All these initiatives bring practical benefits in production and business activities of the unit, contributing to increase labour productivity, promptly meeting the production progress. In addition to serving the study on product development, the initiatives are effectively applied in production.
Typically, the initiative of “Checking equipment of incident and sudden surge of current/voltage in multifunctional meters”, deriving from three-phase verifying table equipment, can automatically perform the measurement requirements of meters such as: Measuring errors, sensitivity, pulse constant, the power recording bar, but could not mutually change the voltage, currents suddenly to check the capacity of meeting the requirements for recording events of the meter as previously. Therefore, the process of checking events on the meter previously was still manually conducted, leading to waste of labour and time. Additionally, the event data was not synchronously recorded because it was required to be visually observed and read, then the data was comparatively checked and finally manually updated. Checking the new control program was also time-consuming, not so many samples, and the tester’s qualification and knowledge was required to intensively understand about multifunctional meters.
Recognizing the above-mentioned limitations, the engineer team at the unit came up with the idea of designing an equipment which can automatically control the voltage and 3-phase currents to meet the requirements of checking ability of recognizing events 3-phase multi-tariff meters DT03M-RF and 1-phase multi-tariff meters DT01M-RF (without the need for a verifying table), to eliminate the potential causes of manual check and improve labour productivity.
Taking the idea from functions of a household oven combined with a high-accuracy industrial temperature controller and sensor, the initiative of “High-temperature testing cabinet for electronic components and products” was formed and developed. The desired temperature output of the cabinet can be from 30°C to 250°C with high accuracy. At the same time, the user can read the temperature inside the cabinet, easily set the desired temperature and parameters by pushing buttons, integrating two methods of temperature control type ON/OFF PID (Proportional Integral Derivative) for selection.
When selecting the control method of ON/OFF, the temperature in the cabinet always fluctuates at around the desired setting value but the accuracy is low. With the method of PID, the cabinet temperature is maintained more stable and accurate than the traditional method of ON/OFF. Additionally, the temperature cabinet for testing includes a time counter which automatically switches on and off in cycle, helping to improve the efficiency during the cyclically testing process of electronic components or product by changing temperature. The cabinet is designed to be safe for long-term use or overnight operation.
Another initiative of the team that contributes to improve the efficiency in the production of electronic meters is “Meter emulator, improving production efficiency.” Previously, the production of products with transceiver function extended for other types of meters, including Elster-RF, Multimeter-RF, RF-SLOTS1P, faced many limitations in the directly aging process on meters, leading to intensive labour consumption, but low output. With this initiative, assembling materials and components for meter emulators can be purchased domestically, thus it is very convenient for the assembly and development of multi-location equipment.
Moreover, the equipment is compact, saving in space/area compared to old meters, with easy and safe manipulation in production. The initiative helps make it more proactive in production tools, increase labour productivity, save costs and time in production. Currently, CPCEMEC has actually deployed a model of 500-position meter simulator for RF-SLOTS1P product at Electronic Manufacturing workshop, with a maximum capacity of 1,500 products/day.
Previously, personal computers used to develop programs and servers located at CPCEMEC could not directly connect and receive data from DCU or Modem devices. Therefore, direct troubleshooting on the data of the devices was difficult, mainly based on the recordings and personal experience of the engineers. The launching of initiative “Studying, seeking and establishing a distance data transfer line via Internet/Intranet/COM port to personal computers” helps transfer data from server at EVNCPC”s Data Center or from computers located in the Workshop to personal computers, which makes it easy for programmers to directly manipulate with the data sent by the devices, minimizing the time for testing new features as well as seeking and handling any arising incidents.
With the encouragement and facilitation from the leaders and Trade Union Executive Committee of CPCEMEC, the staffs and employees of the unit have always actively participated in proposing and implementing ideas and initiatives in the process of working, production, contributing to promoting the creative spirit of the collective, thereby improving production efficiency and increasing labour productivity, saving costs for the unit as well.