REPORT OF IN-PLANT TRAINING IN

HCL INFOSYSTEMS Ltd., Sedarapet, PONDICHERRY

SUBMITTED BY

PRABAKARAN.G2nd Year CSE, Department of Computer Science & Engineering,

Sri Manakula Vinayagar Engineering College, Pondicherry

JUNE 2007 PONDICHERRY

Participants:

Ritwik.M

Sinivassin.V

Elammurugu R.M

Prabakaran.G

Rajakumar.S

GovindRam.N

2nd Year (4th semester)

Department of Computer Science & Engineering

Sri Manakula Vinayagar Engineering College

CONTENTS

2

INTRODUCTION

OVERVIEW

1. PRODUCT EVALUATION GROUP (PEG)

(i) Mechanical

(ii) Peripheral

(iii) Desktop

(iv) Server

(v) Notebook

(vi) Add on

(vii) Software

(viii) Certification

(ix) Benchmarking

2. QUALITY CHECK (QC)

(i) Inward Quality check (IQC)

(ii) Reliability

(iii) Test and Repair Section(T&RS)

(iv) Final Quality Check (FQC)

(v) Customer Satisfaction Cell and Customer Support

3. PRODUCT ENGINEERING (PE)

(i) Final Production Line(FPL)

(ii) Repairs section

(iii) Packing

4. STORES

CONCLUSION

3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

I am thankful to all those who have helped me undergo this

comprehensive training program in H.C.L. INFOSYSTEMS, Sederapet, Pondicherry. It

was Mr. Gerald (H.R Executive) who got us the official permission and initiated the

formal procedure for providing us the in-plant training. I would also like to place on

record my thanks to Ms. Gayathri of the HR Department and Mr. Julius Caesar,

Apprentice in the HR Department, for arranging the schedule of the In-Plant training and

monitoring the entire program.

We interacted with several of the Engineers there—experts in various fields-- who were

very patient with us answering our queries and providing detailed information on various

aspects of Computer Hardware. Among them I would like to mention Mr. Suresh from the

Product Engineering Group, Mr. Appandaraj (certification, PEG), Mr. Raja (Desktop,

PEG), Mr. Hariharan(Server, PEG)Mr.Perumal(software, PEG), Mr.Muthuraman ( IQC,

QC ), Mr. Johnson(IQC,QC),Ms. Shella Jeba Kumari (PE), Mr. Jegan (Testing, PE) and

Mr. Thirugnasamandham of the Stores Department. I am extremely grateful to all of them

for providing sufficient information and taking precious time off to enlighten us.

My special thanks to Mr. C.S. Dwivedi, Vice President, HCL Infosystems, for giving me

the right directions and inputs and making this training possible for us.

INTRODUCTION

4

What follows is a report of the in-plant training provided by the HCL

Infosystems, based in Sedarapet Pondicherry, to certain select students of the Sri

Manakula Vinayagar Engineering College, Pondicherry. The group consisted of

Ritwik.M, Sinivassin.V, Elammurugu R.M, Prabakaran.G, and Rajakumar.S &

GovindRam.N who have currently completed their Second year (4 th semester) in

Computer Science and Engineering. The training commenced on 20th June 2007 at 9.40

a.m. The H.C.L. plant at Sedarapet is basically a hardware assembling and packing plant

that specializes in CPU and notebook assembling.

5

OVERVIEW

On entering the plant and just before the commencement of our actual training we

were informed that the plant had 3 major departments that were related to our

department. They were:

1. Product Evaluation Group (PEG)

2. Quality Check (QC)

3. Product Engineering (PE)

Though these are the more important department of the plant, we were also

taken to the yet another Department which though not related to our field, yet plays an

important role: “The stores”.

1. Product Evaluation Group (PEG):

6

The product evaluation group, as we understood, is where the actual products

are created according to various requirements of the Market. First of all, we were asked

to remove our footwear. Footwear, we were told, if worn inside causes Electrostatic

Disturbances (ESD) due to static electricity. All employees, we noted were wearing

special footwear which was tagged ESD safe. This ESD, we were told affects all

electronic devices, especially the RAM and ROM areas of the computer and sometimes

causes memory failure or even restarts the system if exposed to for a long time and

generally affects the life of the system.

