Training Report of Salamis Aerospace Industries Company

The company that I trained in is ALSALAM AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES Established in 1988, ALSALAM is a joint venture under the Kingdom’s offset program. Initiated in order for the Kingdom to be self-sufficient in commercial and military aircraft maintenance, overhaul and modifications through technology transfer and the development of Saudi nationals.

ALSALAM provide manufacturing of aerospace components, maintenance, and repair and overhaul (MRO), VIP interior design and refurbishment, ground equipment maintenance to technical support services, include the manufacturing of F-15 key major components.

Visions of Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

To be a provider of world-class aviation products and services.

Missions of Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

·         To deliver selected aviation products and services that create a high level of customer satisfaction and sustained profitability, by utilizing.

·         Highly skilled and motivated employees with a steadily increasing level of the national workforce.

·         Advanced technology.

·         Quality oriented and cost efficient methods and processes.

Training Details of Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

I trained as helpdesk and IT support for 9 weeks I will mention the details for each week.

Date and Period of Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

• The training course started on June.09.2019 and completed August.08.2019.

•The duration of the course is 360 hours during 63 days (9 weeks).

Week 1 in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

In week 1 I went to the ALSALAM Company to take my work card, and I went to the class in the training building, in the class Mr. Ibrahim Al-hasmi the -training manger- and Mr. Mohammed Al-ghamdi -training employee- represented all the company information (I mentioned in the beginning), after that we went to another class, in this class they explained the safety instructions and what to do in emergency Situations and they gave us the emergency number to call in case.

They gave us the logbook, it contains all information about the trainer also it contains the attendance sheet and the weekly evaluation papers (I will attach copies), in the attendance sheet I should write the Time-in and the Time-out and sign for it and the supervisor should sign for it by the end of the day.

The evaluation is by the supervisor who writes it by the end of the week and he should sign for it.

We went for a tour inside the company to see the main building and to show us the departments.

Week 2 in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

The first week was more concerned with introducing me to the company like what are the things to follow, how offices premises looks, which departments are situated at different parts of the building. The week 2 at ALSALAM Company was busier as compared to the first week. I would like to mention here that In ALSALAM Company I worked as helpdesk which means I had a laptop the company gave to me to receive the requests by opening an IT services website and login to my user after that the requests displayed. The request life cycle is, first the employee who has an IT issue creates his request, after that he send the request, the request should be approved by the employee manager, after the approval the IT team receives the request, this request goes to requests list, in this time the IT supervisor opens this list and select any requests to assign the selected requests to one of the IT team member.

The requests were not about any particular kind of problems, rather there were varieties of issues, which I observed after looking at these requests. It is important to mention here that each request contained the requester name and his telephone extension and his apartment name and his employee ID and his issue. The range of requests were coming everyday and I must mention that there were so many requests coming on regular basis, which gave me an idea that working as Helpdesk person in the IT work is certainly a busy job on the daily basis.

The first request which I received on top of the list during the second week was that someone from the finance department was having issues with his PC. He submitted the following request:

“My PC is not working properly. It is having multiple issues. Please visit my desk and resolve my problem so that I continue with my work”

We were told that when there are multiple kinds of issues happening to one PC, then do visit that desk physically, because issues may not be resolved with remote connection. It is important to elaborate that when issues are minor and they can easily be resolved through remote connections, they take less time. But when issues are of multiple kinds, and even the employee is not able to explain it, then a physical visit from the IT helpdesk is a must. But an issue with a pshycal visit is that it takes more time than solving a normal request. The resource has to leave his/her department, and go to the location, where problematic PC is located.

So, I visited the desk, which made the request for problem to be solved. When I reached there, the person was on the break, so I have to wait for five minutes, until he came back from his break. However, meanwhile I logged-in to his PC, and started evaluating the issues. The first issue I noticed was that it took almost 3 to 4 minutes for PC to load windows and come to home screen window. Generally, the PCs working in this company used to log-in with one minute time. So, there was certainly a software problem, like windows was getting heavier, and that is why it was starting so slowly. When I checked the cache memory and temporary files, there were plenty of data in this regard, which always slows down the performance of a PC.

