OceanMaster Engineering
Maintenance, repair and Overhauling (MRO) services globally
Incorporated during 1989 OceanMaster Engineering Pte Ltd is a Singapore based ship repair and general engineering company, certified in compliance to ISO 9001 and OHSAS 18001. The business incorporates full office, workshop, storage and warehousing facilities comprising more than 70,000 square feet, from which it currently employs ove 150 employees, including well trained and experienced service teams capable of carrying out operations on various types of marine vessel, offshore rig and platform, FPSO and offshore supply vessel. “The business was founded by its current Chairman, Mr. David Lee Fook Choy,” explains OceanMaster Engineering Managing Director, Lee Ee Win. “OceanMaster Engineering started as a general engineering company servicing the marine shipping industry and over the years it evolved to also service the offshore industry, including offshore platform and drilling rig, FPSO and offshore supply vessel applications.”
Further to its ship repair and general engineering capability, OceanMaster Engineering also specialises in the field of marine refrigeration and air conditioning and carries a large stock of new and reconditioned refrigeration compressors and spare parts. As the company has continued to grow it has developed a service package that incorporates its general engineering roots and a specialised niche in marine air conditioning and refrigeration, while establishing a proven track record of maintenance and repair. “OceanMaster Engineering has always offered a specialised service,” Lee says. “Historically this specialisation has been in refrigeration, heating, ventilation and air conditioning services. However we have also developed strong capabilities in terms of our steel, electrical, carpentry and machine works.”
OceanMaster Engineering is able to provide workshop facilities equipped with all of the necessary machines to cater to various vessel repair requirements from its base in Singapore. Furthermore through a fleet of workboats and sea launches for work at sea it is able to provide emergency and routine maintenance across the globe. “We are strong in Singapore because a lot of our customers, especially rig owners, will bring their assets here when they are due for maintenance so that we can do the repairs on rigs in the shipyard,” Lee says. “However OceanMaster Engineering is also specialised to deliver services offshore, we have a team of highly trained people who have approved offshore medical, BOSIET certification as well as helicopter underwater escape training. This allows teams to go by helicopter out to the rigs to carry out works on an ad-hoc basis to answer emergency calls. As such we are active throughout Southeast Asia and we also serve rig owners in Australia, Russia, India, the Middle East and Africa. We have also recently carried out major upgrade work in a shipyard in Holland.”
As the company has grown to include a strong base of competencies, OceanMaster Engineering has perceived and adapted to the needs of the offshore market and its clients. “Previously 80 per cent of our business was in marine repairs with the remaining 20 per cent in offshore work,” Lee elaborates. “Today as much as 90 per cent of our work is in the offshore sector while the remaining ten per cent is in marine. This change has happened gradually over the past ten years.”
Although the market within the offshore sector has slowed due to the low oil price with less vessels arriving for maintenance work and a surplus of rigs on the market, causing a decrease in newbuilds, OceanMaster Engineering has maintained a consistent level of business through its maintenance work on existing rigs. The strength of the business that differentiates it from possible competitors when the market is strong and that identifies it as a proven solution when the market is challenging, is OceanMaster Engineering’s total commitment to customer satisfaction. This is built on its focus on four key factors, comprised of understanding its customers’ needs; the right team; the right process; and the correct control. “We focus on these key areas treating safety as a priority as well as quality and accident prevention,” Lee observes. “We also supply quick service reliably, so while we may not be the cheapest air conditioning or vessel maintenance service on the market, we are certainly not the most expensive and we provide what we say we will deliver every time. Furthermore all of our engineers are equipped with Environment Protection Agency (EPA) certification as well as Australia Refrigeration Council (ARC) certification. As such we are able to carry out air conditioning services all over the world and I believe that we are currently the only company in Singapore to hold this level of certification. Our electricians are all also COMPEX certified, which means that they can deal with explosion proof equipment onboard any offshore rigs and platforms.”
With a high level of expertise and a proven track record of service, OceanMaster Engineering has a proven reputation, which will aid it as it navigates the turbulent offshore market and continues to deal with clients old and new. In the short term this will involve further increasing in service level, while preparing for new ventures in the future, as Lee concludes: “Moving ahead over the next few months we will be taking time to strengthen ourselves internally in order for us to be stronger and faster to provide our customers with more competitive prices and improved service. In the long term we want to increase our services to include our own products that we will sell into the market, so it is possible that we will develop a manufacturing arm. We are currently also work with the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) here in Singapore, to provide more on the job training to our workforce, customers and clients so they can be better educated on the maintenance of air conditioning systems onboard vessels and rigs.
OceanMaster Engineering
Services: Marine and offshore repair, air conditioning and general engineering
Issue 125 October 2015