PEG may basically be described as the Research

and Development area of the plant. PEG also has a direct interaction with Marketing

Division which provides them information on the market requirements which helps them

assembles products. Usually this department receives the sample raw materials from

sources, mainly from Taiwan and Singapore with the Head Office at Noida.

The selection or creation of a product could be of two types:

1. The idea for system configuration is proposed by PEG to the marketing division or the

higher authority division which then either accepts or rejects the proposal.

2. New products are created on the basis of the market requirement. The marketing

division contacts the peg with a specific configuration which is then produced.

The configuration is approved if it satisfies all criteria and then it is passed on to the

quality check team, in order to ascertain the quality level of the model, with the Supplier

Specification Sheet (which consists of model specification and the other details of the

model) and the Volume Clearance Note.

7

The product evaluation group (PEG) consists of several sub departments each which

deals with specific part of the creation of the product. The various groups are:

1) Mechanical

2) Peripheral

3) Desktop

4) Server

5) Notebook

6) Add on

7) Software

8) Certification

9) Benchmarking

(i) Mechanical

The mechanical division is that which gives the specifications,

Measurements and generally deals with the CPU creation, mouse pad formation and CPU

artwork. It is this mechanical division that also specifies the size of the various other

internal components.

(ii)Peripherals

Not many details were given about the division. All we

understood was that this division is important in the creation of peripherals such as

keyboard and mouse and other optical device drives (ODD).Other than that, the personnel

were unavailable due to the heavy workload

8

(iii)Desktop

This is the division that deals with the preparation of desktop

motherboards. Mr. Raja who was working there took a few minutes from his busy

schedule in order to give a brief idea about the work done there. He told us that the

motherboard used for the various desktop systems are different in dimensions when

compared with the notebook or server motherboards. The motherboard is basically a PCB

(Printed Circuit Board having a controller, IC, ports and other such connections.

The main motherboards used by HCL are from Intel (which is green in

color), Asus (which is golden yellow) and gigabyte (blue color).How ever before he

could give us more information his workload had increased and we were forced to part.

(iv) Server

The server departments division deals with the motherboard and processor

required by the Server systems. Mr. Hariharan (an engineer in the division) gave us a

detailed view of the work done in this division. The main requirements of a server, we

understood, was to have greater speed and storage capacity as compared to the desktop

systems as it purpose is to “Serve” the various client systems. Basically the server

systems motherboard consists of an Intel processor and occasionally and AMD processor.

However with the arrival of core 2 duo processor and windows Vista, it is more popular

and hence the production.

9

The basic and most important part of the Motherboard is the chipset. Server

systems have a large north and south bridge setting which together is called the chipset.

The north bridge controls dataflow from processor to memory and vise versa while south

bridge is the processor to I/O device controller. The PLS slot is the I/O communication

unit which controls device cards such as LAN, Graphics and VGA.

The first such peripheral control card slot used was called International Standard

Architecture (ISA).An improvement on this is Enhanced ISA (EISA).This was later

replaced by Peripheral Components Interfacing (PCI) port. These 3 ports were parallel

communication ports. However as the concept of parallel communication was abandoned

in the favor of serial communication concept (Since Data was not corrupted as in case of

parallel lines), a new such interface port was formed called Peripheral Component

Express (PCX) which made use of serial communication concept. This is the only I/O

port connected to the north bridge. Nowadays in most systems PCX is used though in

some systems another component called Accelerated Graphics Adaptor (AGA) is used.

The Chipset configuration used is adapted according to the latest

technology available. A heat sink is placed above the chipset and processor in order to

reduce the amount of heat released. The ‘coolant quiet technique’ is used by AMD and

‘Speed step technology’ is used by Intel for serve this purpose.