 In addition to that the person told me about other issues of the PC. He told that his Microsoft Office was not opening and showing some kind of error, so he was unable to use Microsoft Excel for his financial tasks. When I checked this issue, I came to know that his Microsoft Office was not registered, and free trial has expired. I had the key and credentials to register Microsoft Office, so I registered Microsoft Office in his PC, and now it was working fine. I cleared all the cache memory and all kind of temporary files, which improved the overall speed of the PC.

Moreover, he told that when tries to open one of his financial software, it asks for some kind of installation. When I checked the issue, I came to know that program required to install JavaScript on his PC. So, I installed JavaScript on his PC, and program started working. He also told that his PC takes time in loading tasks, so I checked its virtual memory, and I identified that its RAM is on the lower side. Tomorrow, we will add more RAM memory to your PC. There were few other little noticeable issues, which I resolved and went back to my helpdesk.

The other routine request that I noticed in the request log was people having problem in logging-in their PCs, or access to different programs of the company. In some cases, the user was entering wrong username or password, and that is why they were not able to log-in. In some cases, there was authentication problem, which means that username and passwords were generated for PCs, but those PCs were not authenticated in our system to log-in. So, I included so many PCs in the authenticated list so that employees can access their PCs and different software programs of the company.

The next day I also ensured that RAM of above mentioned PC was upgraded, which was having slowing down issues. One day in the 2^nd week was dedicated to training session regarding ethical and other policies of the company. The participants were provided information that how they can manage their conduct in the company, how to react to any situation, and how to report any ethical or other issues etc. This training session was very informative to learn about so many things regarding better conduct and code of ethics. Overall, the second week was very busy, and it had so many activities to enhance my knowledge, skills as well as capabilities as a Help Desk Resource. It was a great week with so many fruitful experiences.

Week 3 in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

When I entered into third week of my work in this company, I was feeling more confident as well as comfortable as compared to the first week, where I was bit nervous to being with things. It became possible because the overall environment of the company was very good. Generally, everyone on the work floor was very friendly. The cooperative nature of this workplace was most attractive things to me that company was dedicated in promoting a culture of cooperation and collaboration amongst employees, where everyone was always ready to help each other. But help desk was still receiving regular requests and complaints regarding various kinds of IT issues.

I must mention here that I was not the only one to help in resolving those issues; rather help desk had 8 other resources to do so. All of them were given certain instructions like when request is received, it should be acknowledge and it should go into pending status, and once issue is resolved on our side, then request should be closed in the portal so that requests log can be cleared. In addition to that each IT help desk resources was handling at least four to five IT requests on daily basis.

If requests will not be closed from the portal, then number of request will be getting more, and help desk will not know that which ones are new and which ones are done. So, I also followed this pattern every week once I got its training. I closed requests status once I resolved them accordingly. There was also a note section to add any note to the request that why it is closed, or still pending, or why it went into the high alert section.

The requests with complex problems were sent to the high alert section. If any request, which was not properly resolved or same issue, is coming several times, then such requests are referred to high alert section, which means that such requests are to be resolved on high priority. I noticed so many high alert requests in the request portal, and I resolved two of them during the third week.

One request that I noticed in the high alert section was stated as:

“I have been sending so many requests to help desk to resolve my issue. This is my fourth request for the same issue. I have already told that my computer is constantly showing graphics error, and it asks me to add any graphics controller or something like that. Your help desk representatives have visited my PC so many times, but after some time, I again start facing the same issue. This error pop up every now and then, screen gets black once, and then it gets back to normal. Please resolve my issue on high priority”

This request was showing that employee was getting annoyed with the issue, and it certainly was creating problems for him to work properly. So, I decided to visit his desk to resolve his issue, and I took some advanced feature graphics cards with me. When I investigated his issue, I came to know that graphics card on his PC was outdated for software programs used by him. He was using high level graphic designing software programs, which needs extra support in the PC to run properly. I opened his PC, and removed older graphics card, and attached new and latest Nvidia Graphics Card. Once graphic card was added in the hardware, now it was time to install its relevant drivers so that it can work properly. So, I installed latest Nvidia drivers on his PC, and asked him to check his graphic designing software to see if everything goes fine. Thankfully, his issue was resolved, and his request did not came again reporting any issue during the third week

I also used to do various other activities during the third week. I would like to mention here that some of the requests contained that someone needed a new PC so I provided him with a new one. It means that if any employee or resource is hired, who will do his/her job on computer; it was our responsibility to provide a PC with relevant requirements. So, I remember that I provided two new PCs to two new resources during this week. I did complete installation of windows, drivers and software on these two PCs, which really enhanced my knowledge to set up new PCs.

