Attachment Report-kpc Ps28(Mr Peter Baraza)

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ATTACHMENT REPORT

(PETER BARAZA)

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Attachment report

INSTITUTION: KIMATHI UNIVERSITY COLLEGE.

COURSE: BSC.INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

NAME: MR. PETER LYANDA BARAZA. REG.NO: C025-0630/09.

COMPANY: KENYA PIPELINE COMPANY.

[PS28-KISUMU]

Section: information and communication Technology section (I .c .t). DURATION: 4th April 2011->31ST MAY 2011.

SUBMISSION DATE: 31ST MAY 2011.

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Scope /purpose. The Industrial Attachment program fulfils part of the requirement in pursuing the degree of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology in Kimathi University College. (Constituent college of JKUAT). This attachment however is purposely meant to bring into practice the knowledge and skills gained in classroom and also enable the student to understand practical working methodologies in different companies. This report serves to summarise the activities and experiences gained with Kenya Pipeline Company for the period of two months. It is however limited to information that is deemed confidential to the company.

Acknowledgement All my gratitude goes to all the Kenya pipeline company staff for their humble time and their support throughout my attachment period. Special appreciation to my supervisor, Mr Fred Odongo, for his supervision, devoted time, support and ensuring that my work is up to date. He made me gain much more than what the scholastic or industrial aspects of the program could have given. May God bless him abundantly.

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Table of contents

1.0 Executive summary 1.1Shortcount of the activities accomplished

2.0 Introduction 2.1 General background of the company. 2.2 Departments

2.2.1 Health Safety and Environment 2.2.2 Quality Control Section 2.2.3 Electrical, Mechanical ,Instrumentation and 2.2.4 Control sections. 2.2.5 Accounts section 2.2.6 Operations section 2.2.7 Procurement 2.2.8 Administration 2.2.9 Registry section 2.2.10 Information and Communication Technology department.

3.0 Description of the workstation. 3.1 Hardware section. 3.2 Software section. 3.3 Networking section. 3.4 Others.

4.0 Impact of the attachment. 4.1 Social conditions. 4.2 Evaluation of the assigned tasks. 4.3 Implication on the future study.

5.0 Recommendations and conclusion 5.1 Recommendations 5.2 Conclusions.

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1.0 Executive summary. 1.0 Short count of activities accomplished

The ICT department in the Kisumu Depot (PS28) is centralised such that all the

sections of ICT are offered by a single personnel i.e. all matters concerning Networking,

Hardware and software services.

The report covers the activities that I was able to engage in throughout the attachment

period of two months in the ICT department. These comprises the following sections

i.e. Hardware section-this part encompasses activities such as installation,

troubleshooting, maintenance and repair.

The software section includes all operations on the software applications this

Includes; installation, software configuration, software customization, performing

backups, upgrading of software, troubleshooting.

The networking part brings out the layout of the domain structure of the company,

email configurations, internet configuration and settings, client server platforms.

The report also entails other services provided by the ICT section such us keeping

record of all ICT gadgets in the company i.e. computers, printers, IP phones,

Uninterruptible Power Supply, Networking Cables etc.

Furthermore, it is going to highlight my experience during the work related learning.

Highlighted also are my expectations before entering the industry and what I actually

encountered.

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2.0 introduction. 2.1 General background of the company. The Kenya Pipeline Company Limited was incorporated in 1973 under the companies Act

(cap486) and started commercial operation in 1978.The core mandate of the company is to

transport, store, and dispense petroleum products safely and efficiently across the country

from Mombasa to Nairobi and western towns of Eldoret and Kisumu .

It consists of a 450Km14’ diameter pipeline from Mombasa to Nairobi and a445Km 8’ and 6’

diameter extension from Nairobi to Western Kenya.

