Reflective Journal 5

This week we had a talk again instead of our regular class but what made it different this time was that the speaker was an invited guest from Canon Opto Malaysia. As taking photographs is my hobby and also because I do own a Canon DSLR, I was looking forward to this session as it may shed light on the inner workings of Canon Inc and how they come about to produce such great products.

 So on that day, our guest speaker was none other than the Senior General Manager of Canon Opto Malaysia, Muhammad Azlan bin Amran. From his introductions, we got to know that he graduated from a university in Japan which happens to be the same university that Dr. Kamal graduated from and they used to be senpai - kohai. He joined Canon Opto Malaysia in 1990 and has been there ever since.

After a brief introduction on himself, he then gave an introduction on the company. So Canon Opto Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. has been here quite a while and has been established on the 14th of December 1988. The products that they manufacture are EF lenses, optical lenses (spherical lens) , pentaprisms as well as digital compact cameras.

Canon EF lens collection

 One of the EF lens that they manufacture is the EF 40mm f/2.8 STM

EF 40mm f/2.8 STM

Specifications
Optical construction	6 elements in 4 groups inc. 1x aspherical element
Number of aperture blades	7 (circular)
min. focus distance	0.25m (max. magnification: ~1.5.5)
Dimensions	68.2x22.8mm
Weight	130g
Filter size	52mm (non-rotating)
Hood	barrel shaped, optional
Other features	STM motor

Mr. Azlan explain to us that these lenses contain an electrical motor to control the auto-focus and that different lens may use different kinds of motor. The above lens for example uses a Stepping motor (STM). This kinda motor produces less noise compared to standard motor and a cheaper alternative to the Ultrasonic lens (USM). He also explained that a single lens are made up of a few smaller lenses because it would be expensive to manufacture a whole single lens with the specification and dimension that is required.

Next Mr. Azlan went on to explain about the manufacturing life cycle that is adopted by Canon.

 The above is the manufacturing phases that is adopted in Canon Opto Malaysia. During two of the phases we can see that EQCD method is used. What is that mean? It stands for Environment (E), Quality (Q), Cost (C) and Delivery (D). This means they have to take into account these four criteria before they manufacture a product. The production must not harm the environment, the product has to be of quality, cost effective and delivered on time.

As Canon Inc is a japanese company, the people working there are following the work culture of the japanese. Mr. Azlan explain that the people in Canon Opto Malaysia hold on the word "HORENSO" while doing their work. The word HORENSO (報連相) is made up of three other words. 'HO' comes from the word Houkoku (報告) which means report. 'REN' comes from the word Renraku (連絡) which means contact and 'SO' which is from the word Soudan (相談) which means consultation. This meas that during work we must always report to the progress of the work to the boss and always keep in contact and if there is a problem consult. 

He then explain about the 3 'GENS" which is GENBA (site) Genbutsu (actual thing) and Genjitsu (reality). As a person in charge, when there is a problem, we should always go the site of the problem ourselves and see the actual thing instead of just hearing it from our subordinates and assess the situation. 

That was it on this week's lecture. 

Reflective Journal 4

A week has passed and with it comes the end of the month of October. Looking back it seems like it was only yesterday that I have entered MJIIT. How fast time flies when we have so much to do. So this week, we did not enter En. Redzuan's workshop as we usually do on a Tuesday morning but instead we had a talk entitled "Introduction to Bio-electronics" by Dr. Azran. What is bio-electronics then? It is the application of the principles of electronics to biology and medicine. An example of this would be the pacemaker.

So session started with Dr. Azran reviewing back basic electronics which include the basic theorems in analyzing circuits, such as Ohm's law, as well as a review on the components from the schematic symbols to resistor colour codes.

Next he went on to explain about filters. There are basically three types of filters which are low-pass filter, high pass filter and band-pass filter.

 

 

Simple low pass filter circuit

fc = cut-off frequency

So what is a low-pass filter?  Simply it is a filter which allows any signal with a frequency below its cut-off frequency through and removes any other signal with higher frequency. Cut off frequency is calculated by the above formula.

Simple high pass filter

A high pass filter is the opposite of a low pass filter where by it allow signal with a frequency which is higher than its cut-off frequency.

Band pass filter

By combining the two filters before, we can create another filter which is the band pass filter. What it does is to allow signals with a specific range of frequency through and removes the rest. So that was it on electronics. Now we can not have bio-electronics without also knowing about the biological part. So the next part of the session, Dr. Azran explain about molecular biology and explain that each cell nucleus contains our DNA which is the blueprint of our cell.

Just like how computer codes are made up of 0's and 1's, our DNA 'code' is made up of Adenine (A), Cytosine (C), Thymine (T) and Guanine (G). These A,C,T,G make up each code which is contain in the DNA. He then explain that in normal circumstances, a cell which has been 'programed' to do a specific task cannot be altered to be or do something else. But a research done by Shinya Yamanaka has prove that a human skin cell can be 'reprogram' to become stem cell and that has become a huge breakthrough in molecular engineering.

So that's it for this week's class. What will be in store next week i wonder.