Repair Technicians Research Articles

E-waste management from electronic repair workshops: Societal implications and environmental consequences

Improper disposal of faulty electronic devices can result in pollution, health hazards, social inequity, and legal issues. This study explores the perceptions and practices of electronic waste management among electronic repair technicians in Ho Municipality, Ghana, with a focus on the significant societal and environmental impacts of e-waste generated in electronic service workshops. A survey using both random and purposive sampling of 150 electronic repairers in Ho Municipality found limited awareness of the negative effects, toxic components, environmental risks, and proper handling and disposal procedures associated with e-waste. Notably, only 31 % of participants were aware of the environmental risks, while 69 % were not. "Experience" emerged as a significant predictor of awareness regarding e-waste health risks. Only 22 % were knowledgeable about the hazardous substances in e-waste, indicating a low level of awareness of its risks and opportunities for reducing them. These findings highlight the need for collaboration among stakeholders to implement sustainable e-waste management practices in alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Barriers to Adopting Healthy Eating Practices Among Roadside Automotive Repair Technicians in Takoradi, Ghana

Barriers to Adopting Healthy Eating Practices Among Roadside Automotive Repair Technicians in Takoradi, Ghana

Pertumbuhan EKonomi Pengaruh Machine Knowledge, Training of Trainer dan Repair Technician Grade Terhadap Produktivitas Kerja Teknisi

Employee productivity is a very important thing in the company's efforts to achieve its goals. The purpose of this study was to determine how influential the Machine Knowledge, Training of Trainer and Grade variables had on work productivity. The population of this study were Honda Arista employees in Bengkulu City, totaling 70 employees with a sample of 31 employees. The sampling technique is purposive sampling. This research is explanatory research using a quantitative approach which explains the effect of the Knowledge (X1), Training of Trainer (X2) and Repair Technician Grade (X3) variables on technician work productivity (Y). The results showed that the Knowladge variable had a significant effect on the technician's work productivity, the Training of trainer variable also had a significant effect on the technician's work productivity, then the grade variable had a significant effect on the technician's work productivity. Overall, the results of the study show that the Knowledge (X1), Training of Trainer (X2) and Repair Technician Grade (X3) variables have a significant effect on work productivity (Y).

Multiperiod integrated spare parts and tour planning for on-site maintenance activities with stochastic repair requests

Motivated by the problem facing many home-attended maintenance service providers, this paper considers the joint optimization problem of spare parts planning and the scheduling of a single technician to visit geographically distributed customers for on-site maintenance activities. We present and formulate the problem using stochastic mixed-integer programs, encompassing many important real-life characteristics, such as stochastic spare parts demand, stochastic customer requests, and return visits. We also propose an anticipatory solution method, which uses a look-ahead procedure to integrate stochastic information into the planning process and compare this with two myopic planning approaches. With a detailed numerical study, we show that anticipation can lead to cost reductions and service level improvements, especially when customers are sparely distributed. Furthermore, our results reveal that the repair kit and technician tour integrated planning helps to substantially reduce penalty costs for late service. We also provide insights into the value of having perfect information about spare part demand and future request locations.

Application of ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode Intellectualization in Civil Aviation System

The so-called ATM technology refers to asynchronous transmission technology, which is a highly efficient communication transmission technology. At present, it is widely used in many communication technology fields. Now this paper mainly analyzes its application in the field of civil aviation communication. At first, the paper analyzes and introduces ATM technology and civil aviation communication environment, points out the application advantages of ATM technology in civil aviation communication field, and finally makes a simple discussion on its application direction and mode. With the development of civil aviation communication business, the requirements for the traffic and reliability of data communication network are increasing. Civil aviation relies on ATM technology to build a basic network platform that can cover all airports of civil aviation and has carrier level reliability and availability. This paper introduces the working principle, system composition and workflow of ATM, improves the business level of maintenance and repair technicians, and ensures the safe operation of civil aviation air traffic control equipment.

