National Instrument E-Book Catalog 2007

For the past 30 years, National Instruments has been a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation – a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government, and academia approach measurement and automation.

The National Instruments Measurement and Automation Catalog 2007 contains a comprehensive listing of more than 1,000 NI products, including the 20th anniversary edition of LabVIEW, NI modular hardware offerings, and NI M Series data acquisition devices.

New this year is an interactive eBook format, featuring optimized content so you can:

Electronically turn pages of the eBook catalog

Easily print pages

Jump to specific product lines from the table of contents page

Link directly to complete data sheets on ni.com

Download the eBook catalog to your hard drive

View the eBook version of the NI Measurement and Automation Catalog 2007 now.

Best regards,
National Instruments Malaysia
Toll Free: 1800-887710
asean@ni.com | www.ni.com/asean

Interesting Engineering Science Blog

Curious Cat Science & Engineering Blog is a very interesting and informative blog containing a wide range of science and engineering stuff. The blog is well and neatly maintained by Mr John Hunter. If you are looking for extra information knowledge and unthinkable news, you can always get it from Curious Cat Science & Engineering Blog. John Hunter is also well verse in management improvement, engineering and economics. He is also good in design of experiment (DOE) stuff. Earlier he gave me some insight and input with regard of DOE:

Here are some good sites with more information on design of experiments and articles on design of experiments including many from the Center of Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin that was founded by William Hunter, my father and George Box (leaders in the field, in my biased opinion, but others opinions as well).

Chemical Engineering Jobs

I just included some list/info for chemical engineering jobs available in the world. However, seems most of the advertisers are from USA, therefore a lot of the chemical engineering job locations are in the states. With this feature in this site, I hope it's easier for related chemical engineer to just surf at those site (on the right column of this page). For more info, you can log into www.indeed.com.

Malaysian Invention and Design Society (MINDS)

As a MOSTA member, I was sent this invitation email from the "Malaysian Invention and Design Society (MINDS). To tell you the truth, before this, I never heard or know about the existance of MINDS. At least now, from the email, I know about it. And I know what kind of activity they are having.

********************************

Malaysian Invention and Design Society (MINDS)

Cordially invites you to the preview of

SCIENCE OF INNOVATION™: HOW TO INNOVATE

A joint programme by GIRC and MINDS

Date: 19 January 2007(Friday)

Time: 10.30am

Venue: MINDS

ProSecretariat Management Services Sdn Bhd

C3A-10, Block C, Damansara Intan, No.1, Jln SS20/27

47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

Admission: Free (First come, first serve)

Only 30 Seats Available

Who should attend: CEOs, CTOs, Senior Managers, R&D Managers, Technical Managers, Engineers & Scientists, Corporate Planners and Entrepreneurs, Individual and Corporate Inventors, R & D Institutions and Universities

The Science of Innovation™ is a methodology developed to train Malaysian SMEs using a step by step approach on how to be Innovative, which will enable SMEs to consistently strengthen their manufacturing capacity and capability; conceptualize, create and produce innovative and quality products; identify and exploit new economic opportunities and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage over lower-cost countries.

The 4-stage 'Science of Innovation(tm)' training programme could be

completed between 6 - 8 months depending on the company's progress level and specific needs. Each stage consists of 2- day foundation course and 3-day 'one to one' session per company. This 'one to one' session will take place after the initial foundation course.

Stage 1 - the Science of Product Innovation

Stage 2 - the Science of Process Innovation

Stage 3 - the Science of Procedure Innovation

Stage 4 - the Science of Market Innovation

This will be a fully sponsored programme and participation is limited to 10 companies only.

I believe this is a golden opportunity (although subjected to confirmation and acceptance by GIRC Sdn Bhd-entity of British Telecoms Plc) to strengthen your personnel's skills in product innovation for business sustainability. Kindly advise me if your company wish to accept this invitation and attend the preview on the 19^th January 2007.

