Home Sweet Home!

At last...home!

Do you know that it was much easier to find your way in Dusseldorf and Abu Dhabi airport compare to KLIA?

Their signboard just much more easier to follow! Look it up and just follow the relevant arrow and you will get there without any confusion.

In KLIA, I find it a bit difficult to find luggage section. After picking up our luggage, we can't find the exit to the arrival hall. Aduiiyyyaaaiiiii......

Massage ..... can't afford it!

We inquired the family yaxi/van but it was too expensive. So we took the taxi economy limousine. We reached home at about 5.10pm.

Waiting for our Limousin....the Taxi!

Germany is very nice but our home is the best......... Ha.. Ha.. Ha..

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Our Flight Home (2)

The plane took off at about 3.30am. It was delayed for about an hour. But during the flight, the Maps Application shown a considerable increase in the traveling speed.

The plane was consistently doing 915km/hr. This is a lot faster compared to our flight from Dusseldorf which was at around 770-800km/hr. I had a feeling, we are trying to catch up with time and try to arrive at 22.20pm at KLIA as per our original schedule.

This was not the menu
from the flight but they were
more than what we can handle!

It was soon breakfast time. A sandwich and a coffee seem pretty satisfying. I tried the tomato juice but, not to my liking!

We touch down at exactly 2.20pm. I am quite right, we are catching up lost time!

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Arabic Biryani at Abu Dhabi Airport

I was a bit worried when we did not see our flight was listed on the board. I went to the flight office. They confirmed the flight schedule and our boarding pass as well.

"Have you got your dinner vaucher?"
"No"
"Do you want one?"
"Yes, of course. In fact I want five!" While showing the five boarding tickets I had with me.

It was not superb but we had a lot of time before our next flight!

So, we went to claim our free dinner. Arabian Biryani, salad, fruit and carbonated drink.

We took our time because we had a lot. Soon we found out that our flight was delayed. Our flight was scheduled to take off at 3.20am.

After dinner we went around the tax free shop. Nothing is FREE but we bought some cookies and chocolate.

We checked in at about 2am. To our surprised, we are the last to do so. Even though the flight was delayed, everybody seems to have checked in according to the original schedule. Phewwwww........

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Our Flight Home (1)

The taxis were on time. We arrived at the Dusseldorf airport pretty early too.

Checking in was smooth. When the bags had been taken care off, we decided to check out the duty free area.

A beautifully rebuilt Vespa

The only things that attracted us was a 4 Euro balm and a beautifully rebuilt Vespa scooter. So, we proceeded to board the plane.

The flight took off around 11.00 am. Nice to be able to experience a take off during a day and experienced seeing a blue sky a beautiful cloud from our seat.

We landed in Abu Dhabi around 8.00pm. A lot of time before our next flight to Kuala Lumpur at 2.30am, the next day!

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Dinner al-kebab

We were hungry after a warm shopping the Media Markt. The only available food was at the Kebab stall/mini restaurant in town.

My wife said the kebab was very good. Why not, it will be a cold dinner. We walked to the restaurant. When we got there, it was quite a queue. It looked like the local resident also enjoyed the Iraqi's kebab.

We ordered 4 and we decided to eat it at the table in the open (Outside the restaurant there were small round tables for their customers). It must be around 0-1 degree Celsius at that time. It was freezing and we were having our dinner. Crazy but it will be a memorable experience.....and the restaurant did not sell hot drink!

We had just had our dinner. It was very cold. Easily around 0-1 degree Celsius!

We scout a few more miles but most of the shops were already closed. We shot a few night scene before we decided to went back to our hotel. Our taxis will be coming at 8.00am. So, we needed to pack our things....

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Shopping

The Media Markt.....the only shopping mall that my
family and me manage to visit!

It was already dark but still pretty early. So, off we went to the Media Markt (yes, the spelling is Markt).

If we compare dollar to dollar (Euro=RM) everything looks very very cheap. But if you multiply with the conversion rate, well, it's still okay. But the CDs for PSP were dirt cheap. Original CD at only Euro 10. The same CD will be RM140 way back home.

But suddenly Along said he found an iPhone 4 at only 80Euro during their scouting event in the morning. Zasssss we went to that shop. But very unfortunate......we were not the only interested party. It was not in the display cabinet. It must had been sold.

So, we went back to the Media Markt. Amat bought himself a game for his PSP, Rose bought herself an Experia J (have not launched yet in Malaysia) and Amir grab an Alcatel smart phone which are on sale.

We went a whole round but nothing else was interesting enough. So, we went off for our last dinner in Germany for this visit.

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Changed Of Plan

Our original schedule was going back on the same flight (me, Shaharudin and Surya). But since the FAT will be completed on Friday, and Sau will be going back in the evening, Shaharudin and Surya decided to joint Sau.

They manage to change their flight and off they go on Friday afternoon.

They will arrive in Dubai the next morning. So, they have all day to explore Dubai before continuing to Kuala Lumpur on Sunday morning.

Me and my family, will follow our original schedule. Our flight will be on Saturday at 11.00am.

