Warranty Works

Since late January, I've been working on warranty claims for a 1500MW power station 250km southwest of Abu Dhabi. It was quite tough initially since I've no idea of the project (I was never involved in this one) and I have to sort of tie up the loose ends. I had something like a 2-day handover session with my predecessor and I was thereafter pretty much left to my own designs here. Of course, my predecessor who is the warranty manager still supervises the project but he's too busy with his new assignment somewhere in Dubai. So I'm left alone in the plant (there are no the warranty engineers here now) with 2 fitters. It was quite challenging since I have to handle warranty claims not only from electrical systems but mechanical and C&I too. Naturally, I tackled all those that are electrical first (since I'm familiar with it). But I cannot escape from the rest. So gradually, I begin to pick up on what is left behind and work on it. I've to put aside my volts and amps and start talking about balluff, transmitters, valves, bar and degC. Not my forte but then I get to learn new things that I never had the opportunity to earlier.

Actually warranty works are much easier than O&M works. I act more like a middle man (sandwiched between the client and EPC contractor), trying to mediate a solution out of every problem reported. In a way, it was good because now I have to exercise more on my right side of brain - which I admit was underutilized for far too long. Not too deep into technical issues but more on how to communicate and handle the stakeholders. I've learnt to become more persistent - you have to if you are going to get any response or result out of all the issues. This can make you a pain in the ass but hey... I have a job to do here!

So after more than a month on-site, I've sort of settled down on the job. The client engineers are quite helpful and friendly and this is very important because on many cases, I depend on them for a solution. A good rapport with them makes things smoother. When I first came, there were 132 open claims. I've since brought it down to 103. In fact only 61 are active claims while the rest are going to be resolved pretty soon. In fact, I think I have only 1 or 2 big issues to handle. Thereafter, I would have outlived my usefulness here... hehehehe.... Or rather, the rest aren't much of a big effort. So I hope that I'll be able to close more claims as time goes and hopefully I'll be back to Malaysia in no time.