Interview - Mr. S Bhardwaj Reddy (Control & Instrumentation Engineer , Author, Vlogger, Content Writer)

I am grateful of taking the interview series ahead by talking with Mr. S Bhardwaj Reddy. He is currently a professional Control & Instrumentation Engineer in Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Limited with a huge amount of experience in this field. He is an expert content writer and vlogger by profession too and is the owner of one of the biggest websites on instrumentation, electrical and electronics engineering articles - InstrumentationTools.com. I am thankful that you choose this platform to share some insights in engineering, blogging and content sharing. 

Hope you all have a good read.

Tell us about your journey of writing articles and giving training courses. What inspired you to do this work.

Well would you like to know the inspiration which made me drive the long way to accomplish the huge site which is one of the competent sites in the instrumentation field i.e., Instrumentation Tools?

It's me. You heard right. I did self-motivation to leverage the skillset on regular basis and my passion to contribute the knowledge that I had gained made me strive hard to post the articles irrespective of my workstack. With the strong desire and perseverance, I attain visitors attention on the site by ensuring the content of each article is clear, precise and self-explanatory with examples and animations wherever possible as the motto is to reach these posts to the people who are looking for (be it for students or to clear interviews or to gain knowledge or to implement in the field that are working in) and to get them utmost benefitted.

And my strong will is to establish a trusted site that provides right explicable content. And I do believe InstrumentationTools.com does provide decent content.

In the digital era, to make the content more reachable and relating the theory with the practical experiences in the industry would further ease the way of understanding the concepts. With this in mind, I started delivering courses and strongly believe that users would reap much more results from the AutomationCommunity.com courses. And did develop Android and iOS apps for user accessibility.

 

What are some new developments in the field of instrumentation engineering?

 The new developments in the field of instrumentation are industry 4.0, industrial internet of things (IIoT), machine learning, cloud computing, data analytics, etc. Usage of these technologies are growing across the industrial enterprise to a certain extent where integration with cybersecurity and communication are given utmost importance. These new tools help us in interconnectivity, smart automation, data & information exchange, real-time data analysis, smart manufacturing with networked production, and many more.

 

Mr. Elon Musk once said that just studying doesn't matter; intelligence matters. What do you feel as an engineer about some new skills and talent that must be developed to survive in today's challenging world of engineering.

What does engineering mean?

The name itself defines that an engineer is ought to build or design or solve using scientific principles. To mark one's presence in this challenging world, one should be very strong in the basic principles whatever the field they might be in. Build knowledge on how these principles can be applied practically in the real world. One shouldn't be bound to bookish knowledge. There should be a need to explore more as there are various sources available now. So don't limit yourself to one source. Apply practically by doing some project with the knowledge that you have gained. Adaptability is one of the important qualities one should have to survive in today's market. Technology Stack to learn may be increasing day by day. I believe that it would be easy to learn and can adapt to work with any new technology if and only if they are very good at basics which usually be skipped by many people and do try to solve the issues which in turn would create new issues if they do so.

 

People reach out in a very hard way to work in oil refineries and other big petroleum organizations. What tips would you like to give them regarding it's environment, work scenario, pressure, engineering scope and other similar things.

From my standpoint, be it oil refineries or power plants or pharmaceuticals or mining or cement or chemical or manufacturing units or fertilizers or any one, every organization has its own ease and difficult activities to be performed based on the role one will play. One can ably perform at work if they are sound, technically good and adhere to the standards in their field. One should have proper understanding of the plant they are working in and also the different applications they need to deal with and the systems that were involved; so that one would be able to handle any work scenario under any circumstances.

 

How does blogging and vlogging refresh your mind

I believe great things happen when we love what we do and we do what we love. I do invest my free time on learning something new (in terms of improving the user experience, to articulate content in an explicable way, user accessibility, new technologies etc.) which I would try to apply to the applications that I work on. Engaging myself in trying to implement something new helps me to widen the InstrumentationTools.com platform and able to reach the audience across globe. I do believe in the process of learning and implementing new systems which would stimulate my brain too.

 

What was the most challenging task you have faced in your professional career.