PS28 KISUMU

PS27 ELDORET

MOMBASA

NAIROBI H/Q-PS21

PS1 Changamwe

PS2 Samburu

PS25 Sinendet

PS24 Nakuru

PS23 Morendat

PS22 Ngema

PS7 Sultan Hamud

PS26 B/Forest

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MISSION To receive, store, transport and deliver petroleum products and related services

while adhering to international standards, exceeding customer expectations and

optimizing through continuous innovation. VISION. To be a globally predominant petroleum products handling and related services provider. CORE VALUES.

Ø Integrity, Transparency, Accountability, Diligence, Team spirit, Loyalty, Care for the environment. Motto. To do our best always.

2.2Departments 2.2.1 HEALTH SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT

This section is set to oversee compliance with the health, safe and environment

requirements by ensuring all the staff working in the plant and equipment area

strictly adheres to the product standards.

Its role in the depot is to ensure that safety standards are ensured and each staff,

casual labourers are equipped with the basic skills of serving or helping out in

time of emergency for instance, in case of fire. This will mean that each

employee must be fully conversant with materials, machinery and environment

around section.

2.2.2 QUALITY CONTROL SECTION

Quality and control is mainly concerned with ascertaining the quality of the

product getting to and leaving the depot at a fixed range of time.

This section has two section of ascertaining the quality of its petroleum product,

the first phase involve quality control at the mainline to ascertain that a product

moving in of right quality .The second phase involves tests done from the

received products in the tanks to check whether it conforms to the set range of

standards.

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The contamination of the products may range from critical interfaces to human

errors, but the product recovered is collected in slop tanks for re-injection back

to the incoming products after thorough satisfaction by the chemists.

The quality control section obtains four composite samples from the receiving

tank. They are obtained from the top, middle and bottom and used for;

• Correlative recertification at Nairobi terminal

• Recertification by an accredited laboratory.

• Check and tests at Kisumu (PS28) laboratory.

• Retention sample (for a period of six months).

2.2.3 ELECTRICAL SECTION/MECHANICAL

SECTION/INSTRUMENTATION AND CONTROL(I &C)

These sections are concerned with the maintenance of equipment, motor and

starters, standby generators, ridges and technical laboratory equipment, and

system, earthling system, air conditioners, substations, pipes, Supervisory

Control and Data Acquisitions (SCADA) machine and switch room relevant to

their respective fields. They also carry out preventive maintenance schedules to

ensure that the systems are running efficiently throughout without being caught

unawares by the unnecessary breakdowns.

The power in the depot is supplied by the Kenya power and lighting company to

the switch room. It supplied at 111KVand stepped down to 415V which is fed

to the bus bar, to feed all the distribution boards and equipment.

The depot is also equipped with a standby with diesel generator in case the

power supply fails but being low it can only be used for low power consuming

sections and lighting.

2.2.4 ACCOUNTS SECTION

This section basically deals with financial transactions between the organization

and their dealers and also with the staff. It also primarily deals with the shipping

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companies that are their primary customers by sorting between the exports and

local products.

The value of the product is then calculated putting into consideration the density

at which it was loaded. The figure got is then compared to the scheduler from

fuel-facs. From these notes an invoice is made at the end of the month

indicating the amount, This section also is involved with the monthly stock

taking of the petroleum products from the prepared invoices, The cash office is

involved with the settling of bills accrued from other departments and

procurement section from the purchase of the company’s assets, Stock taking of

all the companies assets annually and submitting the report to the head office.

2.2.5 OPERATIONS SECTION

This is the core section in the company’s dealings which basically involves

transporting, storing and delivery of petroleum products for the customers.

They are usually involved in: Analysing volume movements, Monitoring and

running the pipeline on a 24hour basis, Preparing the reports regarding its

undertakings, Loading trucks, Taking dips (a process/analysis technique to

physically determine the level of product in any tank),Taking samples from

tanks for testing and analysis in conjunction with the quality control section.

