Paul Lik Ing Chiew

M.Sc., B.Eng.(Hons)

Lecturer | Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

Contact Details

Telephone: +60 85 443939

Location: SK3

Paul Lik Ing Chiew received his B.Sc. (Hons) from University of Manchester, UK and his MSc. from Heriot Watt University, UK . He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Science, Curtin University, Miri, Sarawak.

Academic History

  • MSc. in Digital Technique, Heriot Watt University, UK. Thesis: “Computer clock driven Phase locked loop for precision control of spinning speed of hard-disk drive“
  • BSc. (Hons) in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester, UK.

Professional Career History

  • 1981 – 1985 Assistant Controller Telecoms (Dept of Telecoms, Malaysia)
    – Radio licensing + Radio Operations & Maintenance for Sarawak Region.
    – Developed software for calculating & predicting radio signal strength for VHF/UHF mobile or TV broadcasting coverage.
    – Improvement to Lightning protection for a lightning prone mountain-top TV broadcast station (with poor soil conductivity) in Kuching (i.e. the tallest TV broadcast station in Sarawak).
    – Team lead for a cross country (ie from Limbang to Sematan) annual microwave trunk link re-alignment calibration maintenance schedule.
  • 1986 Area Manager in Sri Aman division Syarikat Telekom Malaysia (Post Privatisation of Telecoms Utilities in Malaysia)
    – Managing a rural telecom utilities company with over 80 employees & 20 small remote townships including marketing & sales, operations and maintenance of (rather old) telephone switches and lightning prone radio and TV broadcast stations all over the division/province.
    – Tuning of a live high power (10KW) band pass filter of a TV broadcast transmitter which was overheating due to filter frequency drift and the process had never been done before (as far as I know) using spectrum analysor .
  • 1987- 1988 Project Coordinator (Sarawak Region) for Customer Automated Service System (CASS).
    – Developed software for capturing raw data from telephone line & exchange plants across Sarawak.
  • 1988-1990 Head of Secretariat Unit (Sarawak Region)
    – Executive secretary to the regional General Manager Datuk Christopher Sim.
    – Compiling regional business plan and reporting.
  • 1991 – 1994 Network Control Engineer (Sarawak Shell)
    – Establishing, Managing, configuring and controlling the newly established enterprise ethernet LAN and WAN network of Sarawak and Sabah Shell including connectivity to KL Hqs.
    – Migrating routing protocol of the live enterprise network from RIP (1st generation) to OSPF (2nd generaation).
    – Setting up the first integrated call centre for IT services in Sarawak/Sabah Shell.
  • 1995 – 1996 Head Network Management & Operation (Sarawak/Sabah Shell)
    – Introducing an in-house secure remote dial-up system in conjunction with an existing 2 factors authentication system.
  • 1996- 1997 Project Manager for the enterprise desktop standardisation project for Sarawak/Sabah Shell.
    Project dimensions:
    Economics: Economic case for change from nonstandardised desktop hardware/software to standardised and locked down version using enterprise Windows OS (ie from Windows 97 to Windows NT) and also a review of PC hardware ownership model. Feasibility study on a new PC hardware ownership model using operating lease instead of traditional buy, own, operate and dispose model.Case for choosing operating lease due to (a) avoid once off capex outlay (a big issue in the midst of Asian financial crises) (b) No need to worry about end of life disposal costs.
    Finance: Hardware lease (plus on-site support over 4years) contract costs ca RM29million. Software costs ca RM2.5million. Excluding Manpower costs for software development. Budget was very tight due to oil price crash during the ensuing Asian financial crises severely affecting the Oil & gas industry.
    Project risks: (i) Budget overrun risk was very high due to artificially compressed budget with a strict instruction for delivering costs savings. It was even riskier than initially thought because the original software purchase option was blocked by political/legal considerations. Actual overall budget would have been doubled especially for the development, roll out and licensing of new software. This was discussed with management right at the start but was sternly rebuffed. Budget compression as in staff number compression (about 1 in 3 staff left the company) was a given in the industry’s business climate of the day. (ii) Software compatibility risks for Mission critical enterprise systems during roll out. (resulting in a few emergencies despite all the pre-testing and validations) (iii) Project timeline risks – from “Go” to “close out” of about 18 months (thus time compressed in order to deliver the new IT platform in time for a re-structured new
    company emerging from enterprise-wide right sizing and re-organisation).(iv) New OS risks. Windows NT was too new and unproven. Sarawak/Sabah Shell was the first enterprise to adopt the new OS in Malaysia and in Shell group globally. Needless to say, many urgent fire fightings! (v) New PC hardware manufacturer risks. From non traditional manufacturer to achieve cost saving. Software migration/development: Ca 200 enterprise software & systems including about 10-12 mission critical systems. Total manhours spent on testing and development of new software was difficult to quantify but roughly 10,000 man-hours involving IT staff and end users.
