CS TEN: From Engineer to Inventor
Chee Shung Ten is a mechanical engineer from
MMU University in Malacca, Malaysia who
recently attended the CSWIP 3.4U Underwater
Inspection Controller course.
Following his graduation, CS joined the Jurong
shipyard in Singapore as a mechanical design
engineer. His duties included working with
vessels and piping at the shipyard, including
checking out machinery and pipe specifications,
selecting the correct size of pump, monitoring
the flow and so forth.
CS gained a great deal of marine engineering
knowledge but, after two years of working
at the shipyard, he began to feel that he
was no longer stimulated by his day-to-day
work. It was then that he began to seek
a new challenge, finding an opportunity
at offshore engineering company, Proceanic
Engineering Services Pte Ltd.
Moving to his new company, CS was still involved
with design engineering but the type of
projects he worked on were different from
those at his old job. His first project
saw him work on FSE pipe inspection, which
required him to travel offshore and take
a hands-on approach to his role. Going out
to the vessels and collecting data from
NDT techniques allowed CS to analyse and
estimate the life of pipelines and vessels.
However, having worked on a variety of projects
delivering designs and calculations, things
changed when the oil and gas industry was
hit by a drop in the price of oil. As a
result, Proceanic started facing challenges
and so the management decided to diversify
their range of services by introducing small
ROV inspection. This move had a huge impact
on CS’s job as the ROV inspection
was a totally new field for him and provided
a shift from engineering to inspection.
CS started picking up new techniques and
knowledge of working with ROV equipment
from his supervisor. However, as the range
of services that Proceanic delivered expanded,
he felt the need to train for interpretation
of the data collected by the ROVs. It was
then that he decided to attend TWI’s
3.4U course.
CS noted how the Underwater Inspection Controller
training was beneficial to his career as
he was able to gain in-depth knowledge of
some of the topics that he previously only
had a basic understanding of. This not only
helped CS perform better at his job, but
will also provide benefits to his employer
as he will be able to deliver better results
to his customers and thereby gain their
respect and trust.
So far, CS has already worked with companies
such as Exxon Malaysia and Shell. In the
beginning he had to learn how to operate
and fix the ROV equipment but, as time went
by and he mastered the equipment, CS has
managed to design a new ROV with the same
set of capabilities but at a much lower
price, which can save hundreds of thousands
of dollars for his employer.
Learn more about
TWI’s Underwater Inspection training
courses