time, the purity of the brine will be compromised. This is why you'd need the right control system to ensure the right sequence of regeneration occur at the right time not too soon since regeneration is costly and not too late in order to avoid brine hardness above the threshold of 0.02 ppm.

2. Controlling temperature of brine and caustic soda at various points of the plant is crucial.

3. Control of input flow of caustic soda and brine to the electrolyzer with respect to the load on the rectifier which is another factor in production efficiency is critical.

4. Addition of water to the exit caustic soda to thin it down from 32% to 28% in order to recirculate back into the system.

5. Last and most important part of the whole system is controlled start up and shut down of electrolyzer in case of failure at any point of the production which involves a multiple number of fail-safe sequence of actions.