The 21st of December 2011 has etched an unforgettable memory in my mind. I (Arvind Kumar, Chief Project Manager-PDRP) was at Tiruchirapalli (Tamilnadu, Bharat) on a mission to expedite supplies of Boilers at BHEL's works for Power plant of IOCL's ongoing Paradip Refinery Project.
BHEL has outsourced non-pressure parts of these boilers to certain vendors nearby Trichy. `ORBIT' is among such outsourced vendors, who make Pins & Clamps of these boilers for our project. We decided to visit ORBIT also for review and expediting balance supplies. When we reached ORBIT works, we were greeted by their President Mr. P.R. Pandi, who himself is a blind person.
To my utter surprise, the whole ORBIT workshop is run by blind persons. Though I was aware of certain special schools and institutions for blind persons but never heard about any manufacturing industry run completely by such persons. What I saw next inside the workshop is quite difficult to believe. I had never witnessed such well coordinated and coherent working by blind persons. People were segregating the raw material, feeding the raw material on cutting, shearing and punching machines with the help of their fellow blind friends, collecting the final products and bagging them after quality checks. The whole manufacturing process was efficiently done and finished product was meeting the quality standards. What came next was even more surprising.
A physically handicapped welder was doing welding on the job and was assisted by a blind helper. We saw his blind helper almost running and going to store room next door to fetch the electrodes quickly. Every worker working here is fully conversant with the layout of workshop and does the job with calculated steps. At the end, ORBIT president Mr. Pandi requested me `Sir, if you come across any blind person, please direct him to me, we will make him our team member here' .https://www.theprofessor.in/blog/guest-column/meeting-project-objectives-differently/
