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CIPP – New innovations for old technology

We are a fast-growing society – and things are changing in time – ergo, time is not our friend when speaking about basic infrastructure. If you have ever been living in an area that has old pipeline system, you may have noticed that it can affect your health – ergo, your business if you are a Company, organization or simply an individual who wants to ensure a good product.

relining

Scan the area for any sinkholes and earthquake history

As you may well know, there have been hundreds of thousands of failed projects, and relining of pipes is one risky task. First, we need to have a city or an area plan – as there are many dangers that can stop us from reparation of old pipes such as power lines, chemical dangers and of course – lawsuit if we do not have the appropriate insurance, permit and experienced workers. When inserting a new pipe, ensure that the ratio of the chemicals is proper so that you can apply the right amount of pressure and seal all the cracks as the pipes can be greasy and damaged beyond repair – thus reducing the amount of pressure. This process will affect the productivity and the quality of the product – and of course allow us to have lots of new projects.

CIPP - cured-in-place pipe lining

Cured-In-Place Piping (CIPP)

Materials that need to be used for this sort of tasks are polyester or fiberglass that can be manipulated with to ensure the proper resin insertion. We start from the manhole or the right access point, through which we can insert the new liner, and this task requires no digging. Using certain machines for CIPP installation we can create the right amount of pressure – whether it`s a vessel, scaffold or simply a “chip unit”. Best thing to do first is to either use a camera to check the condition of the pipe, depending on your resources of course, to ensure a 100% risk-free chances of damaging the current pipeline system. However, CCTV cameras are broadly used – and proven to be effective.

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Decreasing the Challenges of Dyslexia with Assistive Technology

reading pen

Decreasing the Challenges of Dyslexia with Assistive Technology

Assistive technology can save dyslexics time and can help them overcome the challenges they face in the school environment.

Dyslexia is a common language-based learning disability. It can affect an individual’s reading, spelling, and writing but in some cases, it also affects time management, memory, sequencing, orientation, and much more. There is no known cure for dyslexia, and through much research, scientists have found links to this learning disability being hereditary. Fortunately, there is much support available to help those individuals overcome barriers, support such as assistive technology for students with dyslexia.

Compensates for Challenges

Assistive technologies are equipment or devices that help the user, so she or he can compensate for her or his challenges. As already stated, there is no cure for dyslexia, but with assistive technology students with dyslexia are provided with an alternative way to make up for their weaknesses. In addition to taking an extended period of time to read through a page of content, students with dyslexia may need extra time to make notes or to legibly write down their work. Assistive technology for students with dyslexia makes learning more accessible since the technology provides them with the opportunity to completely demonstrate their understanding and knowledge of concepts.

Assistive Technology Helping Students in School

One reputable company making helpful devices for students with dyslexia available is C-PEN. Their reading pens are designed to promote independent reading and learning. Unlike other assistive technology that reads to you, C-PEN products help the student read and understand what they just read. This includes not only books but exams and papers as well. C-PEN products help the dyslectic student build confidence and become more independent in their reading.

C-PEN ExamReader

C-PEN ExamReader has the ability to read any form of printed text out loud through its built-in speaker or connect a microphone to the available jack. Students can listen to full paragraphs or listen to a single word or line. ExamReader is allowed in exams which mean no special arrangements or separate testing rooms for students.

C-PEN ReaderPen

C-PEN ReaderPen can be an enormous timesaver for those with dyslexia. In addition to reading text out loud, ReaderPen includes Voice Recorder, Scan to File, and Dictionary. Record and playback voice memos with the included Voice Recorder. Highlight and save paragraphs to upload later with the Scan to File feature.

C-PEN DictionaryPen

C-PEN DictionaryPen includes an English-English Thesaurus, nine Oxford bilingual dictionaries, and text to speech voices for all nine languages.

Assistive technology makes it possible for students with dyslexia to succeed in and out of the classroom.

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Human Entrance: Intercultural Competence

The international mobility of employees has a range of benefits to international organizations including a more diverse and flexible team, knowledge sharing, employee engagement and motivation, among many others. This mobility, however, is not something that is as easy as just moving employees around, the organization has a series of responsibilities and support roles to play.

Intercultural competence is one thing that any organization that operates on an international level should be promoting, supporting, teaching and enforcing. Intercultural competence is a term and a concept that includes a wide range of skills that help ensure effective communication and relationships between culturally diverse employees and stakeholders.