    Hardware: Ca 2800 PC in 3 versions plus x no of backend servers. Standard desktop, Power desktop and laptop majority coming with standard 17 in monitor and about 20% with 21 in monitor.
    Commercial: Hardware supply (by operating lease) and roll out and subsequent support services was sourced by way of prequalification and closed tender. Pre-qualification included
    site visit to vendors’ premises and requiring proposed support staff to sit for qualifying competency tests. Geographical coverage: Miri, Bintulu, KK, Labuan, KL offices and ca 20 offshore oil production platforms and drilling rigs spread off the waters of Sabah and Sarawak.
    Manpower: 5 permanent project staff including self. But number rose during software testing to 10 excluding end users. Manpower during roll out peaked at about 15.
    – Artificially under-staffed due to cost compression. The consequence/victim of new management mantra of “doing more with less”.
    Result: Over come various show stoppers during the course of 18 months including real imminent risks of project abandonment 9 months into the project due to an unknown legal clause in the Petroleum Development Act (Law of Malaysia) that prohibit the purchase of IT software (at a fraction of the cost and we are talking about difference in excess of RM5 mln and there was no way we could get that extra budget) for Oil & Gas upstream business from outside of Malaysia. Felt real lonely when only help anyone can offer was some muted encouragement.
    – Rated outstanding performer for 1997 along with some team members for achieving the ultimate in impossibilities and in the spirit of the newly re-structured company.
  • 1998 – 2000 Business Continuity Planner/Facilitator
    – Preparation for business contingency plan especially int the light of business disruption by an explosion at the Shell Bintulu SMDS plant in 1997. And also prepare for contingency for the Year 2000 bug.
    – Planned and Conducted simulated drills to test the contingency plan and organisation.
  • 2001- 2005 IT Strategist
    – Facilitator for a one day IT management workshop involving the entire IT management teams from Sarawak/Sabah Shell and Brunei Shell for the purpose of seeking areas for collaboration between the IT organisations of the 2 Shell Operating Companies. The  workshop followed the Shell proprietary methodology called Opportunity Realisation Process (ORP).
    – IT global infrastucture Project manager for the Real Time Operating Centre (RTOC).
    Project dimensions:
    Objective: To establish a state-of-the-art centre of expertise in each time zone in Shell upstream to support drilling rigs in real time by pooling technologies and the best of experts while supporting work-life balance.
    Finance: IT Hardware and software costs of ca RM18mln. Overall Project costs including non IT scope was > than RM40mln.
    Geographical Coverage: Global role with a global team to develop the IT blueprint to be replicated in other Shell operating regions Regional role to develop and commission the 1st Real Time operating Centre (RTOC) for Asia Pacific that comply and integrate with Shell corporate IT security framework/infrastructure. The Centre covers IT infrastructure and systems in Miri and Perth together with portable IT infrastructure on drilling rigs across Asia Pacific including Malaysia, Australia, NZ, China and the Philipines. In total 10 drilling rigs can be supported at any one time.
    Project Risks:
    (I) Risks of IT Blueprint development failure even as the management pushed ahead with implementation due to strong economic case. This risk became real when several tests of the initial design failed during development using offshores drilling rigs in the US even as the implementation was underway in Asia.
    (ii) Risks of global project team disconnect. The project team was driven by global management in the US whereas the IT team was based out of Miri and Europe (UK & Netherlands). The time zone differences was a big challenge.
  • 2006 -2008 Regional IT Infrastructure Operations Managers for Asia Pacific (cover Malaysia, China, Philipines, Singapore, Australia, NZ)
    – Support IT operations in the Shell Asia Pac upstream businesses and its Singapore admin Hqs.
    – Manage the transition of staff as some of the Shell upstream IT operation was outsource to 3rd party
    – Manage relation & communication (include town-hall sessions) with staff and union in relation to the outsourcing of staff across Asia Pacific.
  • 2008 -2010 Regional IT Manager for Engineering for Asia Pacific(cover Malaysia, China, Philipines, Singapore, Australia, NZ)
    – Support IT application portfolio used by its project engineers across Asia Pacific.
    – Support roll out of major capital projects including Gumusut (deepest water project in Malaysia) in Malaysia and FLNG (biggest floating LNG project in the world) in Australia
    – Technical Authority 1 for project engineering IT in Asia Pacific.

Memberships in Professional Socities 

  • Chairman, for a charity NGO (2010 – 2012)
  •  Excomm member of Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) Miri Branch (2013- 2015)
  • Vice-Chairman II of IEM Miri (2015-2016)
  • Chairman of IEM Miri (2016 -2018)
  • Professional Interviewer for IEM for Electronic & Electrical Engineering discipline.