We have a few hours to explore Monchengladbach..........

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FAT

This is what the company pay our visit for. FAT (Factory Acceptance Test).

We have committed a purchase of products from S&B. To protect our interest, we have got to make sure we will get what we order for. So, one of the exercise is to go to the factory and witness and confirm the products are as what we specified in the order.

At the FAT area, all machines are ready to be tested. FAT Installation were made to resemble the actual installation when those product come to KPM.

First we tested the issuance of parking tickets. Next, we tested the anti-passback. Then, we made payment and exit.

We also tested the inter site operation. From site A, we try to switch site B from online to offline status. It went we'll. That means, connecting multiple operation site was witnessed to be possible.

We were also shown a simple text linking to select which operation we were going to connect to. For a more interesting GUI, we will have to construct the proper graphic (eg. floor plan), and other related icons.

For the APS, we tested the end of shift activities (in our operation, this happened during cash collection). We also tested the withdraw of a hopper, change fund store and the cash collection store.

Most activities went well. So we close the day at around 5pm.

This end the official visit scheduled.

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Factory Visit 2

We visited the factory again, but this last section was the most interesting.

This time we went to the mother board assembly section. I am still wondering, what make the management decide to assemble their own mother board (controller card for the device say entry/exit barrier). Personally, I think purchasing specific / customised unit will be much cheaper?

Or, was it about quality? But, you can get any level of quality out there. Just gave the manufacturer your specification and they will do it for you. But of course, you will have to prepare to pay for it!

I understand that they need to produce quality product to be competitive in the market. They may have found that for their business, producing parts themselves may be the best way. For others, the formula may not be the same.

We went into the assembly line with Holger. Before going in, we had to discharge static electric from our body. We did that by wearing an electric static discharge stripe in our shoes.

This is the last section of the factory visit. Very, very interesting!

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Can we apply it here?

This was a bridge connecting two of the adjacent building.

I can't help it thinking....

What if Proton is doing it just like S&B? They produce their own bumpers, their own dashboard, their own power windows, their own tires, their own engine oil, their own seat, their own head rest, their own.............

What will happened with the overall quality of the cars they are producing?
What will happened with Proton's sales price?
What will happened to the automotive industry?
What will happened..............

Ohh...I almost forgotten. What will happened to Proton?

I am not saying S&B is perfect. I am only reasoning to the facts...........!

Any ideas everyone!

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Factory Tour 1

This building was from the early days of the factory.

We went for a factory tour, guided by Christian.

We went to a different department with dedicated function. They may be a typical factory but a few of them were really interesting!

The buildings was a mixed between a new and an old. One of it was constructed during the early formation of the company. It has been more than a hundred years old but was still standing strong.

New building for the corporate office.

S&B has a private school for young students to start their technical studies. They were selected students. I am not sure who financed them at S&B. They will grew up with lots of technical knowledge, continue their study at technical universities and some of them may eventually came back to works at S&B.

The workers were really different compared to what I had seen in Malaysia. Most of them were approaching veteran categories. They may have been working very long there!

The usage of robots were very minimum. Only certain precision works were robot assisted. On overall, we could say products assembled here are "hand made".

A good example is an Auto Pay Station. Every single item (chassis, cover, motherboard, coins/note storage, operating system, etc) was made by S&B except the wiring which was cut and grouped by a third party vendor.

Classic petrol
pump

Another classic
petrol pump

To my surprised, S&B was also a manufacturer of a fuel pump for a petrol station. One of their client was Shell. Again, most parts were built by S&B itself (including the pump and the sensors).

Other product was a control station for railway junction. This was a patented product. It has 7 level redundancy.

They have a big R&D team. They did research on design, function, technology, marketing and etc..

Very interesting!

More classic!

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KPM's Customised Reports

Servers for Entervo2 and Entervo Analytic

The site visit on Tuesday and Wednesday were very interesting. Instead of the freezing temperature, we enjoy it very much. APAG especially, it has a very innovative operation team!

Thursday was a whole different day. We have to go through the reporting section. It was a challenging 9 hours in class (or rather in an office partially and the other part in a FAT area).

During the session, we met Hydar, the person in charged of reporting module for Entervo 2. He is a typical programmer type, you will have to make him understand what you want and works things out from there! If you do not know what you want, everyone will be circling around without any real destination.

In the morning, we went quickly through some of our report requirement. Hydar was in a hurry for another appointment, so things were not very pleasant. Me, being in the software deployment for a decade, have a pretty good idea what was going on. I guest!

So, when he came back in the afternoon, we sit down (me, Surya and Shaharudin) and Hydar. Tell him clearly what we want in a more relax manner. Then, things get better. With a lot of limitation, we still manage to resolve most of the reporting issues. Here we saw both side working together to get things done. It's a headache but pretty successful!

The Entervo 2 database itself, has very limited user customisable field. We end up having to used all user customisable field to make the report works. Eventhough still in the customisation stage, we hope to see the report in a working condition, soon. We had basically given S&B all our requirement, now we will have to wait and see!