I also completed networking for those PCs and connected them to the network of company, where all PCs are connected with a main server, and all of them can be operated and monitored remotely from our help desk.  If someone retired from their job, we take his old PC and keep his hard desk just in case. We also removed her username and password from the system, and left PC to be allocated to any new resources, if needed. Also, if someone needed a new username or wanted to renew his password due to any issue, we did that accordingly.

Here are some learning outcomes from week 3

·         Learned to install new PCs with complete installation and configuration on PC

·         Learned to handle multiple requests in short period of time

·         Learned to identify issues, and suggesting their solutions accordingly so that issues can be resolved as early as possible

·         Leaned to manage time effectively

Week 4 in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

The fourth week started with new excitement and passion, as I was learning new things and enhancing my skills and capabilities as a resource in the IT help desk. I started to learn new things during this week. The company has installed data entry program named SAP. It was responsibility of the IT team members to put relevant data into SAP as per given guidelines so that any mistakes can be avoided. The entering of data into SAP was a technical kind of task, so relevant departments used to provide papers with data to be entered into SAP. Each week, two IT team members were given the duty to handle this task. I worked on this task during fourth week. Apparently, this task looked easy, but it was not that simple at all. The data was technical, and there were so many technical points to keep in mind while

The SAP data entry work was not the only thing I learned during this week, because I worked two days on this SAP task. The other three days, I worked on other tasks and requests. I learnt more about networking that how networking is done on different PCs, and how they are connected to a server. how to copy someone’s information from his PC through the network, and how to get to the command line of the server by using a program called Putty and by this program I can accessed the server. This task was so interesting to learn and I was able to handle it quite efficiently.

I installed and configured networking for number of PCs during this week, and connected them with the server. These kinds of tasks were done due to various reasons. For instance, one of the departments moved from one part of the building to other part of the building. So, PCs installed in their previous location were to be removed, and they were installed at new location. The PCs were given new IDs with new networking configuration to connect them with server of the company.

Some of the requests were not a hardware problem so no need to go to fix them by a physical visit, rather these software problems can be solved by a Tool called “Remote”, by this tool I can access the requester PC (his desktop) by taking the PC name because every PC or Laptop in the company has a name and this name is joined to the server domain, for example IT-1458 this is an example for a computer name, so next I take this name in enter this name to the Remote Tool and I press connect button after that his desktop displays, after that I go to the request and read what is his issue and I try to fix the software problem. It is important to keep in mind that all PCs in this company were connected with a server, which has access to all of these PCs. So, server had the capability to make any changes in destination PC through remote software, which allows displaying desktop of the destination PC on the screen of server PC.

This tool was very effective because there were plenty of minor level requests, which were related to software, login issues etc, and all of them were easily resolved through remote location. It really saved time and resources of the company. I also noticed that remote service request process was more convenient as well. One of the IT team members easily logged-in to other PCs without going anywhere, and some of the issues were resolved in even five minutes, whereas a physical visit for every such request might have taken at least half an hour. But there were complex software issues, which required physical visits as well, so I visited various PCs during this week to identify and resolve the relevant issues faced by employees.

Week 5 in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

This week was another informative and useful week for me in so many ways. I must admit that IT help desk is a diverse job, because you are able to learn so many things during this work. New issues keep coming every day, and new solutions are identified accordingly. The users were facing new issues. For instance, sometimes the user had a limited access, like he could not add and read and write on a shared file, this kind of access cannot be validated, until we give it by using a program called Active Directory. Active Directory (AD) is a Microsoft product that consists of several services that run on Windows Server to manage permissions and access to networked resources. Active Directory stores data as objects. An object is a single element, such as a user, group, application or device, such as a printer.