Intercultural competence courses are a great way to help your organization maximize international relationships internally and externally. The courses help teach and enforce skills like mindfulness, cognitive flexibility, tolerance for ambiguity, behavioral flexibility and cross-cultural empathy. The courses and training not only help employees understand their peers but empathize and engage with them. The training helps create a culture of sensitivity, inclusiveness and flexibility.

Intercultural competence does not only benefit individuals but also the organization as a whole. Creating this culture of openness will lead to more effective communication thus improving the completion rate of desired goals and transactions. In addition, it will help with employee retention as people feel included, heard and are more easily able to relate to others. Intercultural competence also helps with employee engagement and motivation as they are better equipped to do their jobs successfully and without barriers.

There are different courses within Intercultural competence that range from relocating to working across cultures as well as leadership across cultures and even courses on cross cultural recruitment. Organizations of all sizes and across all industries can largely benefit from intercultural competence courses and training for leaders and operational level employees.

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What is OEE and what significance does it have in manufacturing?

OEE, the abbreviation for Overall Equipment Efficiency, is a term introduced in the sixties to measure the efficiency of the manufacturing process. To put it into simple words, OEE is the measure of the productive manufacturing time. OEE is measured on a scale of 0% to 100% with high score manifesting better OEE, and consequently, productivity.

But from a more profound perspective, OEE is a far more complex concept, incorporating three fundamental dynamics. You will realize that the OEE score is derived from three variables; quality, performance, and availability. These three variables are combined to determine the OEE of manufacturing in this simple formula;

OEE = Availability × Performance × Quality

This formula makes sense in theoretical terms, but when it comes to real manufacturing application, it is condensed to;

OEE = (Good Count × Planned Cycle Time) / Scheduled Production Time

In OEE, the quality score refers to the number of good parts that have been yielded from the manufacturing process. The quality of the manufacturing process takes into account all the losses from defective products, including any that require remanufacturing. Performance, on the other hand, also known as process rate, refers to how fast the equipment has been through manufacturing. This variable takes into account all the slow days and delays as well. Lastly, availability is all about the time the equipment has been scheduled to operate. This metric is derived after considering all the foreseen and unforeseen delays and stops.

Today, managers are very keen on measuring OEE in manufacturing settings. If you want to put efficiency in your manufacturing processes, you need to start monitoring your OEE, for there are three direct benefits of measuring OEE; loss identification, process benchmarking and boosting productivity.

If you are in the manufacturing business and you are not keen on OEE, then you might be losing a lot. Make sure you introduce it soon and monitor the efficiency of processes, improve the existing infrastructure and most importantly, boost productivity to drive in profits!

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Why everyone should start embracing plastic recycling

You will agree with me that plastic recycling is becoming widespread now that global warming has become a real menace. Today, plastic recycling is no longer about large industries collecting plastics to recycle. It is also upon us to embrace plastic recycling. But still, a lot of people don’t seem to get the essence of recycling plastic.

Research shows that plastic is one of the most common materials used all over the world. In fact, there are over 10,000 types of plastic. Unfortunately, plastic waste is becoming a real menace, and if we don’t take it as a collective responsibility, the situation will get out of control.

Plastic recycling basically involves using old plastic to make new things. But today, it goes beyond that, you can opt for reusable plastics, and this is what many GREEN companies are embracing. Instead of discarding a plastic bottle, you can still use it again, maybe for refills.

To be honest, we have already done more damage than is enough to the ecosystem by overly exploiting natural resources to manufacture plastics. For example, we burn a lot of fuel when manufacturing plastic, releasing the fumes into the atmosphere. The fuel itself is not enough to last generations so the more plastics we continue manufacturing, the more our fuel resources continue getting depleted. We can save 40% of the fuel we burn if we choose to recycle plastics.

On top of that, dumping and littering of plastic destroys the environment because of the non-biodegradable nature. Also, plastics release a lot of toxins into the environment which can cause harm to plants and animals. Also, there is the aspect of space in that plastics are talking up a lot of resourceful lands where something better can be done.

Indeed, plastics are a menace to the environment and the future generation. But through collective action, from the government, organizations, corporate world and also the manufacturing industry, we can manage the plastic menace by stopping production of new plastic and recycling what we already have.