The SCAS is a port through which up to 16 head disks can be connected at any

given time. The SATA cache is serial port which is divided into SATA power and SATA

data. The power cable has 14 pins and Data cable has 7 pins. Usually however instead of

10

the modern SATA the older IDE cable are used. The IDE are parallel ports. All the serial

ports of the server are controlled by the FBD (Fully Buffered Dim).This FBD is a unique

character of Server Systems.

Another feature of server systems is the use of Redundant array of inexpensive

Disk drives (RAID).This concept is very useful in cases of data loss and for recovery of

the lost data. RAID 0 was the first version which did not allow data recovery.

The structure was:

STRUCTURE OF RAID 0

As that did not serve the purpose of RAID 1 was developed. In this case a copy of all

documents is placed in an additional Hard disk.

A

C

E

B

D

F

DATA

A

B

C

A

B

C

DATA

11

STRUCTURE OF RAID 1

This was a total of waste of space and so raid 3 was developed. In this case an X-OR

value of the data in Raid 0 format was stored is a separate hard disk. This Enabled easier

data recovery.

STRUCTURE OF RAID 3

This is an improvement and combines the RAID 0 and RAID 1 techniques.

An upgraded version of the RAID 3 Technique is Raid 5 which uses the parity of the 2

data disks to store the data. The most common type of data recovery technique is Raid 5.

However the RAID technique has upgraded and now even RAID 850 is available.

On the motherboard around 8 memory slots are present through on some

boards up to 16 slots are allowed. Slots for up to two processors and PC1 slots are also

observed up to 8 SATA Hard disk’s can be placed in the server systems

(v)Notebooks

This division deals with the various notebooks and laptops available in the

market. Here they do not create any new varieties or system configuration. Only the

A

C

E

B

D

F

DATA

A B

C D

E F

12

performance of the notebooks with the various processors is verified. Due to heavy

workload of the personnel detailed study of the division was not possible.

(vi)Add On

This division deals with the verification of various add on parts on the

motherboard of Desktop and server systems. However due to unavailability of free

personnel, Mr. Suresh (The person in charge of PEG) was able to help us and some

description of the work done in this division was given.

(vii)Software

This division evaluated the various operating systems and software that

can be uploaded onto the systems. Many operating systems are available out of which

Microsoft windows and Linux are the most common. Mr. Perumal (one of the engineers

in the division) explained this concept. He said that windows is more commonly used in

personal computers and Linux is used by professionals requiring high security .Due to the

release of windows vista, it is more popular. He said that the basic operations (After

installation) are verified. This division checks if the software is compatible with the

Hardware. This is checked by the score shown by the systems. Minimum acceptable

score is 1 while the maximum score possible is only around 5.5 on a scale of 1 to 10.

BIOS and OS must be in synchronization for the systems to work perfectly. The software

interfacing is final stage before the product goes into production.

(viii) Certification:

13

This is the division of PEG that after various tests on the product get it

certified by the main companies involved. “The procedure”, to quote Mr.Appandaraj(an

engineer in the division), “is to first ensure that the product is working properly and then

send the configuration with its details to the companies involved such as Microsoft ,

Intel , AMD and then get their approval.” He also said that the companies send particular

tests on this configuration. The results of these tests are sent to the company. If it satisfies

all the guidelines and the criteria, then it is approved. This approval is the certification

given by the company to the product.

(ix) Benchmarking:

Benchmarking is the division of PEG that verifies the various

guidelines set by the companies involved. The main guidelines followed are:

M.D.P – Microsoft Development Programme

I.I.P - Intel Inside Programme

These guidelines are adhered to and are verified by the benchmarking. It is

this division that also ensures that the various stickers are placed in the correct locations

and adhere to the regulations.

For Example: One such guideline is to ensure that Microsoft and Intel Inside stickers are

no less than the second largest stickers’ pasted (H C L. sticker being the largest). This is

achieved by making sure that both the stickers have the same area.

2. QUALITY CHECK

14

Quality check is the second department in H.C.L. which we were

introduced to next. It is in this Department that the quality of various equipments and

assembly parts are checked. The request from P.E.G. is processed and the various

individual parts are checked for defects

The quality check department has smaller divisions each performing a

particular task.

