Fiji Sugar Corporation Engineers Graduate
The Fiji Sugar Corporation (FSC) has strengthened its senior engineers work knowledge on advanced mill operations.
The graduation of 10 senior mill engineers on December 21 from India’s Vasantdada Sugar Institute (VSI), in Pune, India came about through three years of training. The programme was fully funded by the government of India and supported by the Fiji Government.
The advanced certificate level training started in 2015 and each semester lasted 10 weeks. The course included theoretical and practical training and students got to regularly visit modern sugar factories in India and the sugar machinery manufacturing companies.
The site visits proved useful in enhancing the participants’ theoretical knowledge of sugar manufacturing and provided a hands-on exposure to modern plant operations.
In their final semester, the course focused on on-site factory trouble shooting, which was under the direction of the VSI director. Attending the graduation ceremony was FSC’s chief operating officer, Navin Chandra, who on behalf of the company, expressed his gratitude to VSI and the Indian government for ongoing support. Mr Chandra also took time to discuss arrangements for a second group of certificate course trainees for their fifth and sixth semesters, which starts in March this year.
Increasing technical capabilities within FSC is a key objective especially in areas of diagnostic skills and application to enhance efforts when responding to mill breakdowns and stoppages, to ultimately reduce factory downtime.