Sunday, February 14, 2016

my working world - gebeng

i am off to gebeng on september 2001.

this time i became  as assistance to senior project manager, a graduate from korea. this project contract are RM 118 million. it  started from road to jabor off main road from kuantan to kemaman. scope of work include upgrade part of road to jabor near border with one roundbout bridge  above exit of LPT one highway to sg ular joint back main road to kemaman. Roundbout bridge also connect to housing scheme called Aspa Cottege. the alignment pass through high hill which have hard materials. there are also one bridge above rive and another bridge above road for future. that bridge until now not yet connected to anywhere. the another overhead bridge are above railway track from  kerteh to pelabuhan kuantan. this railway also stop service few years ago. at the end joint back to main road, there was another interchange.
earthworks and ground treatment and roundbout bridge are the most challenging. a lot of cutting earth materials had to be done and filing haulage are not balance. we had many dispute with the earthworks contractor to resolve rate transport filling materials. hard materials also exist. another dispute with subcontractor and client also as that kind of materials at that time not specified in the contract. sub contractor argue that the cannot excavate with normal excavator. we had to demonstrate many times to client to prove this. at one time we had to mobilize excavator with blade and machine called dozer with specified horse power to site. to blast the materials, client not agree as rock rate was very high and quantity allocate in contract was very small.
i again had another bad experiance on embankment failure. this time even frust because i had predict it earlier due to ground condition and also no control of filling in the design. after failed to convince consultant to review and introduce alternate day filling condition, i officially instruct my earthwork contractor to carry out earthfilling in alternay day sequence but the was big huha with them and i got screw from my bos as i was trying to delay the work. my contractor succeed to cancel my instruction but we suffer two month later as 800 meter embankment fail. this time everybody quiet. luckly my boss already left site back to HQ. if not we might have big quarrell. the designer that come to visit site but nothing he can say only blame contractor that carry out earthfill  aggressively. wasting time listened to all of them. we also try to claim insurance. the adjustor that came to site also blame designer. blame game started. sub contractor not willing to repair until we agree the cost. another tricky situation . later only repair start after we resolve with them.
another freelance bos coming to assist after that. and later i had to carry on and complete the work.

bridgework at that site also extensive. one roundbout bridge that i mentioned earlier, one single spang bridge 20 span, one cross river and railway track, ane overhead and last one crossing mail road kuantan to kemaman. roundbout bridge was cast in-site deck. we try to change to precast but not approved. to start piling we need to do earth cutting. then nobody understand how to image and start expect me and my surveyor. later after we start only my engineer, supervisor and earthwork contractor understand.
as bridge across railway, i need to go to kerteh to meet the train team and discuss on how to peroceed the work. we also dont have any direct acess. we had to detour to carry out the work. as for launching we use steel trust with railtrack. construction of diaphram dan deck also had to be  carefull due to life train underneath. i got few call and complaint from train operator.

another difficult work are construction slab above gas pipe. the are 13 nos of various pipe underneath the road. the owner dont want to give as builts drawing. they want us to fisically search and found all the pipes and get the actual coordinates. i dont blame them because sometimes pipe undergroud might moves and as built data upon completion last time might be not relevant. but sometime they also dont have the data or not confident to give. dealing with them another big headege. same as i experiance before in kerteh. we need to get our client help to start. later we manage to resolve and detect all pipes. piling had to be jack-in and construction of slab still under their close supervision.

finally all completed and project handover to client.

my next destination supposed to be at besut for airport expansion work but i suspect politics in company change that and they decide to throw me to india.  

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