(vi) Inward Quality check (IQC)

(vii) Reliability

(viii) Test and Repair Section(T&RS)

(ix) Final Quality Check (FQC)

(x) Customer Satisfaction Cell and Customer Support

(i) Inward Quality Check (IQC)

This Division deals with arrival of new materials and tests their electrical

and peripheral connections. Their objective is to inspect test quality, quantity and

materials.

The general flowchart of their operation will be:

15

Here the military standard 105 is followed for instruction. The Goods Received Slip

(GRS) is obtained and contains details of the materials including item code and

description. The test sequence for every 100 materials is:

Reduced – 3 pieces

Normal – 8 pieces

Tightened – 16 pieces

The inspection method, according to Mr. Muthuraman (an engineer in the

division) is mainly of two types. After the usual method of inspection mentioned above

START

NORMAL INSPECTION

ALL CHECKED LOTS EQUAL OR LESS THAN PRESCRIBED LIMIT

REDUCED INSPECTION ANY REJECTION

DOUBLE THE ORDER IF SINGLE ORDER

TIGHTENED INSPECTION

IMPROVE QUALITY REDUCE ORDER IF IT CONTINUES

STOP

16

the materials are again inspected according to the results of the primary inspection in two

methods.

a) Green Channel

If 40 consecutive loads of materials are passed without any problems then

this green channel method of testing is used. Here any 1 piece is checked out of every

box. This greatly improves production and reduces the time required for checking.

b) Red Channel

Here specific problem mentioned by user are checked. Usually, Red

Channel checking occurs if customer satisfaction or FQC reports any problems with

any system.

In general the time taken for checking the motherboard is approximately

three hours while the keyboard, server &other hardware would take two hours and the

peripherals like printer, mouse would take only one hour.

Approximately thirteen people work in the IQC division. The Average

Quality Level (AQL) for the various components is given below:

COMPONENTS AQL

Peripheral 0.4

Mechanical 0.65

Electrical 0.1

IQC not only checks the system peripherals but also checks the packing boxes. It

checks if the box is made of the correct material or if the symbols printed on it are

correct. Some symbols are:

17

The clearance of the material can be:

A) Normal – usual clearance

B) Provisional – In case of huge sample size

c) Partial – If some materials are defective

Once cleared the materials are transferred to the next division where they undergo

reliability test.

(ii) Reliability test

In this division the entire functionality of the materials are

verified .According to Mr. Johnson (an engineer in the division) the functionality test is

of two types.

a) Pre-release

18

Here the new parts are tested as requested by the marketing department

which performs New Batch Reliability Test (NBRT) on the basis of customer

configuration, Reason for failure, customer support. The Ongoing Reliability Test

(ORT) is also performed in order to check the material for at least three days, based

on the component.

Field escalation simulates the user usability of the system and records its

results and proposed solutions.

b) Post Release

In this method every part of the system is re-checked. The thermal check

ensures that the components are safe with that specification at around 40-50` C and

the cold specification about -15`C. A probe near the processor for and RAM measures

the temperature. Once everything is verified the material is released and the Material

Released Sign (MRS) is pasted on it.

(iii) Test and Repairs Section (T&RS)

This section tests all the failed components and finds the reason for the

failure and proposes possible solution. The supplier to plan communication is handled by

this division. If a product fails the defective materials are sent back to the suppliers with a

note about the reason for failure. This division also advices the procurement division on

the materials required and the quantity of the materials required.

(iv) Final Quality Check (FQC)

19

This division checks the system after complete assembly. Each system is

tested for three to four hours based on the customer requirement and specification.

Desktop Systems and Notebooks are tested individually with various check lists.

The list for Desktop check includes:

Security check

Reset /Dower check

Front Doors (Hardware check)

OS/BIOS/Vector Speed

CPU Clock Speed, Memory support

Memory Capacity

CPU temperature ( should be 48`C)

Speed(2755 RPM)

DXDAIG Tool test

Check idle state

The list for Notebook check is similar to the Desktop except that it contains checks such

as Battery check, Touch pad check.

