Editorial

Statistics has been the flavour of last month, be it budget, war or cricket. Let me take recourse to it too to bring you up to date on what has been happening at the Mumbai Regional Centre.

Statistics has been compared with many things, among them the bikini. Whether it conceals or reveals facts is not relevant here. But I hope it provokes you, into action!

K.Sahasranaman

At a recent seminar, Prof. M.M. Sharma, the Doyen of Chemical Engineering forecasted four to five Naphtha / Gas Crackers with a capacity of 750,000 tpa in the next decade to meet the polymer and other requirements of India. KPMG too has forecasted a tremendous growth for Chemical Industry, particularly in the segment of knowledge Chemicals (Pharmaceuticals, Biotech and Speciality Chemicals). They expect that Indian Chemical Industry presently at 28 billion U.S. Dollars will grow to100 billion U.S. Dollars in next decade. This is very heartening at a time when no major investments are taking place in Indian Chemical Industry, save refineries’ programme to meet Petrol and Diesel qualities and some sporadic pharma and biotech investments. The authorities in control of things are not seized of the stagnation in the Chemical Industry and the requirement of a booster dose. One such dose could be by way of promoting Mega Chemical Complexes in select states.

Indian Chemical Manufacturers Association recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Singapore Chemical Industries Association in Mumbai when the Singapore delegates visited and interacted with stalwarts of Indian Chemical Industry. In their presentation, they indicated that Jurong Industrial Estate, one of the best Mega Chemical Complex in the world has attracted investments worth 40 billion U.S. Dollars. Large petrochemical complexes and pharma and biotech projects are under construction at Jurong. So if Singapore and Thailand can make it, why not India? Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, Mumbai Regional Centre and Indian Chemical Manufacturers Association have a programme of two days Seminar in September '03, titled 'Rejuvenation of Indian Chemical Industry.' I appeal that all people from the industry should participate in large numbers and provide their viewpoints enabling Indian Chemical Industry to chalk out programmes for its growth.

Mumbai Regional Centre has been doing its best to bring the members to a common forum through monthly talks, seminars and industrial visits. However, I am distressed to see the lack of enthusiasm amongst the members to avail the benefit of such programmes. We had in the month of March a talk on `Six Sigma' by an expert from GE, UK, and visit to Reliance Industries, Patalganga. The poor attendance at the monthly talk was extremely shocking. I can assure you that the monthly talks and visits that we organise with all meticulousness will provide you worthwhile inputs to your knowledge and more than compensate the time spent by you. Let us all join together to make our Institute a vibrant organisation.

D.P.Misra

Factory Visit

A factory visit was organised to Reliance Industries, Patalganga on Saturday 22^nd March. Delegates were treated to a presentation on the evolution of the company and the business activity at its three sites – Patalganga, Hazira, and Jamnagar. The vertical backward integration stretching from fibre to fuel achieved by the company was beautifully brought out in the presentation.

At the 200 acre Patalganga complex, Reliance primarily produces Polyester (Yarn and Staple fibre), paraxylene / Purified Terephthalic Acid (PX-PTA) and Linear Alkyl Benzene (LAB). The brief profiles of these three processes and products were also presented. Delegates were then shown around the Polyester and PX-PTA plants. Later there was a drive through the company’s township including the shopping mall, school, hospital and temple.

Thirty-one members attended this programme. The group represented a wide cross-section of chemical engineers ranging from students, faculty, freelance consultants and retired veterans in addition to those from the industry. The visit generated a great deal of enthusiasm among the delegates, and they got a good opportunity to interact among themselves and with engineers from Reliance Industries.

Lecture on Six Sigma

A lecture on Six Sigma was organised at UICT Old Auditorium on 13^th March. The speaker was Mahendra Singh Chauhan, Director of Sales and Marketing, GE Aero Energy Products, UK. The sigma level of any process can be quantified in terms of ‘Defects per Million Opportunities’ and is a measure of the capability of that process to deliver quality results. Six Sigma corresponds to 3 defects per million opportunities, which represents a ‘in-spec’ success rate of 99.9997 %. Mr.Chauhan pointed out many processes from our daily lives like mail delivery, drinking water quality, air travel, surgical procedures etc, where a success rate of even as high as 99 % would be totally unacceptable.

The methodology adopted to progress upwards on the sigma scale is DMAIC – Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control. The key step is the problem definition. GE employs an unstructured informal gathering to find the best idea and for brain storming potential solutions. Mr.Chauhan informed that every GE employee has to put in a certain minimum prescribed hours of Six Sigma training. He also introduced the audience to the terms and glossary of Six Sigma.