Work-Related Musculoskeletal Pain and the Associated Factors in Mobile Phone Technicians

Background: In this digital era, the role of mobile phone technicians is very important. Musculoskeletal discomfort is one of the most frequent occupational health concerns in both developed and developing nations, and it comes at a substantial cost to employers in terms of reduced productivity and higher health care expenses. Material and Methods: The aim was to study the prevalence of work related musculoskeletal discomfort among mobile phone technicians in Nagpur, India. An observational cross sectional study was conducted on 1000 repair technicians satisfying the inclusion criteria. Perception of barriers and facilitators was estimated as a percentage along with a 95% confidence interval. Results: The prevalence was high (78%). Work related musculoskeletal pain in the age range between 25 and 33 years (51%) was more common. The present study found that the severity of pain according to the Numerical Pain Rating Scale for the majority of the study participants(55%) was moderate. The result indicates that the most discomfort of the body regions is in the neck (36%), followed by the lower back (30%). Conclusion: Work related musculoskeletal disorders represent a significant burden for mobile phone repair technicians. They may suffer musculoskeletal problems as a result of their prolonged work hours and heavy exertion. This study found a link between the emergence of musculoskeletal discomforts in mobile phone technicians and the factors that cause them.

Optimization of maintenance tasks of spatially distributed assets with non-preemptive overtime

ABSTRACT A major challenge in maintenance scheduling is how to avoid excessive maintenance costs due to labor and overtime. In maintenance of utilities in commercial buildings, the repair technicians have to travel between the maintenance sites to perform maintenance tasks under non-preemption constraint. In such a maintenance, and due to geographically distributed assets in occupied buildings, travelling will consume a proportion of the available work time. To find a good balance between the number of technicians, the number of selected tasks and the right routing between the tasks along with overtime considerations, a MILP model is presented in this study. Here, joint decisions that will minimize the cost of labor, transportation and overtime in the form of time schedules and daily routes are addressed. Using AMPL and CPLEX to formulate and solve the model, case studies from real industry in Uae have been solved for testing and validation. The results showed a remarkable reduction in costs due to presenting optimal technician routes, low use of overtime and small workforces. The model can be cast into a commercial package, which offers maintenance providers a custom solution for maintenance activities that are characterized by their high frequency, short duration and spatially distributed sites.

The afterlives of off-grid solar: The dynamics of repair and e-waste in Malawi

There has been profound growth in the adoption of off-grid solar devices across Sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade. However, there has been limited attention given to the afterlives of these devices and their justice implications. This is of particular concern as these increasing rates of off-grid solar adoption are across contexts in which regulatory mechanisms and e-waste infrastructure are weak or non-existent, leaving populations exposed to a range of social and ecological harms. In this paper, we examine upon research from Malawi to draw attention to the spatial and ethical dimensions of off-grid solar repair and e-waste. We demonstrate how a two-tiered off-grid solar market, regional flows, and usage practice, result in ethically complex outcomes. We emphasize how strengthening the social and material infrastructures of repair, epitomised by the role of informal repair technicians, are vital to extending the productive lifespans of off-grid solar devices in comparable settings.

Practical, Low-Cost Fault Injection Attacks on Personal Smart Devices

Fault attacks are traditionally considered under a threat model that assumes the device under test is in the possession of the attacker. We propose a variation on this model. In our model, the attacker integrates a fault injection circuit into a malicious field-replaceable unit, or FRU, which is later placed by the victim in close proximity to their own device. Examples of devices which incorporate FRUs include interface cards in routers, touch screens and sensor assemblies in mobile phones, ink cartridges in printers, batteries in health sensors, and so on. FRUs are often installed by after-market repair technicians without properly verifying their authenticity, and previous works have shown they can be used as vectors for various attacks on the privacy and integrity of smart devices. We design and implement a low-cost fault injection circuit suitable for placement inside a malicious FRU, and show how it can be used to practically extract secrets from a privileged system process through a combined hardware-software approach, even if the attacker software application only has user-level permissions. Our prototype produces highly effective and repeatable attacks, despite its cost being several orders of magnitude less than that of commonly used fault injection analysis lab setups. This threat model allows fault attacks to be carried out remotely, even if the device under test is in the hands of the victim. Considered together with recent advances in software-only fault attacks, we argue that resistance to fault attacks should be built into additional classes of devices.

Noise Exposure and Evaluation at Tire- Changing Facilities.

