MOHAMMAD ALIF BIN ABDULLAH SANI

On 16^th April 2019, I attended a talk on “Challenges of Engineering Employement” given by Ir. Juraimi bin Masood. The talk was held at Dewan Kuliah 6 of Faculty of Electrical Engineering Universiti Teknologi Malaysia(UTM). Ir. Juraimi Masood is a Head of Project Intergration Department that responsible for the planning, construction, test and deliver of the various packages at the Tanjung Pelepas Port. He got his first education at the SK LKTP Pasir Raja Johor in 1974 before enter Sekolah Dato’ Abdul Razak, Seremban for secondary school in 1979. He started to enter the electrical engineering field in 1982 when he admitted to Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Jalan Semarak, Kuala Lumpur. After graduated from UTM, he enters the Telecom Training center and serve Telekom for about one and half year. However, in 1984, he decided to further his study when he got the offer to study at the University of Hartford when he changed his passion from telecommunication engineering to electrical power engineering. After finishing his degree in 1986, Ir. Juraimi worked for MMHE West Yard Pasir Gudang as management trainee. He was placed under ship repair division and worked there for 5 years before he started his first career as electrical power engineer at SIME Sembawang in 1992. There, he was assigned to design, construct project plan and cost, in charge in construction team, check the work quality and monitor the work safety of his subordinates. Hence, after 4 years Ir. Juraimi gained experience at SIME Sembawang, he moved to Kuala Lumpur to works with KTA Tenaga which a contractor in charge of building Kuala Lumpur Convention Center(KLCC). As a resident engineer of KTA Tenaga, his task in KLCC construction was to commission the Air conditioner plant that used to provide chill water to all the construction site. There, he developed his communication skills by dealing with clients, colleagues and contractors.  

            In 1997, Ir. Juraimi joined Tanjung Pelepas Port (PTP) where he works as the electrical engineer. Ir. Juraimi shared in a very detail on how PTP was built from a scratch as he is one of the personnel that responsible in building PTP. PTP construction was started by reclamation of the land with a soil and the platform for port was developed on the land. Hence, they started to construct the berth which involving piling and deck top-up and then they started to build container yard. After that, the cranes were brought in by a ship directly from China, Argentina, Italy and Japan. Ir. Juraimi reviews that the crane that has most technical reliability, low price and proper requirement is form China.  PTP is located at the confluence of the main eat-wing shipping lanes, offering Shipping Lines minimal deviation time of 45 minutes. PTP also in a position that sheltered bay and has no tide restrictions. Local cargo movement to major industrial estates is accessible through the second Malaysia-Singapore expressway and the north-south highway. Furthermore, PTP is also acts as sea and inter-modal linkage that connect the national rail grid passing through Peninsular Malaysia from Singapore to Southern Thailand. The total linear berths long in PTP is 5.04 km and PTP plan for development that extend the berth for 6 km more.

            Working as general manager at PTP, Ir. Juraimi held a great responsibility bring PTP forward to fulfill the stakeholder expectations. He proposed a lot of management development to the company, determine end-user requirement, engage communities and authorities, meeting with consultants and supervise contractors. His career goal at PTP is to serve his client within the time range, with high quality and the most important yet crucial things that concern him the most is the safety at the workspace. In PTP, electrical department play a very important role both in development and operation of the port even though electrical engineering activities only involving 10 to 15 percent of the whole port operation. 132 KV main intake station Gas Insulated Switchgear(GIS) was mounted as an interface between the port and national grid. Ir. Juraimi hold the full responsible to the substation as he is the only personnel that hold license to operate 132 kV substation in PTP. In his speech, he describes about how to manage such a bulky switchgear where it need to handle remotely from control room during switching activities due to safety reason. Ir. Juraimi stated that as an electrical engineer, he or she must be able to read single line diagram as well as structure drawing even though it is the civil engineering part. In every jobs, especially if involving with design, it need to be supervised by a competent engineer and any activities of 33 kV and above, it need to hire supervising engineer.

            In the speech Ir. Juraimi once said that an engineer must able to come up with idea that can help increase company revenue he shared one of his idea that he implemented at the PTP in the talk. At PTP he designs a power system supply to 150 units rubber tyred gantry crane that involving 180 container block, 2 nos distribution stations and 30 nos RMU stations. The RM 230 million project however gives benefits to the company as PTP experience 30 % saving from the old system and the payback period is only 5 years. Ir. Juraimi shared his experience as a general manager on how to handle fresh graduated engineer and gave some tips on how to perform well in a work surrounding as a newcomer. He explained that in work-life, we need to be very flexible in communicate with subordinates or colleagues depends on their behavior whether delegating, supporting, coaching and directing. Every kind of behavior need to be approach with different types of order in order to make them work. In addition, every engineer need to apply ethic and system of moral principles in their work life as a professional engineer. He stated that ethic is the field examines and sets the obligations by engineers to society, clients and profession.

            In conclusion it is not easy to be good engineer, but I will try my best to perform excellent work ethics that I have learned from UTM. I need to be ready mentally and physically in order to live a life as an engineer as there are many challenges that I have to face. Furthermore, starting from now I should brave myself to talk and deliver my ideas. Otherwise, even though my ideas were relevant and brilliant, shy or no intend to spit it out will make me left behind from the others.