(v) Customer Satisfaction Test and Customer Support

This division deals with Customer support, clarification and system

maintenance. User Satisfaction is the primary goal and here, as one employee equips,

“The Customer is the King”. The Customer Support division is the division that prepares

the warranty cards and caters to the customer or user requirements and complaints.

Periodical surveys and product analysis is conducted by this group in order to perfect any

20

product. It is this division that plays a very important role in customer satisfaction and

hence the name.

3. PRODUCTION ENGINEERING

This is the department that deals with the assembly and final production of all the

systems. Ms. Shella Jeba Kumari (the person in charge of that division) explained that it

has 3 main divisions. They are

i) Final Production Line(FPL)

ii) Repairs section

iii) Packing

(i) FINAL PRODUCTION LINE

This division is where the central processing unit is finally assembled. It

comprises of further three more units. They are:

(a) Disk Duplication

(b) Kitting

(c) Reliability testing

(a) DISK DUPLICATION

Here customer configuration is first recorded into a Machine

Configuration Card (MCC) which consists of the minute details such as the type of the

screws required. The serial number of the MCC is arranged in such a way that the first 4

digits correspond to the month and year of the production; the fifth digit refers to the unit

21

and the 6th digit is the material code. The next 6 digits is the actual number of the

component.

In this division, first a master disk is prepared and it interfaces the

configured mother board with the operating system required. This is then copied to other

hard disks (also known as the slaves).This is the most important section and comes

directly after QC. Some of the more common software uploaded are: Word power, MS-

office, OS recovery software, Antivirus, vista etc….

(b) KITTING

This is the second unit in the FPL. Here there two sections, Kitting or Sub Kitting

and Assembly. In the sub kitting section the various hardware are classified and stored

with various references for easier access.

In the assembly section the corresponding hardware

are placed first in the various compartments within the CPU cabinet reserved for it along

with the GRS and HCL logo. The battery on the motherboard is also checked before it is

sent to the next section. If any material defective then it is pasted with a yellow tag

containing details of error and continues to the Machine Release (MR) levels. This is

initial section may also be called MR0.

MR1:

Here the SMPS and external exhaust fan is fixed on to the CPU and all physical

verification is done.

MR2:

22

The motherboard is focused on in this section. All on board connection including

motherboard fan and processor are fixed onto the motherboard.

MR3:

Here the motherboard is mounted on the CPU. No external connections are given.

MR4:

Front panel connections, internal LED and speaker connection are dealt with here.

MR5:

Here the peripheral connection such as CD ROM and Floppy drive are done. The

hard disk is also prepared for attachment here.

MR6:

Since all connections are now completed, the wires are neatly arranged by routing

in this section.

MR7

This can also be called the quality check section. Here physical verification off all

components of cabinet is done. Scanning updates the serial number of each machine in

the database of completed machines

MR8

Display verification occurs here. All internal verification of motherboard is

checked using BIOS and checks if configuration is what is required by user and buttons

up the CPU

23

The safety test involves checking if leakage current is less than 1.5 and if ground

continuity is ten times the visible value.

(c)RELIABILITY

The process of using software in order to test the hardware of the

system is called Reliability test. Mr. Jegan, the person in charge told us that AMIDAG

(American Incorporated Diagnosis), STI (Seagate Tech. Incorporated) and Western

Digital, are some of the tools used for hardware diagnosis.

The testing makes use of the CMOS and BIOS in the hard disks to

run. The are 3 methods for testing

i) With FEB

ii) Without FEB

iii) Without Hard Disks

With FEB

In this case the processor is self booting and a floppy is inserted which checks all the

hardware.

Without FED

In this case a server is used to start the system before the tools are run on

the system.

Without Hard Disks

In this case the CPU is started and the memory and batch files are also

tested other than the usual tests.