Thirty (30) personal noise-exposure samples were collected on 20 tire-changing and repair technicians in three tire-changing facilities to determine their personal noise exposures and to estimate the maximum number of tire changes that could be performed without exceeding occupational exposure limits. Of the 30 projected 8-h time-weighted average noise samples, none exceeded the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Permissible Exposure Limit, 1 (3%) exceeded the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Action Level, and 18 (60%) exceeded the American Conference for Governmental Industrial Hygienists Threshold limit Value of 85 dBA, indicating the need for a hearing loss prevention program. The average shift time for the technicians was 6 h and 42 min and the average number of tire changes was 18. Based on the projected 8-h noise exposure 95% upper confidence limits, the estimated maximum number of tires that could be changed without exceeding the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's noise action level was 32 tires, the permissible exposure limit greater than 40 tires, and the American Conference of Industrial Hygienists' Threshold Limit Value was less than 20 tires. In addition, area noise samples of tire-changing equipment were taken with a sound-level meter to identify the noise sources that contributed to the tire technicians' exposures. The air ratchet, tire-changing machine, and tire-bead seater were measured at noise levels >85 dBA, increasing the risk of noise-induced hearing loss to the technicians.

APLIKASI KALKULATOR KOMPONEN ELEKTRONIKA BERBASIS ANDROID

Android is the most popular OS today, many of which use android as a learning medium, knowledge and tools for calculating examples such as making electronic component calculators that can help repair technicians of electronic devices. In this study, the authors made an electronic component calculator application that can calculate a component value by reading the component codes carried out by the application. In making this application using Android Studio tools to create the source code. Adobe Photoshop is of course for the design. Of course, this is in line with the purpose of the author's research. The results of research by electronic device repair technicians and students are greatly helped by this application.

RESPIRATORY SYMPTOMS AND PULMONARY FUNCTIONS AMONG AUTOMOBILE REPAIR WORKERS

Introduction: Car repair technicians use chemicals during their work. These chemicalsbecome airborne during its application and can be easily inhaled and cause harm to therespiratory system. Aim of work: The current study aims to describe the magnitudeof respiratory symptoms and pulmonary function disorders among automobile repairworkers. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was performedon 121 automobile repair workers. The workers completed a predesigned questionnaireto collect socio-demographic data, including occupational history, special habits, andrespiratory complaints. The pulmonary function tests were carried out utilizing Spirolab-III from MIR Company with Winspiro Pro software, a calibrated spirometer with abuilt-in computer program. Forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume inone second (FEV1), and the ratio of these variables (FEV1/FVC) was measured as apercentage of normal predicted levels according to age, gender, weight, and height.Results: Dry cough and chest tightness were the most common respiratory symptoms(33.9% and 23.1%, respectively); however, only 4% of the automobile repair workersused respiratory protective equipment. More than one-third (38.8%) of the subjectshad pulmonary function (PF) disorders (19% with obstructive patterns and 19.8% withrestrictive patterns). Pulmonary function disorders were common among the older (>30 years), compared to the younger age group (≤30 years) (48.1% vs. 22.7%, respectively)and workers who are exposed to brake fluid. Smoking, obesity, and a long duration ofemployment had no significant associations with PF disorders. Conclusion: The currentstudy showed that two out of five car mechanics exhibited changes in pulmonary functionsthat were equally distributed between obstructive and restrictive impairments. Pulmonaryfunction disorders were common among the older age group, regardless of smoking or along employment duration. The promotion of workplace safety and the periodic spirometryexamination of individuals is required to detect any respiratory changes.

Forensically reconstructing biomedical maintenance labor: PDF metadata under the epistemic conditions of COVID-19.

This study examines the documents circulated among biomedical equipment repair technicians in order to build a conceptual model that accounts for multilayered temporality in technical healthcare professional communities. A metadata analysis informed by digital forensics and trace ethnography is employed to model the overlapping temporal, format‐related, and annotation characteristics present in a corpus of repair manual files crowdsourced during collaborations between volunteer archivists and professional technicians. The corpus originates within iFixit.com's Medical Device Repair collection, a trove of more than 10,000 manuals contributed by working technicians in response to the strain placed on their colleagues and institutions due to the COVID‐19 pandemic. The study focuses in particular on the Respiratory Analyzer subcategory of documents, which aid in the maintenance of equipment central to the care of COVID‐19 patients experiencing respiratory symptoms. The 40 Respiratory Analyzer manuals in iFixit's collection are examined in terms of their original publication date, the apparent status of their original paper copies, the version of PDF used to encode them, and any additional metadata that is present. Based on these characteristics, the study advances a conceptual model accounting for circulation among multiple technicians, as well as alteration of documents during the course of their lifespans.

Toluene and Heavy Metals in Small Automotive Refinishing Shops and Personal Protection of the Workers in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand.