CONTROL ROOM:

They use Supervisory Control and Data Acquisitions (SCADA) to remotely

control the pipeline. Using this controller is able to determine; Temperature for

the purpose of correcting the received volumes, Total pumped volume this dives

the cumulative volume achieved at a given station from the pipeline and is

recorded hourly, Meter numbered and the factor this data is obtained from the

turbine meter along the pipeline that gives the cumulative volume of fluids that

passes through the given section of the pipeline, Tank number –the tank number

for the receiving and the issuing tanks in the respective stationed are recorded,

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Product name batch- the abbreviation of the product being issued and received

is noted.

2.2.6 PROCUREMENT SECTION

This section mainly concerned with the standardized stock control system in the

depot it is involved in purchasing of equipment and other company’s asset and

also regular checks to the stock levels to ensure optimum stock levels at all

time.

The purchasing procedure is sensitive and requires that each purchase made

passes a number of stages to ensure effectiveness and transparency. Some of the

documents involved in these procedures include;

2.2.7 ADMINISTRATION SECTION

The section includes;

a. Transport section: it ensures that transportation of staff members is available

and adequate when needed. It also ensures delivery of goods as by the

procurement department.

b. Customer care/relation section: is basically an administrative branch which

ensures transparency in dealing of the company and the customers.it also

ensures; Customer care training for the members of staff; Link between the

staff and the company-this made possible through the dispatch of documents to

the customers through the shippers to fill their complaints and hand them for

action; Keeping of both loaded and unloaded trucks;

2.2.8 REGISTRY

Registry is the section within an organization where files and other records are

processed, kept and controlled.

Records management is generally the design and direction of a programmer to

provide economy and efficiency in the creation, organization maintenance use,

retrieval and disposal of records

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Main functions include: Receipt, opening and sorting out of mails,

Classification and placing of correspondence neatly in the appropriate file,

Dispatch of outgoing mail.

The organization has a centrally organized registry system all the section in the

depot can access records and information from a central point.

2.2.9 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY(ICT)

This is the main section in which I was attached to. It provides solutions to all

areas of computer applications which include hardware, software, and

networking

and common user application needs. The main services offered includes: Mail

configuration, Over the counter solutions e.g. how do I rotate a scanned

document?, Managing domain activities, Computer allocation, Hardware

maintenance and repair, Software installation, configuration, customization and

troubleshooting, Backup of important documents for users, Keeping the records

of all computers in the depot, Internet configuration, Creating new accounts for

new employees in the domain, server configuration.

3.0 Description of the work station

This section outlines in details the kind of activities I engaged in during the

whole of the attachment period under the supervision of my senior.

3.1 Hardware section.

This part involved dealing with the computer and its peripherals. The activities

are:

a) Installation of computers and its peripherals: here we were able to install the

newly acquired machines to different departments in the company.

b) Maintenance.

This includes:

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o Dust blowing-Due to the influx of oil tankers in the company, dust becomes a

challenge especially in the ICT section. Dust tends to settle on these equipment

requiring that they be blown after a short period of time hence the need for

regular blowing of the dust.

c) Troubleshooting –most computers tend to malfunction after sometime due to

some factors. Some of The computer problems we were able to deal with are:

• Booting problems-some computers were unable to boot. First we check the

error message to determine what the problem is. For instance,”boot manager is

missing”. This means that the operating system is corrupt since the boot

manager is not being detected; in this case, we perform the operating system

repair.

• Other peripherals not being detected:

ü Check whether the devices themselves are functioning, if not, replacement is

done/troubleshooting.

ü First check the port whether it’s working by interchanging the ports.

ü Go to the device manager to check whether the drivers have been installed, if

not, we installed necessary drivers.

Most of the problems had to do with either of the above issues.

• Printer problems

The company uses advanced and more sophisticated Hewlett Packard (HP)

printers that require technical monitoring and maintenance.

The problems we encountered include:

ü Paper jam-this is caused by a malfunctioned toner, gears or papers manually

pulled from the printer while printing thus leaving some pieces inside. This was

solved by checking any of the above and relevant remedies conducted i.e.

installation of the whole maintenance kit (gears, toner etc.), opening and

removal of any traces of papers.

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ü Worn out cartridges-this resulted into faint pages being printed thus requiring

faster replacement since the company relies heavily on printing services.

