3 Traits That Enabled Me To Save Millions of Dollars For My Organisation!

In today’s fast changing and competitive environment, just depending on academic qualification is no longer sufficient to ensure career progression and success. Curriculum in schools are always being reviewed and evolve annually, like wise for in demand skills in the job market. It is increasingly difficult to stay relevant and future ready.

In my opinion, there are some traits that not only help you to create and add value to your employers, they can also enable you to stay relevant and up-to-date with the current dynamic economy landscape. Let me leverage on a personal work experience to highlight what these 3 important traits are.

Problem Statement

Singapore is a highly urbanised city state located in the tropics. What was once a natural and permeable landscape is now replaced with developments such as buildings, roads and pavements that restrict rainwater percolation into the ground. Coupled with frequent tropical storms, high stormwater runoff and rainwater infiltration into our sewer systems are concerns that need to be handled strategically and systematically. This is because used water consumption can be extrapolated from population models and sewer systems can be built to cater for such volumes. Whereas unpredictable surges caused by stormwater infiltration into the sewer systems are much harder to predict and could potentially exceed the sewer capacity.

One of the strategies to handle surges of rainwater infiltration into our sewers system is to have a wet weather facility located in our water reclamation plants. As the name suggests, the wet weather facility is operated during wet weather events, to accommodate and treat the increase in incoming used water at the downstream of our sewer network. Since the facility relies on a combination of chemical and physical treatment processes, frequent operation can lead to high chemical usage and operating costs.

Be Curious

I was first introduced to the wet weather facility when I got posted into the water reclamation plants department as a shift operations engineer. Although my main role was to operate the conventional treatment process utilising biological activated sludge and membrane bioreactor, I was intrigued by the wet weather facility which was the first of its kind, only recently commissioned in Singapore. Soon, I was asking the senior engineers who were in charge of the facility about its operating processes, design reports and other related materials to learn more about the facility. When I found out that the principle behind the chemical treatment processes is similar to my Master’s dissertation topic, I got even more excited! After all, it is a subject that I was interested in and had poured tons of effort into its research and experiments back in Cranfield University, United Kingdom.

Since the facility was recently commissioned, majority of the facility’s operations were as per the consultant’s recommendation. I began questioning the assumptions and lab tests results from the commissioning reports with my principal engineer, in the attempt to better understand the thought processes and evaluations done by the consultant. This helped me identify potential areas in the treatment process that could potentially be fine-tuned for greater treatment efficiencies.

Take The Initiative

When I first brought up the idea that there is potential to improve the treatment efficiencies of the wet weather facility, it was met with doubt and resistance. Doubt because what are the odds a new engineer knows more than a team of experienced consultants who does detailed studies and tests day in and day out. Resistance as I was encroaching into other engineers’ job scope instead of focusing on my own.

To navigate around these obstacles, I decided to build a case for my proposal. First, I shared my Master’s dissertation with my management to assure them that I was familiar with the treatment principles deployed at the facility. Next, I made sure that I wasn’t compromising on my own work responsibilities. During my night shifts, there were periods of rest rotated between the team members. I made used of my personal rest periods to conduct my own experiments in the lab. Thirdly, I engaged the advice of my colleagues in charge of the wet weather facility, keeping them updated on the progress and results of my lab experiments. Collating the lab results, I later reached out to my management with convincing evidence that there is potential to fine-tune the facility’s treatment processes.

Be Flexible, Be Adaptable

Building a case for my proposal got me a foot in the door, as my management finally recognised the potential and agreed to allow trials to be conducted at the facility itself. However, I later met with another set back when the management had a new direction to expedite other tests at the facility, deprioritising my trials even though I had promising lab results as supporting evidence.

This was in the early 2021, when effects of disruptions in the supply chain brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic began to take its toll across the globe. Concerns over depleting chemical supplies and delayed supply deliveries were growing. Being an opportunist, I leveraged on the issues in the macro environment and “rebranded” my proposal – with a successful trial at the wet weather facility, chemical consumption can be reduced by at least 20%, instead of the potential to increase treatment efficiencies by about 30%.

With my ‘rebranded’ proposal, I was able to push through with the actual trials at the facility shortly, and achieved similar results obtained from my lab tests. Based on the chemical consumption of 2021, it was estimated that my new operating settings can achieve up to six figure savings in chemical costs annually, while addressing the concerns regarding supply chain constraints. In addition, the treated effluent quality improved by about 30% too! Looking back, it is satisfying to know that my trials turned out to be a win-win situation for my organisation.

Concluding

As a disclaimer, I am not suggesting that other traits/characteristics are inferior than the three that I have mentioned. Rather, these are personal traits that have helped me create value and excel not only at work but also across many other aspects in my life.

Be hungry for new knowledge and experiences, question assumptions instead of taking things at face value. Opportunities are lurking and awaiting to be found. Be proactive and take swift action when an opportunity presents itself. We are in a time where relevant experiences triumph over the length of employment. And it takes effort to prove that what you have under your belt is relevant and applicable. Finally, circumstances can change over night and we must not be stunned by them. Be flexible and fast on your feet. Even threats can be exploited and turned into opportunities with a little creativity.

With that, I hope this post has inspired you to be a little more curious, flexible and always be taking the initiative!