ITP

http://theitpdays.tumblr.com/

The link above will lead you to my private blog which requires you a password to enter into this blog (sorry about that, it's because of the confidentiality of the information).

Future posts will be done in this blog :)

20/4/12

Finally, it's friday~. I got so tired everytime after work, don't know the reason. I only slept about 5hours per day, maybe it's because i made myself too stress. Stress about what to write for my school report :x :x

Today, my supervisor is having a meeting so i am on my own to collect the raw data in the clean-room. I have to carry out some experiments which apparently caused me to do it for around 3hours plus. OMO, I almost forgotten to eat lunch cause i was so busy doing the experiment.

After i am done with the experiment, i went to nearby food court to have my lunch and i THOUGHT that there was not much people left as it is quite late in the afternoon. To my surprise, the food court is flooded with people..omo.. had no choice but to queue up unless my stomach stop grumbling..

For the rest of the day, i am camping inside my lab to tabulate the raw data that i have collected. I have to tabulate the data into excel and produce a chart to be put into the report (to be hand in to the company).

19/4/12

Woohoo~, it's Thursday and tomorrow shall be Friday, last day of this week to work!!

Today i went to clean-room to learn how to use the product. I didn't really like going to clean-room cause i have to wear the uniform, gloves and many other things. It's quite troublesome cause as we have to be very clean, not to bring in any germs into the clean-room. At the clean-room, i was taught how to operate the product which i find it still okay (not to say it's easy) because i had obediently read the manual before hand~ :P

After that, i went back to my place to re-do my charts. My supervisor told me to make it more nice, more presentable.

Now, i am going to have a short talk about my friends that i have made in my company~
I met many new friends who are friendly and kind. They helped me when i need help. They are quite fun to be with :) Hopefully, we will be able to have more fun in the company. As the work is not only base on individual performance, it's more about teamwork and enjoyments.

18/4/12

It's Wednesday!!

Today, i was given a report that is done by seniors ( from the same school ). I was suppose to read it and get some rough idea of how to operate the product. He told me that, i will be using the product to do an experiment in the clean-room by the end of this week so it's important that i should have some basic knowledge before hand. He taught me how to use the Microsoft Excel to make a chart using the raw data collected by my seniors. I spent the whole day doing it. I guess i can claim that i have mastered it~ after a whole day practising ~ xD

17/4/12

It's Tuesday ( 2nd day of ITP)..

Again, my supervisor gave me a stack of papers to read. This time the paper consist of full details of their product. I read through and tried to understand the situation. In the afternoon, i went to the clean room to have a briefing on the safety issue and i got an account which i am suppose to log into the computer and do my work. I was not suppose to take pictures of the things and upload to the internet without my supervisor's permission. Therefore, i will not be uploading pictures unless he approved me.

16/4(First day of ITP)

Hi everyone!

It's been so long that i have stop writing. Recently, i just started my attachment to a company which i will not reveal here :x ( sorry for that ).

I was suppose to write one the first day however, i was so busy that i had forgotten about it. hahaa.. Well, if my memory didn't fail me. The first day of attachment was nervous. It's because i had never went there before and i am the one and only student who got attached to that company. It's quite sad cause i am all alone, i can only rely on myself. I was also wondering what if my supervisor is not good to me? What if my colleagues are unfriendly? There are so many so many things on my mind.

I won't want to be late on my first day, so i went out early. As expected, i managed to reach 30mins before the actual time that i was suppose to meet my supervisor.

After meeting my supervisor, he briefed me about the work that i will be doing. He also requested me to read the safety and procedures manual of the work. I will also need to read up on the products that they are producing. That basically took up the whole day. My eyes got so tired after doing all the paper work.

Stay tuned to this blog~, i will be updating and (hopefully) upgrading~ xD

3/2/12

This is our SWOT (strengths, weakness,opportunities and threats) analysis for the solar panel project.

Our strengths for this project is to be able to save electricity and reduced the amount of fossil fuel burn(lesser emission of greenhouse gases).

For weakness, the light captured may not be sufficient and the efficiency of the solar panel may not be 100%.

For opportunities, we are moving towards a greener environment and this project can also implement on other buildings like schools or condomium. It also can be implemented on the water catchment areas.

For threats, it had a longer duration of ROI and other companies may also produce products that are more efficient than our product.