Replacement was done with immediate speed.

ü Printer- Network problems

d) Replacing malfunctioned components of the computers e.g. mouse, RAM,

DVD drives, keyboard, printers, and hardisks.

3.2 Software section.

a) Installation

• |Installation is done from the server where most of the company software are

stored for security and easy access services. The following are the categories of

software we installed:

ü Operating systems-the company machines run on Microsoft operating systems.

They include; Windows XP, Windows vista, and Windows 7.some machines we

upgraded to run on the latest versions of Windows.

ü Antivirus software-the company is licensed by the Kaspersky Antivirus. This

involved installing on the new machines and subsequent run of the updates.

ü SAP-this is ERP software that enables the company’s wide range of activities to

be coordinated. The introduced system ERP-Enterprise Resource Planning is a

system that integrates or at least attempts to integrate all data and processes of

company into a unified system. This means that all the departments in the

company were to be swallowed up in one system called ERP.

ü Common end user software-these includes software such as Adobe Reader,

Adobe flash player, WinZip, Microsoft office package.

b) Troubleshooting: This involves analysing the software that has a problem and

coming up with various solutions to the same depending on the type of the

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software. For instance, in Microsoft office applications, which are mostly used,

there may be a problem in its files after some, thus performing repairs to the

software is necessary.

c) User help solutions: enabling the user in the efficient use of the installed

software and implementation of advanced features in software usage by the

users.

d) Software configuration

This involved configuring of the software for first use. For instance, the SAP

software the production section, it requires entering of server address that is

usually know n only by the ICT staff.

e) Software customization

This is done to suite various end users’ needs e.g. creating shortcuts, style of

viewing mails in outlook, preferred themes on the desktop, time taken for the

computer to be on standby mode for windows vista and windows 7 versions for

specific users.

f) Partitioning and Formatting of storage volumes

This involved formatting of corrupted hard drives /partitions .usually done

during operating system installation.

g) Upgrading the existing software

This involved upgrade of all categories of software to the latest versions.i.e.

Windows XP to windows 7, Adobe Reader 8.0 to Adobe Reader 10.0, Opera

browser 10.0 to Opera browser 11.11 and so on.

h) Performing backup services

Backups of important documents is done by performing a backup on the server

on the server and other removable media such as flash disks, external

harddrives.The backup on the server remains the best option since the user can

easily access them anywhere within the company’s domain structure in all

Pump Stations.

i) Providing support services for the users.

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3.3 Networking section.

Kenya Pipeline Company limited primarily depends on the network

infrastructure for almost all of its activities.

All computers in the company have been networked to ease communication

within the organization. Most of the departments rely on the network to process

documents and forward them to relevant staff. This is normally facilitated by

the SAP software and email programs.

The main internet provider is Telekom and KDN as the backup in case there is

a failure in the Telekom link thus enabling constant and reliable communication

in the company.

Domain

All the staff in the company remotely login directly to the server through the

various domains in different pump stations.

The network administrator facilitates the creation of an account in the domain

for new users.

The layered infrastructure of the domain is as in the next page.

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coast.kpc.co.ke

western.kpc.co.ke

Domain controller

Domain controller Domain controller

Domain controller

Domain controller

nku.kpc.co.ke

kpc.co.ke Parent domain

Domain controllers(3) Backup domain

controller

Exchange server(2)

Application server BES

File server

Active Directory Domain –KPC

Current domain structure:

Key directory elements

• 2 Exchange Servers- • 1 forest with 4 child domains. • 4 child domains (coast,nku,western &ksm).

ksm.kpc.co.ke

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Applications:

• Windows 2008 server

• Microsoft databases

• Kaspersky Antivirus

Email configuration

The company implements the Microsoft Exchange Server for Email Exchange

services. There are two exchange servers in the company located at the

headquarters in Nairobi as shown in the diagram above.

The server is located in Nairobi Terminal thus through the strong infrastructure

remote users in all pump stations countrywide are able to login to the server

using their account profiles hence accessing the mails.

