with Chamil Duminda
A Sri Lankan working in a Chinese enterprises for 16 years would have many interesting things to share. Chamil Duminda Mahagamage, 41, Chief Design Engineer of CGC Lanka, shares his experience of working at China Geo-Engineering Corporation.
As a Chartered Engineer specialized in Civil and Structural Engineering, Duminda graduated from the University of Peradeniya in 2006 with Second Class Honors (Upper Division) and obtained charter qualification in 2011
I started my career in CGC Lanka in June 2007 as a Design Engineer with just one year of experience. As of now, this is my 16th year at CGC Lanka.
When I joined, the company was mainly focusing on its newly awarded first design and build contract – Hambantota Water Supply Project. At that time, there was no in-house design practice in CGC Lanka and my main scope was to coordinate with the outsourced design partners and prepare relevant design submissions to the project. However, I used my spare time to design some of the structures by myself parallel to their design work and the CGC management provided their fullest support and encouragement to develop my skills.
The company sponsored me to attend several short courses and seminars in civil and structural designs organized by professional bodies in Sri Lanka. “Design of Concrete Structures to EC2” was one which I attended in 2010.
So, it was a very positive step to start off my career at CGC Lanka where I was given a lot of trust, encouragement, and stress-free work environment. I took steps to accomplish my work to the satisfaction of my superiors and give real value for the company.
We managed to develop an in-house expertise to carry out all civil and structural designs for our projects since 2012 and we have successfully completed the design work for four large scale projects worth over US $ 150 million so far.
In 2009, we were awarded the subcontract for the construction of Kelani Right Bank Water Treatment Plant Project (i.e.,180,000 m3/day capacity water treatment plant and 360,000 m3/day capacity raw water intake), in which the civil and structural design was under the main contractor. However, as the specialized subcontractor, we had contractual rights to evaluate their design and propose value engineering aspects if available. We first received their design for the raw water intake structure – one of the largest single intake structures in Sri Lanka at the time.
After carrying out Finite Element Modeling and applying the theory of modulus of subgrade reaction for lateral behavior of bored piles, I managed to optimize the foundation design by reducing the number of piles to almost half of the numbers in original design.
The main contractor was very impressed, and later asked us to undertake the designs of some other structures as well.
After we started to build our in-house design team in 2012, my main focus was to carry out the designs according to the latest European standards. There were certain barriers in using European standards in Sri Lanka at the early stage due to the delay in adopting the standards to the Sri Lankan context and non-updated project specifications of the employers. However, most of these barriers were cleared at the time and we were awarded Sri Lanka’s largest stormwater pumping station, namely “Design and Building of St. Sebastian North Lock Gates and Pumping Station” in 2017.
This is a milestone in my design career as the complete structural and geotechnical design of the project was done according to European standards. This was a learning exercise for most of the engineers involved in the project, including those from the Client and the Project Consultant.
In 2018, CGC Lanka was awarded another large design and build contract which is Thambuttegama Water Supply project. The major strucutral work of the project includes a raw water intake, treatment units, buildings, and elevated water tanks.
(Tibet Province (Xi Zang) of China)
After I submitted the first set of design reports for elevated water tanks prepared according to European standards for Employer’s review, I received a request from the Employer – National Water Supply and Drainage Board to conduct a training program for them on the Eurocode design principles as their engineers are more familiar with the British standards.
CGC Lanka management provided sponsorship for the training program, and I conducted a five-day short course to about 50 design engineers at the water board. After the successful completion of this short course in early 2019, I was then invited to deliver a similar program with extended subject content in 2020 and 2022.
With support from the management, I have now provided training for more than 100 design engineers at the National Water Supply and Drainage Board. According to my knowledge, CGC Lanka is the first Chinese based company that conducted timely training programs
on required subject content to enhance the knowledge of local engineers.
Duminda is conducting training program in National Water Supply & Drainage Board
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Working with the Chinese was a little difficult for me at the early stages as I had a hard time understanding their way of thinking. However, now I am more comfortable with them especially when it comes to making important decisions about projects. Sometimes, we get into lengthy discussions to make decisions into lengthy discussions to make decisions because of the different opinions but the most important thing is that we are able to arrive at collective decisions.
believe that cultural differences can be a good thing as we have different opinions at the table. We are able to arrive at decisions from a pool of ideas. Our colleagues here are very supportive, including the General Manager. We meet socially as well and talk about cultural differences . The most important thing is that we have a mutual understanding and respect each other’s cultures.
CGC Lanka is a great place to work at due to its positive work environment and skilled staff. The company gives the freedom for the staff to grow and supports employees in their career. My biggest gain working at CGC Lanka is that I have identified my potential and I am able to use my knowledge to contribute to society to the best of my capacity.
* Based on statics provided by CGC Lanka: CGC Lanka has provided over 10,000 direct employment, over 25,000 indirect employment, cumulative number of jobs provided almost 1% of the total population of Sri Lanka.