My On-the-Job Journal

My first reaction upon entering the company was indescribable, I was in awe on
about how big and wide it really is, it was just as big as in the pictures. On my first day, I
can already feel the of smell pineapples running in my nose as I walked through the
pedestrian lane inside the Plant, my destination was the Center for Learning and
Excellence Building or the CLE Building as what they say where our OJT Orientation
will be held. At the middle of the Orientation, they discussed about the Company’s
Rules and Regulations about what to do and not to do while we were inside the Plant.
They discussed about the proper uniform which is a white t-shirt, Jeans, closed shoes,
and OJT Identification Card. They talked about the founder which is James Drummond
Dole with the saying “We built the company through Quality, Quality, and Quality.”. They
also talked about security cameras all around the Plant warned us about disobeying the
rules because there was one time when somebody was caught stealing bundles of
copper wires and was charged with stealing company property. The orientation ended
at nearly 4 o’clock in the afternoon and we went home early that day.

On my second day was when they brought me to Plant Utility Department where
they introduced me Engr. Psalms Dadulo, my mentor, interviewed me about electrical
related questions like how to use a the normally open and normally closed push button
and other electrical related questions, after we were done with the interview, he then
brought me to the Electrical Section or the Rewinding shop where I also meet two OJT
Trainees from Cebu. As I recall, there were different parts of the Electrical Section like
the Electrical Maintenance, Thermal Maintenance, Lighting Maintenance, Rewinding,
and Motor Assembly. I went with an employee and an OJT Trainee to the Motor Bodega
where we dismantled a lot of fluorescent lamps that was in a non-working state. I asked
about why there was so many fluorescent lamps that were busted, then the employee
said that was because of the unstable supply of voltage coming from the sub-stations
because sometimes at peak hours the voltage that supplied the fluorescent lamps was
below rated voltage and when during non-peak hours the voltage supplying the
fluorescent lamp were above rated voltage. That was the reason as he explained why
there was a lot of fluorescent lamps that were busted. Then throughout the entire day
the only thing I did was observe as what my mentor said to me as he was still planning
what will give me something to do.

The first week of my OJT training was about the different processes where the
fruits undergoes, and when I said “fruits” it is mostly pertaining to he pineapple. I’ll
explain how the pineapples are process and it became different variety of products.

First, the pineapples arrived at the plant through giant trucks that came from the
plantations of Dole and some private owners. Then, the trucks pour the pineapples in
the dumping area where its being stored and also, in the same time, being de-crowned.
De-crowned means it when they blow high-pressured water to the pineapples to
separate the top leaves of the pineapples from the body of the fruit. After de-crowning is
done, the pineapples then go through a waterway with pipes on the top with muzzles
where they spray water to wash the pineapples. The waterway leads to the second part
of the process called the Grader, the grader is composed of large spinning cylinders
forming like a screw. The main purpose of the grader is to sort the pineapples by sizes
by letting the small ones fall first, then a bigger size than the previous ones, and so on.
After they are sorted by the grader, they will fall to another waterway with also pipes on
top to repeatedly wash the pineapples. At the end of the waterway, the pineapples are
now gathered on a conveyor belt going up like a slope called a n Elevator. Each
pineapple size has its own Elevator. The purpose of the elevator is to wash thoroughly
the pineapples before they go inside and transport pineapples to the processing area.
Inside the processing area, firstly is the Ginaca Machine. After going through the
elevator and multiple washes that the pineapples go through, they will be guided inside
the Ginaca machine. The main purpose of the Ginaca machine is to cut, trim, and cored
the pineapples, and when the fruit goes out the machine, the skins and the center core
of the pineapples is now gone, leaving the edible part of the pineapple. There were a lot
happening after the Ginaca Machine, and one of those is the wastes coming from the
machine now goes to an extractor where it is being compressed, squeezed, and extract
all the juices of the skin wastes. The juices are pure with no additives. The juices can be
heated, and after it can be put in a can then put into a palletizer to stack the cans then
goes to the packaging area. The other part of the pineapples or the edible part that
comes out from the Ginaca machine will now enter the Preparation Lines. There are 24
Preparation lines composed of employees that slice and dice the pineapples as it enters
the Prep Lines. After the pineapples are sliced and diced, they will now be transported
manually to the cooker where the pineapples are cooked by hot steam. After the cooker,
the sliced pineapples can used as different product like in a Fruit Cocktail, Fruit Bowl, or
just sliced and diced pineapples that is commonly used for toppings for different foods
like pizza and other pineapple related dishes. Then, it will be packaged in the packaging
area and it is ready for export and delivery. The leftovers of the wastes on the extractor
where they took the juices will be fed to the to the cattle outside the plant or it can be
used in their biogas power plant inside the plant.

