CS TEN: From Engineer to Inventor

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