Project News

JSCoT Mechatronics Counterpart Officers visited the factory of Lanka Walltile Meepe (Pvt) Ltd to get first hand information on factory automation on the 21st of January 2008, with their Mechatronics Short-term Experts Mr. Muroaka and Mr. Tatara. Chief Advisor of JSCoT project, Mr. Umimae and Counterpart Officer of Japan Division, Mr. Goonawardena also joined them.

Mr. Thajitha Perera, Factory Manager, warmly welcomed us and explained briefly about the background of the factory, process of manufacturing tiles, machines they use, the workforce details and their duties. They started manufacturing at the old factory with the assistance of a Japanese company.

According to the explanations of the factory manager we realized that they run the factory equipped with the automated machines with a staff of about two hundred. Particularly they run their technical sections (electrical and mechanical) with the staff members of 5 engineers and 26 technicians. They recruit these technicians from the students of Apprenticeship Training Institute, Katubedda and Ceylon German Technical Training Institute, Katubedda. They also recruit students from technical colleges as intern for one year. The technicians handle the electro control machines with Siemens and Omron PLCs. On our visit to the production line, the Engineer, Mr. Jayasinghe and Mr. Divakara explained how they develop the production line according to the local situation.

After visiting the production line, Mr. Umimae delivered the vote of thanks and invited them to visit our project.