Chemical contamination and safe work practices of workers in automotive refinishing shops have been extensively studied in industrialized countries, but the evidence in developing countries is limited. This study aimed to evaluate chemical contamination and the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) of workers in local small-scale automotive refinishing shops in Nakhon Si Thammarat, Thailand. Airborne toluene and heavy metals, i.e., lead, chromium, and cadmium, were measured in 3 automotive refinishing shops. Toluene exposure assessed by urinary hippuric acid (n = 27) and metal contamination on workers' hands (n = 24) were also determined. Information on the use of PPE and personal hygiene practices of the workers was collected by questionnaires. Average ambient levels of toluene (0.04–18.26 ppm) and the metals (Pb: ND-26.34, Cr: 0.02–4.46, and Cd: ND-1.44 µg/m3) in all sites did not exceed the national standard levels of 200 ppm for toluene (1998) and 50, 12, and 5 µg/m3 for Pb, Cr, and Cd, respectively (2017). The mean ambient levels of these chemicals were highest in paint spray booths followed by nonpainting areas and office rooms, respectively. The highest level of urinary hippuric acid (1.13 g/g creatinine) was found in a painter but did not exceed the recommended biological exposure index of 1.6 g/g creatinine (2014). In contrast, the highest levels of lead and chromium detected on the workers' hands were found in body repair technicians. Direct hand contact without using gloves was suggested as a primary cause of metal contamination.

Assessment of Dealers’ Contribution in Current and Future E-waste Management Trends Within Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Dar es Salaam city, generates massive amount of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipments (WEEE) that either ends up in the environment or kept at home or commercial areas. This study aimed at investigating the currenting WEEE management practices, assessing the level of public awareness on WEEE, and come up with the model that can predict the rate (%) of discarded WEEE. Both the qualitative and qualitative methods of data collection were used, that is the use of questionnaires, and interviews to EEE business people, repair technicians, public, recycling companies and the regulating authority. It was found out that Increase in WEEE within Dar es Salaam city is caused by growth of economic rate, population growth rate, household purchasing capacity, while the decrease of the waste is associated with recycling plans and exportation of the waste. Also, the public (76%) doesn’t consider the broken or expired EEE as waste, as a result they opt to keep them at home than giving them to recyclers or collectors. Even though there are recyclers within the city, they can only recycle 35% of the generated WEEE. If the current situation continues by 2026, about 68% of the generated WEEE will be discarded to the environment or at home or business places. The situation shall be rectified by promoting the WEEE recyclers.

Bench Set Impact Analysis on Fail-Safe Condition of Fail to Closed Type Control Valve with Spring-Diaphragm Actuator

Control valve is one of key elements in processing of a chemical industry and it is one of its important functions is as a flow control of chemical process. The accuracy of control valve opening or traveling is proportional to flow capacity. On the other hand, a leakage of a control valve on its failed position especially for Air to Open-Fail Closed (ATO-FC) type valve can become a disaster. One of critical parameters in Control Valve that impacts to performance and fail-safe position is Bench set range spring in valve’s actuator. This work analyzed this Bench set range impact to the fail-safe position. The force in spring is defined by control valve specification verified by force balance method of control valve. Then the impact of bench set range was analyzed by displacement of spring from spring force equation. At the end, the outcome is displacement data in correlation to the change of bench set range. It helps the repair technician on the maintenance workshop of permissible range when they adjust the bench set range by adjusting spring compression.

Assigning and Scheduling Service Visits in a Mixed Urban/Rural Setting

This papera describes a maintenance scheduling application, which was developed together with an industrial partner. This is a highly combinatorial decision process, to plan and schedule the work of a group of travelling repair technicians, which perform preventive and corrective maintenance tasks at customer locations. Customers are located both in urban areas, where many customers are in close proximity, and in sparsely populated rural areas, where the travel time between customer sites is significant. To balance the workload for the agents, we must consider both the productive working time, as well as the travel between locations. As the monolithic problem formulation is unmanageable, we introduce a problem decomposition into multiple sequential steps, that is compatible with current management practice. We present and compare different models for the solution steps, and discuss results on datasets provided by the industrial partner.

