DGM (Welding)
L&T Shipbuilding
Total years of experience :26 years, 5 Months
The company deals in manufacturing, commissioning and repair activity of defence as well as commercial vessels. My major responsibility is
• Approve development of new economically viable welding procedures for various ferrous & non-ferrous materials after studying customer/ class requirements for a project, published literature & communications through meetings.
• Ensure availability of approved welding procedures in time by coordinating with the classification societies such as American Bureau of shipping (ABS), Lloyd’s registrar of Shipping (LRS) and Indian registrar of Shipping (IRS) etc.
• Ensure competency of production engineers, supervisors and welders by imparting them regular training, troubleshooting/ failure analysis and spot checks.
• Develop new methodologies to improve productivity through control over X-ray defects and distortion.
• Technically support production by providing Shop Weld Plan, Welding Procedure Specifications and Weld sequence for critical joints for each project.
• Contribute to create awareness of good quality system practices through interaction/ training of engineers, Quality Review Meetings and Corrective Actions in order to have efficient processes/ practices to attain consistency in manufacturing jobs, with in-built quality levels.
• Project and procure suitable welding equipment required for production/ productivity improvement.
• Approve welding consumables of various suppliers after requisite testing for carrying out procurement/ production. Also, ensure maintenance of quality standards of weld consumables through batch testing.
• Maintenance of Welder Training Centre.
• Development of documentation in line with ISO 9001:2008 requirements.
Achievements in the job:
a. Increased hull block production from 200 to 800 Tons/ month in a span of 18 months through implementation of various welding procedures, welder qualification and control over rework.
b. Developed welding procedures for aluminum sections, thick forged steel, stainless steels & thick steel sections.
c. Introduced semi-automation & automation techniques to reduce man-days employed per ton.
The company deals in manufacturing and commissioning of advanced offshore naval patrol vessels, missile crafts, tugs, FRP boats. My major responsibility was
• Development of welding procedure specifications (WPS) for various materials used in ship construction.
• Welder training and qualification for different welding processes under various classification societies.
• In addition to the fabrication and erection of naval vessel blocks, carried out fabrication of thick plate high tensile steel (DH40) panels for shore based training facility (SBTF) project with very stringent accuracy levels.
• Shop floor quality management by water hose and air pressure testing for hull integrity and reduction in X-ray radiography defects.
• Implementation of new ideas by developing quality circles and through shop council.
• Production planning to meet delivery schedule.
Achievements in the job:
a. Brought in welding machines with inverter based technology to achieve better control over welding parameters, energy savings and safety.
b. Trained welders to improve their skill set in manual welding as well as for carrying out semi-automatic welding with Argon-CO2 mixture by using carriage trolleys.
c. Reduced hull construction time and quality of vessel by using theodolite marking procedures, hydraulic block aligners and reduction in temporary supports through quality circles.
Worked on research project entitled “Comparative studies on fracture mechanics properties of conventional and narrow gap SMA welds with GMA welds of carbon steel and stainless steel pipes”. In this project along with technical developments which was part of my Ph.D. thesis, welding lab was developed by procuring and installing various welding and scientific equipments from India and abroad.
In my research work I have critically controlled several P-GMA weld joint characteristics of heat sensitive material such as austenitic stainless steel (ASS), primarily starting from microstructure to residual stress formation in comparison to that obtained by using conventionally used SMAW process. The criticality was solved by developing a clear understanding of the influence of simultaneously interactive pulse parameters, total heat transferred to the weld pool (QT) and the variation of heat input (Ω) on the characteristics of P-GMA weld bead. The severity of weld thermal cycle was further controlled in thick ASS section by narrow gap welding procedure by developing a GMAW narrow torch nozzle device.
List of Research Publications
Journal Publications
• Pulsed Current GMAW for Superior Weld Quality of Austenitic Stainless Steel Sheet, ISIJ Int., 47(1), 2007, 138-145.
• Improvement of Weld Characteristics by variation in Welding Processes and Parameters in joining of Thick Wall 304LN Stainless Steel Pipe, ISIJ Int., 48(11), 2008, 1560-1569.
• Arc Characteristics and Behaviour of Metal Transfer in Pulsed Current GMA Welding of Stainless Steel, Journal Of Materials Processing Technology, 209(1), 2009, 1262-1274.
Conference Publications
• Improvement of Weld characteristics by application of Narrow gap technique in SMA welding of 304LN stainless steel pipe, presented in Weld Tech-2003, IIT Kharagpur. Published in the Conf. Prod.,
• Effect of Narrow Gap SMA Welding on characteristics of 304LN Stainless Steel pipe weld, presented in XIII National Conference of Indian society of Mechanical Engineers, ISME-2003, Deptt. Mech. & Ind. Eng., IIT Roorkee, December 30-31, (2003), IIT Roorkee, Published in the Conf. Prod.,
• Comparative studies on characteristics of conventional V-groove and narrow groove SMA welds of 304LN stainless steel pipes, presented in IIW-IC-2005 held on February 16-19, (2005), Mumbai, Published in the Conf. Prod.,
• Prospect of gas metal arc welding of thick wall 304LN stainless steel pipe, International Symposium on Advances in Stainless steels, Chennai held on April 9-11, 2007.
The company deals in manufacturing of Screw Conveyors, Rotary air lock valves, Aluminum Extrusion handling systems, Chain Conveyers used in various Industries like Cement, Boiler etc. My major responsibility was shop floor management with due importance to quality and production planning.
The company has a heavy engineering workshop and deals in manufacturing and commissioning of Boiler, Sugar and Cement Plants along with manufacturing of specialized equipments required for marine, space and nuclear power industries. I was employed in Boiler section. My major responsibility was to supervise furnace tube bending and welding of tube panels required for super heater and economizer as per Indian Boiler Regulations (IBR)
A result-oriented welding professional with over 16 years of experience in industry and research.
•Has done Ph.D. in Narrow gap P-GMA welding of thick stainless steel pipes primarily used for nuclear piping.
•Well conversant with different welding processes, weld metallurgy and NDT practices.
•Have primarily worked on Advance offshore patrol vessels, Interceptor boats, Platform supply vessels, Anchor handling tugs, Dredgers, Bulk carriers and Sail training ships.
•Responsible for welding operations in various ship building materials for new construction as well as repair work.
•Estimation and mapping of weld consumables to support production plan, driving procurement initiatives to arrange cost effective and scheduled procurement thereof.
•Well conversant with project monitoring software such as MS-Projects, Concerto.
•Effective communicator with good analytical skills, assertive and strong leadership.
•Experience in quality assurance on handling ISO 9001:2008 documentation, conducting Management Review Meetings, External & Internal audits.
Research topic: Narrow Gap Pulsed Current Gas Metal Arc Welding of Thick Wall 304LN Stainless Steel pipes.
The course covered both aspects- engineering as well as management. We got educated on both technical & commercial aspects of a Production industry.