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Participant

Join Date: May 2020
Location: Dali Electronics 8/A, Haroon Building, 1st Floor, 190 Shamaldas Gandhi Marg, Mumbai 400002, India
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Why Did Mumbai MMR Face a Power Outage on 12th October 2020?

10/15/2020 1:16 AM

Four major power transmission lines went under. 65 lakhs consumers were affected. Everything came to a halt. The Mumbai Trains work on electricity – stopped! Elevators – Stopped! Ventilators in hospitals – stopped! Online Schools stopped! Why did all this happen?

All this happened because the transformers failed.

how to prevent transformer failure? how to reduce transformer failure? what causes transformer failure?

One of the main reasons and the most important reason for failure is BAD QUALITY / LOW-QUALITY INSULATION MATERIALS. The cost of insulation materials in the transformer, which is one of the most critical products, is less than the cost of transportation of the transformer. Even after knowing that the utmost reason for transformer failure is cheap low-quality insulation materials, yet many transformer manufacturers in India still use them to save a little money.

According to a report, the estimated loss due to power outage in Mumbai is Rs 258 crores per hour. Let me ask you this… is this savings worth it? We do not even have an estimate of human life that was affected due to this!

Does our electricity board need to set up higher standards? Do our transformer manufacturers need to wake up and realize their importance to human life? All the raw materials which are used by transformer manufacturers in Europe, USA & 1st world countries are easily accessible. Many are available with us. What can’t we “MAKE IN INDIA” a good quality transformer?

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Guru

Join Date: Mar 2007
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#1

Re: Why did Mumbai MMR face a power outage on 12th October 2020?

10/15/2020 1:39 AM

It seems to me the reason is not enough qualified people...more training is needed...

"This analysis reveals that insulation failure and line surges are the major cause of the failure of transformers. Large numbers of transformers are also failing due to manufacturing defects, overloading, improper maintenance, moisture and oil contamination. There are transformers for which actual cause of failure is not known, which are supposed to be failed due to power quality problems."

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339473629_Transformer_Failure_AnalysisReasons_and_Methods

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Guru
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#2

Re: Why did Mumbai MMR face a power outage on 12th October 2020?

10/15/2020 2:32 AM

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I congratulate you on your initiative and desire to improve the outcomes for your country and your people. I will share an observation of my limited experiences in manufacturing within India. Please understand that my comments are based on what I encountered, but seem to be supported by repeated reports like yours.

In all of my experiences in India, the experience that I encountered was always on of "How much can I get away with?" rather than "What is the best that I can do?". The focus was always on cutting corners rather than trying to provide what was needed/wanted by the customer.

I was supplied castings (had requested bare metal so that I could see the metal) that were painted. When in use the castings failed because of voids in strengthening ribs where 75% of the rib material was missing and had been reworked with plaster before painting. So much effort to deceive when the items were obviously faulty. I had previously purchased a "made in India" bench vice that had casting voids filled with plaster, that's why I requested the items to be supplied as bare metal.

I was supplied copper wire specified 0.3mm +/-0.01 where the average diameter was 0.291mm and nearly 50% of the supplied material was underspecification. They could hold a 0.005 range, but were trying to reduce material as a cost saving as I was told directly by the facility production manager. If they had targeted 0.3mm, they would have had a 100% yield. They were not worried, since they could pass the wire to other customers who didn't have access to the facility and the raw wire before it was further processed into electrical wiring for export to USA.

I witnessed a production process where the product was being manually gauged by three staff for each production worker with around 25% yield of "good" stock. They had three Engineers working to develop an effective rework method and NO-ONE working to eliminate the cause of the defective production.

Summary: The best I could hope for was 75% of supplied product hand reworked using defective ARBOR presses using around 50% defective wire. PLUS a few other compounding issues not described above.

I commend you and your passion and pride for your country. More like you are needed to create the changes necessary. Maybe you are a sign that things are changing from what was displayed to me.

Good luck!

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Guru

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#3
In reply to #2

Re: Why did Mumbai MMR face a power outage on 12th October 2020?

10/15/2020 3:47 AM

All developing countries put out crappy products at first, it takes years and years of constant concerted effort to improve standards of manufacturing...and education, training, as well as a commitment to excellence is required...time + effort = results

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Guru
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#5
In reply to #3

Re: Why did Mumbai MMR face a power outage on 12th October 2020?

10/15/2020 7:10 AM

Naïve ignorance is different that intentional deceit. What I encountered were manufacturing processes that were quite capable of delivering quality product, but intentionally being taken to a point of "What can I knowingly get away with?".

The company that I was dealing with were very capable for the materials and tolerances that we needed. They had equipment that was better than our own factory and staff skilled at operations.

I assisted in re-setting an assembly line there one day that reduced defects to around 2% and increased yield from 4 part per hour to 30. When we returned the next day for the 16 hour production trial, the whole line had been reset to the previous configuration and yielded 4 parts per hour of which 3 were defective. We needed 400 parts per day, 240 days per year.

They hinted that capacity wouldn't be a problem since they ran 24/7 and could duplicate the line if extra production was needed. I suspect that something political was going on in the background. Our product would have been export sales and maybe they were getting national labour subsidies.

It just didn't work out.

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Participant

Join Date: May 2020
Location: Dali Electronics 8/A, Haroon Building, 1st Floor, 190 Shamaldas Gandhi Marg, Mumbai 400002, India
Posts: 3
#4
In reply to #2

Re: Why did Mumbai MMR face a power outage on 12th October 2020?

10/15/2020 3:58 AM

so true! i face the same problem as a supplier. just bcoz i hold higher standards.

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