shiuli - factory visit

Dear sir,

On the 21^st of April we went to visit three factories in Jaipur.

The visit to these factories was interesting. We got to understand the material and its properties or characteristics better. We were able to understand the processes that the raw material passes through to become the final product, much better by the practical exposure given to us.

All the three factories visited were small scale factories. The factories visited were

• Aluminium factory
• Wood factory
• Plastic factory

Our first visit was to an aluminium factory, at Sudarshanpura.

This factory used scraps, wires, bus body parts and recycled products as their raw materials. They made sheets that would be used to make utensils, pressure cooker, bus body parts and wires.

Process in brief:

They collected the scraps, wires and body parts, and dumped it in the Air blast oil furnace. Due to the air pressure within the furnace created by the blower attached to it, and the furnace oil, which is used as a fuel, at a temperature of 650^oC, the aluminium melts. The capacity of the furnace in this factory was 800kgs.

After this the process called the ‘cast iron book mould’ was carried out. In this molten metal sheets were given in a book form with a particular thickness.

Further these sheets would pass through the machine, which would carry, on the process of ‘hot rolling’, this would soften the metal. The sheets would then be carried to another machine in which the cold rolling process would be carried out. It was used to stretch the sheets to a desired length. Finally ‘analing’ is carried out in a furnace in order to release the hardness of the metal sheet. The sheets were further cut into square and circular shapes.

There were seven people employed in this factory. They made sheets that is sold at a whole sale rate. They made aluminium sheets of different thickness to cater to the local market.

Wood Factory

This factory was of Mr. Sameer Wheaton, a product designer, presently working as an design consultant. They made products mainly for export.Here in Jaipur they carried out only one part of the complete process. their main factory was in Delhi.

Various kinds of wood like teak wood, sheesham, saghoan, rose wood along with plywood and sun mica were used to make furniture. Here we saw machinery that is of high quality and very efficient. The health of the workers was taken care as the machine had sawdust suction, the machine had various blades that worked precisely. The process required less man power and yet did the job proficiently. Various electrical, pneumatic and mechanical machines were used in the whole process.

The wood is stacked in a criss cross manner. There are different process carried out like the ‘seizening process’, the planar used was four sided planar, and multiple sided boring machine used for boring.

Wide range of foldable furniture, combination of different materials for making innovative furniture. They worked in stone, metal, leather and bone.

Plastic Factory

After visiting the wood factory we went to another factory at Sudarshanpura.

This factory made pumps that are used in coolers. They used plastic granules of dalerine which is a non-wearing plastic and it can’t be reused; the other types of granules used were polycarbonates and ABS.and nylon 66 which can be used again and again. The temperature used to melt the plastic is 80^oC. The process used was hand molding; they used different moulds for different products. The assembling of these parts was done at the same place.

This factory visit was a good exposure to us. It gave a new dimension to our learning process.