Do call MINDS at 03-7118 2062/2064 so that we can give you more details and to register your company. Reply form is attached.

Best regards

Gwenn

MINDS

MINDS Secretariat

Tel : 03-7118 2062/64

Fax: 03-7118 2063

C3A10, Block C, Damansara Intan,

No.1, Jln SS20/27, 47400 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

Accident & Injury

It is still day 3 and I was walking towards my plant. It was a rainy wet night. Suddenly, in split second, I slipped and felt down. My left foot hit the 1cm thick metal plate before going inside a drain beside it. I sat there for a while helplessly. It really hurts. I watch around to call for help but nobody was at sight. I inspected my left leg and to my surprise, I have 2 really bad cut/wound and they were big!!! Blood slowly appeared from the deep wounds. I rose and walked slowly to the washing basin nearby the control room and washed the wounds with a lot of water, washing the blood a way. I ran the water past through my leg for about 5 minutes. By that time, my collegues have surrounded me and checked out my leg. It really look bad. It definitely have to be stitched. Both of my feet were shivering. My whole body is also shivering. Lean, my colleague, drove me to the hospital. The medical assistance inspected the severity of the wounds. He injected me with some antibiotics before sending me for X-ray. It almost hit my tibia bone. They want to check if the bone is fractured or not. Luckily it was ok. Then I have to overcome my worse nightmare, to be stitched. All together, I have 10 outside stitches and 6 internal stitches.

Plant Shut Down Day 3

Today, the shutdown job for is described as less head ache. Everything seems to run smooth. Thank God. Everybody knows what to do.

Only one thing that made me shock in the early hours (6am). My operator called & told me that pressure for HP boiler hydro test has reached 52 bar. The water feed pump has been stopped. However, the pressure keeps on increasing gradually. I already instructed them to control the pressure between 50 – 60 bar. The increasing pressure worried me. I don’t want the pressure to reach above 70 bar without enough manpower observing the situation. After thinking, I called and instructed him to monitor the pressure closely. If the pressure exceeds 67 bar, slightly open/throttle the venting so that the pressure would not increase. I choose 67 bar simply because the HP boiler always run between 64-66 bar. Therefore, it will still be safe to operate or control the pressure at 67 bar.

The plant operators informed me that the increasing pressure might be the affect of conducting the hydro test and the “shell tube - cleaning in progress (CIP)” at the same time. The CIP temperature is maintained at 80^oC. The heat from the CIP have exerted some pressure into the other activity, which is the hydro test. This is because, in normal plant operation, very hot water from the HP boiler will transfer heat with oil in the shell tube heat exchanger. Therefore, we cannot do the hydro test. We have to give way for the CIP first. Then only we can proceed with hydro test to avoid the pressure build up as earlier.

Around Plant Shut Down

Today is the second day the plant is shutdown. There are really a lot of work to be done, but a less number of manpower due to the public holiday. If yesterday, we are already infront of schedule. Today, we are already behind schedule. I'm quite disappointed with the whole progress. I'm upset with the work organisation of certain group involved in the shutdown work. However, i hope tomorrow, we can speed up everything and catch up with all the work that is left pending.

Looking the shutdown in a different perspective, personally, i learned a lots of things. Every shutdown will be a unique experience. There will be a lot of common jobs, and some changes, or some new things/project/modification to be done. I really cherish and appreciate those experiences, and it definitely enriched my technical knowledge and experience in managing the shutdown.

Today, among those important jobs that we carried out:

-Steam test - at the beginning of shutdown to detect leakages.
-Hydro test for High Pressure Boiler - to detect leakages.
-Opening manholes & dismantling flanges - common jobs...Infact, I assisted to open one of the manhole. Damn tired....20 bolts + nuts size 24.
-Shell Tube cleaning - via Cleaning in Progress (CIP).

Oh....I'm exhausted...just wanna sleep.....