The general steps for testing are:

24

i) Test system files

ii) BIOS update

iii) CMOS extracted and restored

iv) a)AMIDAG test (includes com port and IDE tests)

b) CPU test (DMA control)

c) Memory (RAM/ROM)

d) VGA test (Monitor, Function keys, commands, colors)

e) FED test

v) BIOS re-update (DMA serial no and sink updated)

(ii) REPAIR SECTION:

Any problem with CPU is checked in the repairs section. There are 2

sections for repairs. They are electrical and mechanical.

Electrical section

In this section the electrical connections of the various defective machines

are selected and checked. This is a very time consuming process. This section is

completely ESD safe.

Mechanical section

In this section the various physical components such as sticks and screw

alignment or size defects are checked.

25

After verification of repairs the products are sent for the final testing. Here

all CD drives, ports and several configuration of the systems is checked. Then it is sent

the plan customs engineers.

The engineers test the machines from the customer point view and does

not comprise even on small matters. After it is verified it is then sent for cleaning.

Cleaning is the part where all unnecessary stickers and tags are removed.

(iii) PACKING

This is the final stage of production. Here the monitors, keyboards, mouse,

CPU are packed in ESD safe plastic foams and finally sealed in a cardboard box. The

packed systems is then taken to the stores and stored for distribution.

4. STORES

The store is the department where all the new material or rejected

materials are placed. The stores work begins with the security clearance as soon as a

truck load of materials arrive, according to Mr.V.Thirugnasamandham (the person in

charge of the division). Then the various addresses and invoices are checked and verified.

If the invoice or papers are not available, then the buyer is contacted to get a copy of the

invoice. The materials are classified according to the duty amount. If the amount is

available, then the exercise exempt form is obtained from the buyer.

Once goods are unloaded, they are given to IQC for accepting or rejecting.

If ok, the materials are moved to the main stack pile otherwise they are returned to the

sender without any payment and if exercise is paid the amount is returned. Once the piece

26

is moved to the OK store then it has an address (row no., shelf) CICP (Critical Item

Control Process) is where items of small size but high value are stored.

The MLGP takes an inventory and if materials are unavailable, orders for more. The

receipt is obtained on unlading materials and it contains all details of the consignment.

Then if all are cleared, the stock is moved to the Work In Progress (WIP) stack.

As product assembly rate increases, the contents of the WIP stock pile reduce.

The completed machines are moved into the finished goods store and transferred

according to the orders. Stores also collect defective materials and issues the Non-

Returnable Gate Pass (NRGP). If the goods are in repairable condition the Returnable

Gate Pass (RGP) is issued. In such cases the exercise duty payment is checked. If it’s

paid then Chelan 57A4 is issued.

In case of impacts from other countries, a bill of entry from customs

serves better than an invoice after which the GR is issued. This is then presented to the

government for refunds.

Approximately 25 vehicles arrive at the stores everyday for unloading.

The accepted materials are placed in the OK stores (main store) while those rejected are

placed in the rejection store from where they are shipped to the supplier.

CONCLUSION:

Any Computer Engineer must be familiar with all aspects of a computer—the

hardware as well as the software--in order to be effective. Usually it is seen that most

courses in Computer Science & Engineering lay more emphasis on the software part so

much so that the basic hardware part of the field is given less importance. Hence it was

27

my decision to undergo training in the H.C.L Company plant in Sederapet, Pondicherry.

The officials were kind enough to oblige me and allow me to study the functioning of an

assembling unit and I am indeed happy to report that the entire training programme has

been most illuminating. The major aim of this in-plant training program was to help us

understand the process of assembling a computer system and the various safety measures

and precautions taken in the process of building up a computer until it was delivered to

the user, and to that extent we benefited a great deal. We were able to visit the various

divisions and departments of the plant, where the various processes involved were

explained to us. We could therefore study the procedures at close quarters and have a

hands-on experience of the workings of the plant. Hence we could clearly comprehend

the complete processes that go into the working of a computer. The extensive testing

methods performed at each step of assembly, once viewed and experienced practically,

are more clearly understood than the very same methods studied as theory. Therefore the

In-Plant Training Program offered by H.C.L Infosystems Ltd., was indeed very useful in

understanding the various needs, requirements and procedure involved in the assembly of

a particular computer system.

28