I'm glad that I got chance to work during commissioning phase where all the new systems will be installed and the functioning of it would be validated. I was assigned to commission one of the units (which is fully automatic) in a plant for which unfortunately there is no documentation and vendor / equipment provider support due to some financial disputes between company and vendor at that time.

Task: This system has to be commissioned and needs to be integrated with DCS System as this whole unit is controlled by DCS only. There is no manual operation available. For the complete plant to be commissioned, the mentioned activity needs to be performed. This is a high-priority job. This is one of the most challenging tasks that I had come across to commission the system and integrate with DCS without Vendor support.

I did accomplish the task by mainly relying on the basic principles and did follow trial and error approach by reading books and surfing in the internet. I did refer to all the available sources to make it and eventually achieved after seven day and night struggle. I strongly recommend, that for any task, be it simple or challenging; it can be done by reading and understanding about it, exploring more from all available sources and try to apply whatever learnt to address the problem and we can accomplish any task.

 

In what ways do you use your engineering background in your home life. It's a bit funny I feel but would be interesting to hear.

In this engineer's driven-world, I did contribute to choose the best fit products for our household and did a lot of research on which one is more reliable and durable one. I do help the people to pick the best product and to whoever approaches me for suggestions especially on choosing the electronic gadgets.

 

You handle such a large website with many requests from various writers to publish articles and approve them. What are some challenges that you face in this and how do you tackle it.

Yes, I do receive lot of requests on a daily basis to publish. Obviously, the most challenging task is to go through each and every article that I receive as that is the only way I can judge whether it is a qualitative article to post or not. And I committed to provide the best and accurate content to the users and there is no compromise on the quality at all. This commitment makes me say "no I can't publish" to many writers if it doesn't meet the standards that I expect it to be.

It's hard to explain to all in what aspect the article can be better articulated as I do receive 60 - 70 percentile of the requests that I get won't fall under my expectation to publish. And it does need a lot of patience to comment against each request in what way it can be further improvised and the take away would differ from person to person as all won't take it in a positive note to excel.

I do receive lots of requests from visitors too, to post articles/videos on so and so topics. All might not belong to the same domain; I make note of all the requests and do work on them then and there if it belongs to our stream. If not, then I will add those topics to future articles list; whenever there is a possibility, will prioritize the user's requests.

 Apart from the content, in order to maintain a website, there are multiple jobs stacked (e.g maintenance of the server, performance of the site, user experience, minimal server outage, managing the android & IOS mobiles apps) which one would look after to meet user satisfaction.

 

What famous engineer you would consider a role model in your life and why

Well, I do believe in myself the most and I do have clear vision on my goals and I do self-motivate to make best out of me. To imbibe such sort of mindset, I have been encouraged and provided enough support by my teachers at every stage of my career from schooling to bachelor's degree. It's not one who I can name, but all the gurus to whom I should bow to for their effective teaching without any expectations and they are my role-models. And I would wish to be called as guru one day for which I do always try my level best to contribute the knowledge that I had.

 

Finally, ending it in a good note, what advice would you like to give freshers who are struggling to get jobs in current times.

I do advise every pass-out who is in search of a job and the first question is where they would fit in? And are they really passionate to work in that specific field they have chosen or just trying to get in as one of their friends got job in that certain area?

Everyone is unique and everyone's passion, ideology differs. Wise one chooses their journey path correctly in the initial stage of the career. Choosing correct field is the best part and planning to move in the chosen direction to fulfill one's dreams is the other major step (Seek guidance from the people who are expertise in your chosen area be it professor or senior and work towards it for best results).

With the degree that we pursue, we do gain theoretical knowledge. But to become technical competent and to acquire a dream job, one shouldn't bound themselves to bookish knowledge. Based on the role they apply in an organization; one should be clear with all standard basics and their applications in the real world. Read more. Explore more. Experiment more.  By utilizing all the available resources would be the mantra to achieve the job one would dreamt for.

There are various courses / trainings being made available to get the industrial exposure. I would suggest to take those not only for attempting interviews but also for technical well growth.

 Thank you Sir for your valuable time. It was a great time talking with you and we got to know more about engineering, blogging and it's scope in the future.

Dear readers; if you have any questions, then we would be happy to hear from you and would like to share the knowledge as much as possible.