The two strategic goals for our project is to ensure sufficient energy for future generation as fossil fuel is depleting rapidly and we hope to promote the use of solar energy. Solar panel can help to save electricity no matter how small the eletricity it is.

Reflection:

SWOT analysis is important as it tells us the strength and weakness of our project. Other than that, it also tells us the opportunities and the threats that we have for our project. From these analysis, we are able to set a goal for our team. Also, we will be able to know where are we going to improve on and why should we do it.

27/1/12

Its about time that we wrap up everything..

This is the URL for our group report.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/123h57LRcMbIpl-CAA0nxE01uDrhJyDU_7rz8zehZcBE/edit?hl=en_US#

20/1/2012

The figure below show us the cost-benefit analysis of our solar panel project. First of all, the depreciation of the cost will be 25 years. Hence the monthly cost will be around $2772, the revenue that we gain will be around $5561.33. The productivity gain will be $3500 and the better recognition for more customers will be $5000. Therefore, we can calculate the cost-benefit of this project by adding the revenue, productivity gain,better recognition and subtracting the monthly cost. The answer will be $11,289.33

Whereas, the ROI is

Legend:

Revenue = gain from investment

cost of project = cost of investment

Therefore, by subtracting the selling price with the cost, we can get the revenue for this project.

The figure below give us a summary report and also consist of an analysis of the cost-benefit and *ROI ( Return Of Investment) for our project. Our total estimated cost for this project will be $831,600. Our analysis of the monthly cost-benefits will be around $11,289.33 and the ROI will be 1.

*ROI is the performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

The return on investment formula:

Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/returnoninvestment.asp#ixzz1k3EQY1z4

Lastly, I wish everyone Happy Chinese New Year in advance!! :)

13/1/12

The above figure is the cost table for our project.

Some people may ask, " why do we need the cost table for?" Here's the answer, the cost table is important as it tells us the breakdown of a simple task into subtasks and into sub-subtasks. It also tells us how much is our fixed cost and how much is our variable cost. Besides that, we can also use it to find out our total cost that we need for our project. Hence, this will determine the selling price of our project. Therefore, this concludes that it is important to have a cost table so that we can see clearly what do we need.

6/1/12

This is our risk assessment and management for our project (building a solar panel on top of HDB flats). We have it ranked according to the risk level (from the highest probability and highest impact). Now, lets look at the first 3 risk that we need to find a solution for.
First risk was delaying in installing the Solar Panel which has a higher probability of occurring and it will give us a higher impact.
The second risk was the poor design of the Solar Panel which has a low probability and a high impact.
The third was wrong materials used and it has a low probability of occurring and it will give a high impact to our project.

This is our new AON for our project (picture shown below). Due to evaluation from our risk assessment, we might need an additional cost of $505k and a extension of schedule by 1 month. By doing this, we can reduce the probability and the impact of delaying in installing the Solar Panels and a poor design of our Solar Panel.

Tutorial 5

This is the Gantt Chart for our project. For those who doesn't know what's a Gantt Chart is about,continue reading...
A Gantt chart is a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule. Gantt charts illustrate the start and finish dates of the terminal elements and summary elements of a project.

Hence, a Gantt Chart is helpful when monitoring a project's progress and it lays out the order in which the tasks need to be carried out.

What I learnt: I learnt how the program works and how I can put the mindmaps and AON Chart into this program. This is quite useful as we will be able to see clearly the dates and who is doing the part. However, when we are entering the informations into the program, we have to be careful. If not, everything will be wrongly calculated =D

tutorial 4

This is our Activity-On-Node(AON) chart with the forward and backward flow. Therefore, it is estimated that we are going to complete this project in about 32 weeks(8 months) and we will have a float of about 8 weeks.(2 months). Our Earliest Finish Time(EFT) will be 32 weeks and our Latest Finish Time will be 40weeks.

Lesson learnt: I learnt how to draw this AON chart. We must do it carefully. If anything were to calculate wrongly, the timing for everything will be wrong.

Tutorial 3

This is our Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). It is to break a LARGE project into SMALL little parts, so that we can analyse them one by one. If any part were to change, it will affect the whole system.