The second week of my OJT training was the introduction of Control or Motor
Control. There were 4 assignments that they had given me, and that is to do a simple
on-off switch, on-off switch with lights, Variable speed control (ramp up and ramp down)
using Variable Frequency Drive (VFD), and lastly Reversing Direction of motor with
ramp up and ramp down. The parts used were a transformer, main circuit breaker,
ampere trips, actuators, wires, FVD, switches, normally close and normally open push
buttons, and a 1.25 HP 3-Phase Induction Motor with a supply of 440 Volts. The tasks
were completed in less than a week. Then I proceed with Motor Rewinding.

The third week of my OJT training was introduction of the step-by-step process of
how to rewind the field windings of burnt motor. They gave me a rated 1.5 HP Motor
with the following specifications: 2 poles, 36 slots, 6 Groups, 3 coils per group, 3-10 2-
11 1-12 coil spans, 107 turns, 1 element, #23 size of magnetic wire, 440V, 3 Amps,
1710 rpm, 6 leads out, wye-connection, and with a frequency of 60 Hz. The first thing I
did was to remove the old burned out field windings of the motor by using a hammer
and chisel; carefully not hitting the magnetic core cause once the magnetic core is
damaged the amount of magnetic flux is changed and the motor can never be reliable.
After the removal of burned windings, I removed the old insulators and cleaned with a
high-pressure air to remove unwanted dust. Then I filled each slot with new insulators,
all 36 of the slots. Then I begin to make a coil with 107 turns using a #23 magnetic wire,
according with my calculations it was about 18 Coils with 3 coils per group, which is 312
turns per group and 1926 turns in total. After turning and groupings, I begun on putting
the coils inside the slots. I used a wave winding pattern with a wye-connections on the 6
leads. After the connection was established, it is then soldered then covered by
insulators. After it was all done, the motor was put in an oven so that varnish would stick
with the wires. And that is final stage of the motor rewinding.

The remaining weeks of my OJT Training was about Electrical Maintenances:

Thermal Maintenance, Troubleshoot Maintenance, and Lighting Maintenance. In
thermal maintenance, we have device called a thermoscope that can determine the
temperature of an object or wire or breakers by pointing it at them. I can consider it as a
preventive maintenance because it checks wires and circuit breakers temperatures if
there were abnormalities so that we can immediately act. In troubleshooting, it is when
there a problem with the control of the motor, it is either by push buttons being
defective, or circuit breakers that needs to be replaced, and different other scenarios.
One example of my experience was when there was a troubleshoot at the papaya
conveyor belt. The situation was the conveyor stops and would not turn on by pushing
the buttons on the control panel. We discovered that the waste papayas dropped on the
string that was connected to the emergency stops of the opposite edges of the machine.
To me, it was an interesting problem because you could not expect that papaya waste
could fall just enough that makes the machine stops. And lastly the Lighting
Maintenance, the most common task we do in lighting maintenance is to replace busted
lights in a lot of areas. But the most common that have a lot of replacement was in the
Preparation line. Because there is about 24 Preparation lines and each prep line
consists of 10 luminaires and each luminaire consists of 2 Fluorescent Lamps, so there
is about a total of 470 fluorescent lamps. With that many lamps, there are more likely
busted lamps in the Prep lines than in any other area compared and with the
combination of supply fluctuation it could mean that there would be a lot of busted
lamps expected in later years.

Documentation:
Rewinding

Dumping Area, Grader, and Elevator.

Dumping Area and Rewinding Shop/ Electrical Section
OJT Weekly Reports