Friday, September 21, 2012

In my humble Engineering/Construction opinion.

Just for share: In my humble Engineering/Construction opinion.

This morning I happened to pass by a construction site a few kilometers away from my home. What I saw immediately aroused my curiosity; and I stopped by to have a look and chatted with the workers.

They were doing trenching works for pipe laying (30 centimeters in diameter iron cast pipe) for Pertamina ('State Oil and Natural Gas Mining Company') is an Indonesian government-owned). It is a major pipe laying project.

To make short the story: All the works were done manually with outdated tools. These workers are all typical village farmers-turned construction workers; and with very little technical know-how. They work on their own with very little or no supervision at all.





 Like everywhere else here especially in the outskirt of the city (East Java) almost everything are done using their ‘hands’; heavy machinery and appropriate tools for construction are a very rare sight. JCB or John Deer??? 


Ever since I set foot here 8 years ago I haven’t seen any of these around the construction sites (trenching/drainage); and cement mixing are all done manually. 


P.S. In stark contrast with Malaysia; you may not see even a single ‘Chinese’ odd job or skilled worker in any of the construction sites in Indonesia. I am not joking :)))

3 comments:

  1. hi,Bapak Patrickjb. i happened to be in one of the village - nimbang, yes,the villagers are very innovative n most of their work area done manually. For instance, i think they are ready for the raining season in the coming weeks, they done up a concrete drain (trench/ drainage) as mentioned by u. They are using long bamboo instead of kayu/wood as support to build houses.

    Btw,how are u doing? i'm Garlic -my email is cnling@ymail.com. do drop me a note, maybe we can meet up. i just reach lcct on 3/10. n might be at Gubeng, Surabaya on 1/11. ok bye, no news from the staronline members....have good days.

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  2. It's a shame that some of the poorer governments in the world don't have the foresight to see that skimping on materials now ultimately means higher costs in the long run. Our company uses German suppliers which might be a little more expensive initially, but at the end of the day they last longer and ultimately save you money on repair costs.

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