Once the users have been given their accounts from the networking section, the

ICT staffs facilitate the configuration of the users’ machine to enable access to

email.

The company utilises the Microsoft outlook client service to facilitate faster

access to the emails locally on the remote computer/account of the user.

Internet configuration

The main Internet service provider is Telekom Kenya while the backup service

provider is Kenya Data Networks.

I was familiarised to the remote Internet configurations to enable users to access

the internet. With the help of my supervisor, I was able to be well versed with

all internet configurations.

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3.4 Others.

Ø Providing of end user support. How do I rotate an image?

Ø Service desk issues.

Ø Allocation of new ICT devices to staff. This involves considering the factors

on who should acquire the machines first. For instance, company managerial

position e.g Depot manager should be considered first before other staff

members are analysed.

Ø Requisition of relevant ICT equipment through the procurement section.

Ø Keeping record of all ICT devices within the company. This entails request for

the ICT equipment that are needed for the department.

Ø Issue of privileges/rights to ICT devices usage e.g. printer. Determining who

should use the printer within the company.

Ø Disposition of old machines.ie to determine which machines are obsolete for

usage due to technology reasons.

4.0 Impact of the attachment.

4.1 Social conditions. The entire fraternity of the company provides a smooth and enabling working

environment for the staff. This ideally impacted positively to my acquisition of

relevant skills as a social being.

Being a born again Christian, the Lunch hour prayer meetings on Tuesday and

Thursdays just offered the best. The fellowship at the beginning of every month

showed me how the Company is determined in nurturing each and every staff in

all angles of life.

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4.2 Evaluation of the assigned tasks.

a) Hardware section. I was able to learn:

• Installation of computers and its peripherals a lot faster with minimal

supervision.

• Carrying out regular maintenance procedures if ICT devices with ease and with

minimal supervision

• Troubleshooting problematic hardware devices whatsoever the nature of

problems by identifying the root course of the problem and carrying out relevant

diagnostics.

• Dealing directly with internal hardware components of the computer with ease

and also with minimal supervision.

• Replacement of malfunctioned components/peripherals of the computers.

b) Software section I learnt how to:

a) Install various kinds of software. I.e. Operating systems,

Antivirus software, SAP and other common user end software.

b) Troubleshoot various types of errors in different software.

c) Configure different types of software for first use by the company staff.

d) Software customization

e) Partition and Format storage volumes and how allocate volumes on

portions

f) Upgrade existing software.

g) Perform backup services to the staff on the server and subsequent

retrieval of the documents with minimal supervision.

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h) Provide support services for the users without necessarily inquiring from

the supervisor each and every detail.

c) Networking section.

With minimal supervision, I learnt how to :

• Successfully configure internet on the company machines with ease

• Configure email for staff using outlook to the company exchange server i.e.

kpcexchs.kpc.co.ke.

• Domain-I understood the structure of the domain, joining new machines to the

domain i.e. ksm.kpc.co.ke. And other operations within the Kisumu domain e.g.

resetting passwords for users.

4.3 Implication on the future study. Being a student in my first degree, this period ignited the urge to study more in

Networking and Software development since they make key impact in the

smooth running of the company considering the domain structure and SAP

software capabilities and other ICT departments without isolation.

5.0 Recommendations and conclusion 5.1 Recommendations The whole of the attachment period comprised of various activities that made

me gain a lot of experience, however ,I would recommend that ICT attaches’ be

introduced to advanced features of SAP software in order for them to gain more

knowledge in software development and the complexity to be overcome.

5.2 Conclusion. In conclusion, I have to attest my supervisor Mr Odongo for the good job. I

really appreciate the way I have been guided through this attachment

programme with Kenya Pipeline, beginning from the opportunity to take the

time I needed to refresh and expand my knowledge in several issues concerning

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domain structure and its functionality, software installation and implementation

and hardware maintenance and repair, and finally earned the confidence to deal

with assignments myself. It is through him that I did enjoy my work every day.