EG , funds, if one part were to estimate the funds wrongly, other parts will be affected as they are using the same limited funds available.

tutorial 2( NEW )

Alright, I did wrongly for the previous tutorial 2. Don't Worry~, here's a new one.

project life cycle have about 5 parts.

1st - Define the objectives and goals, in other words, target

2nd - Plan the things that are required for the project

3rd - Organize the team on who should be doing what part of the project

4th - Execute means to carry out the planning that had been done through meetings

5th- Close, it's about time to hand over the completed product to the customer

The estimated duration for our project is about half a year to one year and the cost will be around $50~$80 thousands per HDB flat.

Our responsibility matrix will be:

Yinshern > the team leader/chief

Brandon > the energy engineer

Bing Hui > the power engineer

Amin > the design engineer

Wen Jie > the human & resource manager

Our current issues will be:

1. Will we be approved to implement the dome shaped solar panel on HDB flats?

2. Is the solar panel powerful enough to support electricity to every household? or is it strong enough to support the corridor lights and lift?

3. Nowadays the price of buying a house is getting more and more expensive, thus, will our product make their life easier or harder?

4. How will our product affect them in their daily life?

5. Is there any alternative ways?

Man power requirement:

1. Engineers from different sectors like electrical and mechanical

2. Foreign workers

3. Businessmen

4. Supervisor

Resource requirement:

1. Funds

2. Solar Panel

3. Metal

4. Wire

Sorry for late upload

These are the ideas that we came up with before we chose the idea of building a dome shaped solar panel on top of HDB buildings.

X-tra information

Tutorial 2

Concept of project life cycle is about inception, elaboration, construction and transition.

Now, lets look at the scope of my project.

Firstly, the duration. Our duration of the project should be around 6months. hahaXD. But if we were to make it out (set the dome shaped solar panel on top of HDB building) , i guess we will be needing one and a half year to finish it?

Secondly, the cost. The current best deals on solar cells is about $4.30 per watt. For a 50 watt solar panel, the total cost will be around $215. A normal solar panel lifespan is about 20 to 25 years and their value and voltages output will decrease over time.

Thirdly, manpower requirement. For this project to be done in reality, we might need professionals from different sectors. E.g. business sectors,mechanical engineering,electrical engineering..

For the last point, responsibility matrix. Everyone will have to play a part. Meetings will be held almost every week so that to update the latests information about the project. Besides updating for information, the team members can also take this time to communicate with one another so that there will be no misunderstanding in between.

Resources needed:

1. Money

2. Professionals from different sectors
3. Solar Panel

4. HDB flats

Tutorial 1

This is our rough sketching of the idea that we have came up.

From the pictures above, we can see that there is a dome shaped solar panel on top of the HDB flat and a stem( centre point ) is supporting the solar panel.

The solar panel is moveable. What does it mean by moveable? It meant that, the dome shaped solar panel will move gradually according to the sun's movement so that the solar panel will be able to capture the sunlight throughout the day.

Why do we use a dome shaped solar panel instead of using a flat solar panel which we normally see it in our life? It is because a dome shape is round and it can capture sunlight more easily as compared to a flat solar panel. We chose a dome shaped solar panel is also due to the fact that it is hardly seen in our life. Isn't the design creative? :D

Why is it hollow? It is because for people to "lepak" on top of the building. Haha, of course not.
Firstly, the COST. It will be costly if we are using a solid dome shaped solar panel.
Secondly, for LEISURE. People will be able to go up to enjoy the breeze and maybe fly kite( just joking!)
PS: there will be railing to prevent people from falling off the building
Thirdly, the LOOKS. Its quite nice to have a hollow shaped dome instead of a solid shaped dome( in my opinion ).

Lesson Learnt On 28/10/11

Our Group had chosen the "building a solar panel on Housing Development Board(HDB) flats".
After discussing with other groups, we found out that our ideas are too common and there are also other problems that were pointed out by other groups. Problems like it is too costly and is it safe to let the solar panel protrude out from the wall?

Besides that, the energy that the solar panel generate is quite low, hence, it might only be used to support the corridor lights and perhaps, the lift as well.

I learnt that, a product have its input and output. In this case, our product input should be sunlight, solar energy and our output is electricity. However, our input and output is not balance. It is because we need large amount of input(sunlight) to produce a small amount of output(electricity). Hence, we are trying our best to think of a solution to handle this problem.