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A Year Ago, A Year Ago

Rifka Aisyah Leave a comment

Actually more than a year ago (exactly 16 months ago), I wrote this post about how happy I was because of resigning from my first company. Then, now I moved again to another company. Still, I’m working in consultant company.

I moved to a company in my home town, Bandung, Indonesia. The difference between this company and previous company : this company’s business is basically ENGINEERING. So, I’m working in office mostly. But last week I spent almost my week in Oil Center, Jakarta.

How do I feel? Read More

New Company

Rifka Aisyah 3 Comments

Hi, everyone! It’s been a long time since the last time I updated this blog. I want to share you a good news: I’ve resigned and got a new job. Yey!

The company which I am working for is EPC company especially for oil and gas project. Now I involve in gas development project in Senoro, Indonesia. Before I talk much about my work, I want to share you a few things about the process of deciding to resign.

See the whole things

Before you decide to take or not a new job, you need to see the whole project you’ve involved in. Don’t just see what is the latest project. In interview you may share about works or project you think the coolest, the most amazing, or the biggest. Sometimes, it does not help you or actually it does not fit for you (this is my real experience). If you have completed, for example, six projects, you need to analyze each of them and ask yourself: in what project I feel the most all out, which project I feel comfortable, learn the most, love the most, exciting the most…

Know your values

Money is consideration, but not the first one. I value creativity and freedom of thinking. I also value flexibility. You need to find what your values are and keep questioning: does the company you will be involved in appreciate your values?

Know your talents

This is the hardest one. Not everyone knows in which area they are good naturally. I suggest we need to keep doing exploring and analyzing ourselves in what kind of job we find easy for us to master and in what part we need to do extra effort. It’s good to have a job we love the most, fit with our talents, and appreciate your values. Have you find it?

 

The status of my life

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I continued searching for new company and new job. Unfortunately, good fate was not by my side yet.

I kept busy and made myself busy with something at office. I wondered if I really worked or not. I sometimes see time goes very slowly and slower day by day. I’m not sure this is a sign of something good or bad.

I continued having a bad dream. I sometimes take a nap but can not sleep much longer than I need because my heart beats faster and my mind keeps thinking of limitless ending of the recent project.

I feel gaining professionalism is getting very difficult. I found doing something right, although it is very simple, was very difficult for me. I did several mistakes which I believed it makes many people angry of me. Sometimes, it is good to handle less sub-project than doing all of them but you can not handle well. I felt it. I felt bitter experience.

Everynight I think about resign. I am not sure what the reason is. I was afraid I don’t have good reason to move out.

Today I applied for production method engineer online. They gave me a question that makes me think more. The reason you leave.

Well, I started thinking. And starting to write. The point is I need conducive environment to gain professionalism.

Hueh, so boring these days!

Piping Basics

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I am getting a really nice and free piping bulk material training in my company. It is a really rare for me to get such training so I won’t let it pass without meaning. The training was actually intended for supply chain staff. Although I am not one of them, my boss let me participate in the training.

Five days ago was a second meeting. It was not as good as the first time because we started to learn technical matter although it’s only the basic. Since there will be a test and I don’t want to put my face on shame, I need to learn more to gain the same understanding as those supply chain staffs.

I just got a nice, simple, and understandable presentation about piping basics. I really enjoy the presentation and I hope you too.

 

Microbial Inhibitor for Cooling Water Treatment

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My company is trying to be a vendor of small equipment package, such as chemical injection. I actually have a limited knowledge about this area, but in my understanding, chemical injection package is very simple. It usually consists of chemical storage tank, dosing pump, mixer, and accessories, such as low level switch, controller, and so on. The job became a  bit complicated when we don’t have enough knowledge about that.

However, to improve the ability as a vendor, my company decides to try to enter this area. The good news is I also participate. 

Our first project is to supply chemical injection system for cooling water treatment.  Read More

Busy Engineer

Rifka Aisyah Leave a comment

These days I feel so busy so that I don’t have enough time to update this blog. I feel sorry about that because I have committed myself to keep updating the blog to prove that I learn something at work although it’s a bit.

I am actually not in a good mood to write technical things at work so that I just want to share to you what I am doing right now. I’m still doing EPC project as you may have already read on my previous post. However, the level of my work is getting higher and the portion is getting bigger. I feel so tired.

Although my academic background is chemical engineering, in the real life, I am not only dealing with process and chemical engineering things. In fact, I also deal with instrumentation, electrical, mechanical, and many more. It’s crazy because I haven’t learn about that in the university. However, I need to.

This is the list of recent works:

  1. Checking piping and instrumentation diagram especially instrumentation
  2. Make sure vendors are doing their job on schedule (fabrication and delivery)
  3. Checking engineering document from vendors
  4. Perform meeting with vendor to learn about product and to discuss about the appropriate equipment specification we need
  5. Perform technical meeting with vendors
  6. Doing necessary equipment inspection
  7. Coordinating with the team on site

Pretty much, huh?

So tired. But I feel this is very challenging and I hope I learn something from these difficulties.

 

Hydraulic Pump Calculation

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Yesterday I just finished doing hydraulic pump calculation for one of a project in my company. The purpose of the calculation was to determine suction pressure, discharge pressure, and pump differential head.

Pump calculation procedure is very simple.

First, you need to define pump operation condition. It includes fluid temperature, fluid specific gravity, fluid viscosity, pump normal capacity and design capacity.

Second, check your Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) carefully. In this step you need to calculate pressure drop due to pipe line and fittings in the suction and discharge of pump. You need to list fittings and calculate pressure loss due to the fittings.

Total suction head = line loss + loss due to accessories + suction head

Do the same thing as for discharge head.

Differential head is calculated by this formula

Differential head = total discharge head – total suction head. 

 

Problems in Secondary Copper Smelter: Possible Causes and Alternative Solutions

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Recently I learnt about secondary copper smelter, the problems raised due to the processes, and what alternative solutions are. The motive was very clear: I need to prepare for the upcoming project. As already describled here, a process engineer is responsible for the process during project preparation and project execution. And that’s exactly what I am doing right now. Read More

Sizing of UASB (Upflow Anaerobic Pond) for Wastewater Treatment Plant

Rifka Aisyah 1 Comment

I think this is my first time I learnt about Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB). I’ve ever learnt about anaerobic wastewater treatment, however I don’t have any idea about UASB and what the differences are. Since I am responsible as engineer in wastewater treatment package, I need to learn about UASB (there is a possibility that this system will be included in the package).

What is Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket? Read More

Understanding Terms in Piping System Part 1

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You always need to find a bright side of a simple task. For example, copy, paste, and modify piping material specification, specification for coating and wrapping, and piping design. Yesterday I did this! At the first time I thought this was a very ridiculuous task yet unimportant. I’ve ever seen a drafter did this. But I found a bright side of this task which is a chance to learn. 

My objective is very simple. I want to understand what other people are talking about, when piping is their topic. I want to undestand the terms and imagine what they are looked like. That’s all. I think this is a good step to learn about piping.

Piping system has a lot of terms. So, it is impossible to write and describe all of them. In this post I want to share a brief explanation about piping system. As long as I understand them, it’s oke 🙂 Read More