In the IT we use Active Directory to make a groups of users, each group have different type of access, for example group A have write and read access and group B have add and delete as well as sharing file. It was done because all group of people were not required all kind of access due to their job requirements. There were even employees, who were not given any internet access, because their tasks were not related to internet at all.

These employees were connected to a local network, and if they needed any help, they could get it through the local network. Some of the group had nothing to do with certain software programs, and some software programs are used for very sensitive data. So, each of the software is accessed by only those employees, who were relevant to that job because it is important to keep company’s data safe and secure, otherwise sensitive information can get leaked to irrelevant persons.

One more important task that I started doing in this week was installation and registration of Antivirus Software. There is variety of antivirus software available in the market, but ALSALAM Company decided to use Avast Antivirus program. This online antivirus program requires subscription fee for business PCs, so company had already purchased that subscription.  Avast Antivirus was installed on each and every PC of this company, and when new PCs were installed, or when they were upgraded, the Avast was installed and registered on them. It was critical to ensure that Avast is installed in every PC, because it is an important tool to keep company’s data and information safe from outside hackers and cyber criminals.

There is so much sensitive information of the company, which is available on its server and other PCs, and if someone could access that information; it can come up with severe consequences for the company. I also saw requests where users were getting error to update their Antivirus to latest version, but they had no access to do so. So, I updated the latest version of Avast Antivirus on those PCs so that they can enjoy latest services and enhanced protection shield provided by Avast Antivirus. Avast Antivirus also had free version, but we made sure that every PC has registered with an official version for better protection. Moreover, the week 5 was good in developing better communication with all departments because I had enough knowledge and experience to do so.

Learning outcomes of week 5 are mentioned below:

·         Learned to use different IT programs such as Putty and Active Directory from Microsoft

·         Learned to install and update Antivirus on PCs

·         Learned to tackle variety of IT requests

Week 6 in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

I did some tasks in the coming weeks because I did observe and identify many of the problems in office. Most of the problems and issue were computer hardware based which were identified by me and other staff members in the work place. The first problem I did identified that was the deficiency in the computer processing speed.

Computer is working slowly in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

Low Ram of computers in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

One day I came to office and turned on all of the computers as like I do before. Staff member starting coming in the office and start working the computer and on the tools but after few minutes some staff members did start to complain that their computers are working very slow today. They did consider this issue because of the some kind of software issue and they tried to resolve by starting the troubleshooting the operating system as well as fragmentation of the disks spaces but the speed was still so slow and that was hurdle to do work easily. I restart the computer and then check the speed and efficiency the computers but the speed of the computer was still is there.

Then I remembered that it can be because of the old CPU or insufficient storage. Then I opened the computer properties to see the Ram and CPU build and power where I realized that Ram of the computer is very low. Only 2 GB Ram was fixed in the computer to run heavy compilers of development software or tools. I did replace all the Rams of the computers from 2 GB to 6 GB. After changing all the Rams of computers, the speed and efficiency increased and they were useable to complete the tasks.

Hard drive issues in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

Some of the computers in the office were still working slowly even after replacing the Rams from the computers. It was very hard enough to understand that how the computers were working too slowly after replacing the Rams and it was the heavy and painful headache for me to increase the computer speed and make them efficient as well. This problem took 2 to 3 days. That issue became critical and challengeable for me. I guessed that time that it can cause the failure or corrupt the precious data of the programmers such as the written programming code for the mobile applications and the websites including the large amount of web services in different languages.

I did ask about the fragmentation from all the staff members then some of the members told about the failure of the fragmentation during the running time. Some of the users did reinstall the operating system by themselves many times without fragmenting or deleting all the disks. I did restarted affected systems or including the laptop computers to perform the fragmentation operation again to see the basic issue of the deficiency in the computers speed.

 I did started the fragmentation process first from the disk management program but I was fail to perform that test at that time then I used the bootable USB drive to fragment all the disks at the time of installation of new Windows. Finally started the fragmentation operation to all the drives at the time of the installation of operating system and successfully I did perform fragmentation and then I did reinstalled the operating system. After installation of operating system, I have loaded some additional software tools to test the hardware speed. The speed was stable that time and the computers respond to efficiently.