Sensors for Self-Diagnosis of Electrochemical Treatment Technologies

Electrochemical oxidation appears to be a practical technology for decentralized treatment of wastewater in regions where sewer-based wastewater treatment is too expensive or otherwise impossible to construct and maintain.1 As of now, the control processes used by many systems rely principally on successive events that are time dependent and come with little level of monitoring but little feedback into the system process.2-3 One reason is the high cost of sensors and automation systems used in industrial installations cannot easily translate into household or public bathroom products for developing countries where capital expenditure is limited.Additionally, failures associated with onsite treatment technology have to be addressed otherwise the health and the environment of the users in direct contact would suffer. In the technology developed by Hoffmann et al. 3 , most repairs are simple, requiring only a screwdriver, yet without interactive instructions, local electricians and plumbers have been unable to get units properly serviced. From ethnography research, we also found the potential for service interruption is something we must eliminate for true user adoption of our sanitation solution.As an answer to this challenge, we integrated a suite of inexpensive sensors (e.g. ORP, color, turbidity, voltage, current, water level, leakage) in and around the electrochemical treatment system (picture attached) and to a local computer (Raspberry Pi + Arduino) that can diagnose failure modes and send alerts to on-demand repair technicians and users4. Our M2M, IoT technology uses a proprietary mobile application to deliver straight-forward, pictorial instructions that guide maintenance technicians regardless of literacy level.In this study we present the results from the field testing of the system “at scale” in two identical prototypes using electrochemical disinfection and treatment of toilet wastewater. The results from this study enable a refinement in the choice of sensors and the algorithms used to diagnose electrochemical water treatment quality and prevent system failures.

Aplikasi Perhitungan Komponen Pasif Elektronika Berbasis Android

Increasingly rapid development of mobile phone whether it is the hardware that is used to using a keypad is now a touch screen, and from software are generally still use Symbian OS and Java, now almost everyone is switching to Android OS. This is because the Android OS, has many kinds of advantages in terms of application. Many who use android application which of them is to recite the Qur'an, read a book maulid, learn to cook, order food online even ordered transportation services. They all android phone users should be eased all his daily activities with its gadgets. For this reason the author tries to create android apps that are useful in science learning electronics. Certainly if we discuss the science of electronics, the elaboration widespread, with these authors restrict that application that the author is an application that addresses the basic electronic passive components. The target is this application can be used for elementary, junior high, high school, vocational school, even college course in accordance department. Not only was the application that the author made can be when used for the repair technician electronics devices. With this expected to manufacture android application with the title of the application of knowledge and calculation of passive components basic electronics based on Android can help the learning process in the world of education that certainly from the level of elementary, junior high, high school, vocational and higher education as well as a solution the use of gadgets smarter, precise and instructive

Simulation of operation of neural network with purpose of utilisation of hydraulic actuators in complicated technical conditions

Application of neural network technologies is becoming more extensive every year, especially in the economic field. New methods are being discovered, new models of neural networks are being created. Currently, the main application of neural networks in the economy is the prediction of markets, optimization of commodity-money flows, analysis and generalization of various social surveys, prediction of the dynamics of political ratings, optimization of the production process, comprehensive diagnostics of product quality, etc. Utilisation of the hydraulic equipment makes it possible to design systems of automatic operation in the conditions, where minimal human participation and maximum speed of response are required. It is possible to state that such conditions exist in the regions with the permanent access of repair teams or technicians, who perform monitoring of the complex technical objects. Therefore, it is necessary to develop automated systems of operation and monitoring of various equipment components, which are intended for operation in the complicated technical conditions. Authors of this article have selected the hydraulic equipment as the object under investigation due to the fact that it is widely distributed equipment, as well as due to possibilities of this equipment to function or to be adapted for operation in practically any environmental conditions. At the same time, quantity of the state-of-the-art equipment, which is used, as well as complexity of this equipment increase very quickly, therefore process of making decision concerning utilisation of this equipment must be made very quickly. Authors analyse the sphere of automation, where utilisation of a human decision is required. The novelty of this article is connected with the assumption that further direction of operation of such equipment in the complicated technical conditions must be implemented in the sphere of guessing of the user’s actions. Authors review neural networks as the toolkit, and they believe that these networks can make decisions in the proactive mode, practically without participation of a user. This article includes description of the model, which can be used as the basis for the system, which is planned to design. In addition, methodological toolkit for assessment of efficiency of this model is proposed. Keywords: equipment, neural network, complicated technical conditions, functioning, model, economic efficiency DOI: 10.25165/j.ijabe.20201301.3965 Citation: Togizbayeva B B, Sazambayeva B T, Karazhanov A A, Kenesbek A B, Cocosila M. Simulation of operation of neural network with purpose of utilisation of hydraulic actuators in complicated technical conditions. Int J Agric & Biol Eng, 2020; 13(1): 11–19.