Members’ Database

This year we plan to bring out a directory of our members. This database will not be restricted to mere contact particulars; it will also list the area of specialisation / core competence of the member. The advantages of such a listing are too obvious to enumerate here. Though an appeal was made through the editorial of this Newsletter in September 2002, requesting members to furnish their details, the response sad to say has been lacklustre. To make things even worse, the particulars of the three members who responded were lost due to a computer glitch. On the day of factory visit, we were able to collect the information from all the participants and hopefully it is a new beginning. Hence this is one more earnest appeal to all of you to give their particulars in the following format. Please send it to me by mail, fax (25784913) or e-mail (secretary@iichemrc.org).

K.Sahasranaman

CHEMFUSION’03

Come March and it was time to organize our Annual Festival, CHEMFUSION, which is an intercollegiate festival held under the auspices of the I.I.Ch.E. CHEMFUSION is organized by the chemical engineering students of D.J.Sanghvi College of Engineering(DJSCOE), Thadomal Shahani Engineering College(TSEC) and University Institute of Chemical Technology(UICT). There is an enthusiastic participation in the events of CHEMFUSION from these colleges as well as other colleges affiliated to the Mumbai University, like Bharati Vidyapeeth's College of Engineering, MGM's College of Engineering and Technology, Jondhale College of Engineering and IIT, Mumbai. Through CHEMFUSION’03, we hope to unite the future Chemical Engineers of Mumbai with the common aim of interacting with each other and fostering a spirit of healthy competition while creating an opportunity to share the forum with the industry leaders in this field.

CHEMFUSION’03 was spread over 3 days, the 28^th , 29^th of March and 2^nd of April. For the organizers of this event, the preparations had started a month before the actual event! We received a lot of support from our Professors, Principals and the Heads Of the Chemical Engineering departments of our institutions. We were fortunate to find encouragement from the industry too. Companies like Larsen & Toubro Ltd., Godrej Group, Indofil Chemicals Company etc. helped us in making CHEMFUSION’03 a success.

The inauguration ceremony of CHEMFUSION’03 took place in D.J.Sanghvi College of Engineering (DJSCOE) on the 28^th of March. The first event was Chem-Quiz, which was a Quiz Contest on a variety of subjects related to Chemical Engineering. After this, Prof. Sanjay Kher of IIPS gave a lecture on "Patents and Intellectual Property Rights" which evinced a great deal of interest from the students. Lunch was organized for all the professors, participants and guests. After this we had a presentation on " Chemical Engineering and IT Integration" by Mr. Avinash Sankholkar from L&T, which added a new dimension to the vast prospects existing in the chemical engineering field.

The following day, the 29^th of March was held in TSEC. The day began with Debates, the topics ranging from Technical to current affairs. There was a buffet lunch for the professors and students. There was also the Personality Contest, which tested students on their confidence, talent and wit on stage. The Finale was held at University Institute of Chemical Technology on the 2^nd of April. The first event scheduled for the day was Poster Presentation, where the participants displayed their research-work or papers in the form of posters for interesting viewing. The much-awaited event of Chemsail was next. In this event, the participants were given an objective beforehand. They had to make a prototype of a boat, which was propelled by a chemical fuel. The budding chemical engineers came up with exciting ideas. Then came the ‘Just a Minute’ sessions where the students tested their oratory abilities. The three-day event ended on a funny note with the Mock Fashion Show, which was a complete laugh riot.

What we set out to achieve through this annual event, is to provide a common platform where chemical engineering students, professors and the representatives of the industry can come together and share their dreams, ambitions and expectations. The clear objective is to display a sense of collective responsibility towards the future prosperity of chemical engineering as a promising, rewarding and challenging field. The three days had flown past so quickly that we all felt a little sad that CHEMFUSION’03 was over, but there was also a satisfaction at making this event a success. There truly was a fusion of chemical engineering minds from Mumbai! The success of this year’s event induces us to look forward to CHEMFUSION’04 with far greater enthusiasm!

Purbita Banerjee
Organizer, Chemfusion’03
D.J.Sanghvi College of Engineering.

Website of the Month

This month’s website www.eng-tips.com is a melting pot where engineers can pose their problems and questions for other engineers to respond and clarify. There are separate forums for different engineering disciplines including chemical engineering. The forum for ‘Chemical Plant Design & Operations’ has presently more than 5000 members and among the current topics under discussion are online process measurement, plate heat exchanger, removal of dissolved oxygen in boiler feed water, aromatics processing, split-range control, Osmotic pressure calculation etc.

Send your feedback on this and the Newsletter in general to secretary@iichemrc.org. Of course do keep visiting www.iichemrc.org for the MRC news and www.iiche.org.in for the news from the IIChE Headquarters.

Forthcoming Programmes

Keep watching our website for further announcements.