Computer keeps restarting in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

In running 2 computers started to fail the boot process. In simple words computers did started to restart it automatically. Now I did remember that the problem can be occurred because of the graphics card, motherboard or the network card drivers. The computer keeps restarting; I did check the computer graphics first and found that the computer graphics card was outdated in one computer so I did replace it with the new graphics card.

As I replace it, computer booted up successfully and fully functional after doing replacement. The second computer was still restarting automatically; therefore the computer was working abnormally because of the motherboard the computer. After several attempts, I did realize that the main issue was occurred because of the Ram which was not fixed properly in the port. I did fix the Ram properly and then the second computer also booted successfully. After startup few minutes computer did work without any kind of problem but after around 1 hour it was again working improper way. So I did replace the motherboard for proper work.

Week 7 in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

Keyboard, mouse, printer or other peripherals aren’t working properly

In the starting of the week seven, staff member started facing the issues on hardware level for the printing the documents to make the reports or make the other kind of important documents. After the checkup of the computer printers, I realized that data ports of the printers were damaged because of the plug-in or plug out the data wired into it. So I had to replace all the ports of the printer because if I purchase new printer then it were become more expensive for just printing the pages. Some keyboards and mouse were not working properly because of heavy use of mouse and keyboard. Thus I did provide new keyboards and mouse to staff member who are facing the difficulties to use them.

Internet speed was slow in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

In the running week, one employee did face slow internet on in the one computer and he was faced difficulty to perform or complete his tasks timely. He tried to make it faster by clearing Ram as well as reinstalling the internet driver including LAN driver and the Wi-Fi driver but still he did face the same issue. He notified me to resolve this issue then I did restart the internet device and after that I dealt with the internet port of the computer. Internet slot was not working well which were needed to be troubled shoot.

The LAN slot where the internet LAN can be inserted, that was carbon topped which was creating problems in the connectivity. It looked easy work but I realized after starting this task that it is critical to clean up the LAN port or the slot. That task was critical for me because I had to clean it up without damaging the sensitive wires in the port. I did clean it up by using petrol and spirit just because of its evaporating characteristics. The spirit did remove the carbon layer in the slot. I did reinsert the LAN cable and the internet did start work properly.

App command not working

I did resolve some issues on the hardware level when more than one application started working improperly and those problems were identified when the commands of the applications were not working. For example, the some applications were not being opened by clicking on the application’s icons. That was also the CPU problem because it was outdated.

Week 8 in Alsalam Aerospace Industries Company

One computer was failing to give display on the screen the computer. It might be a software issue so I had to troubled shoot the operating system to diagnose the specific issue for displaying. I did diagnose the specific problem after trouble shooting.  The major issue was of the display cable of the LCD. The shoe of the display cable having small needles in the shoe, were damaged at the time of plug into the port because a staff member did take a try to plug in to the port in the wrong way. One more problem was that cause in the display failure and that was observed when I unplugged display wire. The small sensitive needle of the display cable was broken in the port so that’s why it was not giving display. I did remove the needle from the dedicated slot and plugin to another display cable to the port that did give the display.

Some of users of the computers notified me that some computer were working in the improper way. The system works properly at the starting or the initial minutes but after passage of some minutes, the computer freeze problems occurred specially whenever I tried to load or start any kind of application. The problem was not critical or complex because many times those kind of issues occurred. The understood thing is that the proposed problem’s occurrence possibility is the lack of size the Ram. When the size of the Ram is too low after loading the programs and has no more space to load any other program then the CPU of the computer considers hard drive as a Ram and use it for loading the more programs. The computer could be slows down that time and sometimes it can cause for the deadlocks. So that’s why the computer goes in the freeze mode.

Week 9

Networking Issue

During this week in the working hours, a big problem occurred in the office networking system. The workability cut of and the workers were not able to communicate in the sense of transferring and reading the particular data related their tasks. The small data can be transferred to the other computers by using the USB drives but company will not allow to transfer the particular any kind of data because company consider its data confidential which is saved  in the main computer of the office. The main wire of the computer was damages and need to be replaced so I had replaced it by taking office permission. After implanting new cable, the all workers did start the work properly on their given tasks.