We hope this customisable issue will be properly addressed by S&B team. We will have more parking bays soon, more location owners, more report grouping and basically more report requirement. They will have to improve it!

Entervo 2 back end is an Oracle database. It's a high end database program, there is no capabilities issues here. It will all depend on S&B's programmer. If they are good, only sky is the limit!

Thursday session ends late. Almost 6.00pm in the afternoon. We rushed back to the hotel. We are going to the castle for our dinner. The temperature is expected to get lower!

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Aachen, The Historic City!

Historic building. In the coldness of winter, the spring is
still producing hot water!

I like this parking.......

Aachen was nearer. It was only about an hour drive from Monchengladbach. We went at about 9:00am. The drive was short but the traffic was heavy.

When we arrive, the Renault 5 was the main attraction. It was hanged upside down in the operation office. Man.... Mr Slovinski was creative!

I don't know where he got the idea,
but I enjoyed his creativity!

One of the big feature of the parking was the long range chip that was being used by their season parkers. It was sticked at the front wind screen. When they approached the entry gate, the scanner will detect the chip, verify it and open the gate. The system was jointly developed by the operation team and a supplier.

We also visited one of the older car park which has been refurbish and renovated. It was equipped with an lead lighting system which will dim down when no customer was in the parking area. The car park was also installed with a parking guidance system.

The toilet near the parking was also very special. It was lighted with a ultra violet light. The light will disable drug addict to use that toilet for tacking injected drug because they will not be able to see their vein in the blue light.

A toilet with an ultra violet light.

We also visited they centralised control room. All the 8 parking area can be monitored from that room.

We finished the visit at noon. It was time for lunch!

We were brought to a Thai restaurant. Feel likes at home. Tom Yam, fried vegetables, sweat and sour fish. We did the ordering. It was a prolonged lunch!

Before driving back to Monchengladbach, we stop by at the Christmas market. It was a very cheerful and colorful place. Mostly, they sold Christmas related product. But there were also some interesting thing that we can purchase as a surveniors to bring home.

Then we visited a cathedral. It was huge and many items in it was made from pure gold. There were various section in the cathedral for various religious functions.

We went back late but already full! Dinner skipped.....

Renovated old car park,  integrated with Building Control System. The LED light will dim when customers left. 

Winter was approaching.

Christmas market. Very colourful and packed with people.

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Argentines Dinner

It was so cold outside.
But inside the restaurant, everything was warm and delicious!

Dinner was with Printo at an Argentines restaurant. Another excellent food. Of course, we only went for the seafood and salad.

Printo picked me and my family first.
When we arrived, it may be around 3 degree Celsius outside. I thought it was just a small restaurant, but we went in, it was actually pretty big and almost all the table was occupied.

After we were seated, Printo went to picked up Sau, Shaharudin and Surya. While waiting for them, we just sit by the table quietly. We do not know how or what to order. We will have to let Printo did it when he came back!

According to Printo, this restaurant imported their own meat direct from Argentina to control the quality and to make sure their food remain original and as per their traditional recipe.

During our time there, it was full with customers. Business must be very good!

We leave the restaurant with Printo. Sau, Shaharudin and Surya took a taxi to their hotel.
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Site Visit To Tria (Wednesday)

It was 2 hours drive from Monchengladbach' so we started early, about 08:00hrs. We went with Christian and Printo. It was rather wet and cold too.

On the way to Tria, we saw miles of open ground. According to Christian, they were grape farm and some of it were wheat farm. The views were magnificent. The temperature was probably around 2 - 3 degree Celsius on the highway.

Stop at a rest area. Nature's call!

At a speed between 120 to 140km/h, we reach there pretty much on time. The company was SWT. They have 13 parking location. All of them we being monitored from one location. They have on 12 people running the operation.

The operation team only run the operation and reload change fund. Collection was done by a third party. Their finance department will verify the collection amount based on the bank statement abd reports submitted by the operation team.

Their car park was also equipped with parking bays for electric vehicles. Two bay were allocated but it were seldom used because not many people owned an electric cars.

Electric vehicle charging station.

They also have power backup for the whole car park in the form of a giant battery. It was located in the middle of the area.

A big battery for power backup.

A lot of beautiful buildings here.
A week with  5D Mrk III will be  excellent!

We had a little problem looking for a place to have our lunch. The restaurants were either full with people or do not have suitable menus for us. After a while we manage to get a sit at pizza restaurant which was also packed with customers.

The pizzas were very nice. And so do the cappuccino. We hurried back to allow Christian to catch his favorite football match at one of the local stadium, 2 hours drive away from Monchenglabach.

Colourful Christmas Market!

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Dinner Time!

On Monday, dinner was at Blue Angel. A restaurant own by a Turkish. So, it was a Turkish dinner.

Excellent dinner!

We ordered fish and lamb. Nicely cooked with herbs and spices. But to my surprised, it was a little salty.

The salad was also good. There were 3 type dressing/cream. Once of it was rather hot (like sambal belacan daaa....).

We ordered to much food. A lot of food were left on the table when we leave. What a waste!

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