Electrical and Electronics Engineering: Specialization ?
It has been a long time since I have developed my interest in writing, or blogging, to be exact. So of course, there’re so much for me to write in this post. Frankly, the title of this post doesn’t quite reflects what I’ve been facing, which is, a ‘dilemma’.
So why dilemma?
A lot of my university colleagues still remain indecisive of what majoring they are going to enroll in our final year. Some say you can take the shit out of this ‘majoring’ thing, as it is not really important while others stressed that you better to think about it seriously, or you’ll be ‘in the wrong lane’ in the future. There are particularly 5 majorings being offered my university for EE, which are Control and Instrumentation, Power System, Micro Electronics, Computer System and Communications. As for me, I am determined to venture in oil and gas industry from the very beginning, so I have chosen, without doubt, CnI (sounds like a strong hearted man, eh? Believe me, I`m not quite so).
This CnI things…
For those of you who don’t really know what ’s Control and Instrumentation Engineering is all about, a typical C&I engineer will be expected to be fluent in electronics (yg ni semua EE student blaja), fluid dynamics (taught under mech. engineering in UTP) material selection (procurement+analysis)= I don’t really like this), control engineering (of course, this is the core part), and systems engineering (this is a great element in CnI, I learned about Triconex and some DETRONICS EQP system from the industry during 8 months practical internship) amongst all the usual competencies expected of today’s professional engineer.
At work, a CnI engineer is expected to size an orifice plate, hook up a differential pressure transmitter across the plate(there are numerous types of transmitters, refer to PETRONAS Technical Guide for quick reference. The one that I familiar with right now is only OPECL OPen Path Gas Detector), wire it via a hazardous area (safe area, zone 0, zone 1 and zone 2)barrier into a control system (obviously complete with graphical interface and alarm points they have specified), configure the control loop, wire the controlled output to a control valve that they have sized and selected to be suitable for the fluid conditions, and of course ensure there is instrument air available to actuate the valve. And for good measure they will have to ensure the emegency shut down system (IPS=ESD=SIS=quite the same) has an appropriately high integrity level to drive the valve closed when required. In fact, I’ve worked on this IPS system namely Triconex, and DETRONICS for 8 months time, again during my practical internship at TriSystems Engineering.
With all these demands it is no surprise then that Control and Instrumentation is often regarded as the “black art” of many an engineering house. However, to be good at the job the instruments man must be able to put their hands on the right information, which is, for me, quite tough sometimes. As I speak from experience, this could be a challenging errand when things are not handled properly. I’ve been in this situation during M1 FLD Update project. It took me and my colleagues a week and half of 8 hours a day non stop working though it is successfully completed by our team.Cheers~!
8 Months Training…
I have spent my precious 8 month out of the university for industrial internship. Woah… some of my friends from other college said that it is ridiculous and so long of a time. For us the great UTPians (no offence, people..heheh), we just don’t mind and it could be a worthwhile experience. Depending on your training in the real working world, you could be nearly competent enough to work as an engineer after graduated from the university. I have managed to be involved in the projects, helping out engineers and complete my own assigned tasks. Among of the projects that I have gladly involved were TITAN Triconex Upgrade, MLNG Triconex Spare Part and Management System and Shell M1 Saderi FLD Update. While it is good to be involved in those projects as an engineering trainee, I have endured a pain – staking on the job learning, majorly on systems (Triconex and some of DETRONICSEQP which I not regret at all. Thankfully the experienced engineers at TriSystems Engineering are always there to my assistance thus making my learning curve even better… I think I’ve learned a lot from the engineers and independent learning but it is without a doubt, a fact, that there are still a lot more that I did not know.
And so it ends..
With a year left in my studies, I`m looking forward to gradually developed myself to be an engineer of quality and integrity (cheewaah~).
Life, as I know It…
I leave you with some quotes from my lecturer:
1. A control system is a God’s technology – Prof. Dr. Grant Ellis.
2. You don’t ask every ‘why’, you know! – Dr. Ravindra Mukerjee