My day started off quite normal on 15th April – the world - wide day in science. I reached Integrated Power Systems' North Ryde office in Sydney, Australia at 8.20am, where I have working for last five years in the capacity of a Chartered Professional Engineer. I prepared a hot cup of tea and settled into my desk in the next 10 minutes or so. A red flashing light on my telephone indicated that someone was trying to reach me - well some of my colleagues in this office start as early as 7.00am. The voicemail message revealed that was our General Manager – Engineering. Upon returning the call, he had asked me to meet him in his office in the next half hour. That was something, which happens not everyday - but I was optimistic!

Over the next half hour, I looked at my e-mails. There were a couple of e-mails from my colleagues in the Switzerland office advising on the questions that I raised a couple of days ago regarding our company’s current focus on Engineering Integration. Most of it was good news and there was no reason to panic and software and e-tools were catering to our purposes well. I responded to other urgent e-mails and then it was time to meet the GM Engineering.

When I walked into his office, he got off the phone with my direct boss, and he also joined us in the next minute. Well, there was a surprise for me on the ‘World-wide Day in Science’- they wanted to tell me about my salary revision! Year 2004 was a great year for our company and we had already received a salary hike just before X’mas. The news of yet another salary revision was a morale booster, but there was no reason to overjoy, because the Taxation Office would take 47% of that increase away.

It was again time for me to focus on the ongoing project tasks. My electronic calendar reminded me off a Process Review meeting for one of our new contract involving 2 - biomass fired industrial boilers and associated power plant equipment, where I would have to chair the meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to review major process & engineering equipment included in the contract. I quickly walked over to the project engineer’s office and discussed the meeting priorities and agenda. The main agenda was to go through the Process Flow Diagrams – which describe the main plant equipment, and confirm the scope of various equipment that included in our company’s scope of supply. Our design graphics team was prompt in delivering me the required process flow diagrams as promised by 12.00pm. I got all the required electronic files copied to my laptop and prepared necessary notes to discuss in the meeting. In the next half hour, I took my lunch while going through my remaining e-mails and replied to those that required my attention.

Then it was time for me to get ready for the meeting. I took my laptop to the conference room and got it connected to the data projector and made sure that everything was working ok. Project management team and a couple of senior process engineers joined the meeting by 2.00PM. Meeting proceeded until 5.15pm, but it was a very productive meeting and we reached consensus on the scope of supply of all key equipment. Open items were noted down in the meeting minutes for further discussion with our client during a kick-off meeting. I finished off editing the meeting minutes by around 6.00PM and then it was time for me to go home.

Thinking back, I never imagined that I would be working in Sydney and engaged in designing power plants when I was in a high school in a small town in southern India. I always wanted to become an Engineer while I was a little boy, but never thought of traveling overseas. Though I came to Australia to pursue a Post Graduate MBA in International Business, it was my undergraduate engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering that got me my first job in Australia. However, I find my MBA degree very helpful in various ways in planning to executing the engineering tasks in a timely fashion.

Prethvin Seth, Chartered Professional Engineer
Integrated Power Systems, Ltd., North Ryde, NSW (Australia)