Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia

The spotlight is on Sayed Muchallil, Lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Indonesia.

Universitas Syiah Kuala is located in Aceh, an Indonesian province at the northern end of Sumatra island. The university’s goal is to produce graduates who have socio-technopreneurial competence and who are highly competitive. It has more than 28,000 students studying in 12 faculties and postgraduate programs.

Sayed Muchallil is a lecturer in the Engineering Faculty, teaching project management and programming to Electrical and Computer Engineering students. He graduated in 2004 with a degree in Electrical Engineering from Diponegoro University, Semarang, Central Java. In 2005, he joined Universitas Syiah Kuala and in 2007, became involved in the Procurement Committee, where he was responsible for organizing and assisting construction and non-construction projects, including collaboration with the Aceh Tsunami Reconstruction program. Aceh province was one of the regions most hit by the 2004 earthquake tsunami, losing 24.7% of agricultural land along with general devastation.

In 2009 he won a Fulbright scholarship to study at the University of Texas at Arlington. There he earned a master’s degree in Computer Science. Returning to Syiah Kuala in 2011, he was elected head of the computer section in Electrical Engineering and appointed head of the computer network laboratory in 2014.

His experience with basic tools led him to seek a more robust project management system. When he discovered the budgeting and scheduling capabilities of Oracle Primavera, Muchallil convinced the university to join Oracle Academy as an Institutional member.

Oracle Academy: How did you learn about Oracle Academy?

Sayed Muchallil: Our university was in touch with someone at Oracle Indonesia in Jakarta who informed us about the availability of Primavera P6 through Oracle Academy. I joined a Primavera online workshop during the pandemic organized by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research & Technology in cooperation with Oracle Academy.

Today I teach Primavera in the Faculty of Engineering, with some 150 students in the Electrical and Computer Engineering departments. In addition, I give a class on Java using Java Fundamentals, Java Foundations and Java Programming.

Oracle Academy: What projects do you assign to the students?

Sayed Muchallil: I give them software projects that I have been involved in. Since graduating, I have never formally worked in industry, but as a university lecturer, I was often subcontracted for software projects. This was where my knowledge in project management was implemented. I carried out several such jobs without leaving my teaching duties.

When I was assigned to the Procurement Committee of the Aceh Tsunami Reconstruction process, I built two applications: Aceh Province Agricultural Management Database and a distributed information system for government-mandated community health clinics. The students use Oracle Primavera to replicate these systems.

For their final class capstone projects, I share the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) catalog of all state-owned infrastructure construction projects to be developed under a Public Private Partnership scheme, a multi-billion-dollar investment scheme. I was subcontracted by Bappenas’ contractor to build a web-based application that checks the timely completion of each piece of infrastructure: transportation, irrigation, waste management, natural gas distribution and so on.

My class uses the Primavera P6 S-curve for plotting manpower costs, material, and time units—the vital elements of project status that indicate if construction will be completed on time and within budget. Oracle Primavera is excellent for an understanding of planning and scheduling, resource management, and for identifying the hidden risks in project schedules before they become obstacles.

Finally, we discuss failure or success, examining the status of the hundreds of Bappenas projects tendered or under tender. This way they get the theory and the practice based on real-world infrastructure projects.

Oracle Academy: Does Primavera meet all your requirements?

Sayed Muchallil: For sure. It’s a very complete tool. It has everything you need for teaching topics such as Material Requirement Planning, covering the procurement of materials, inventory levels, delays caused by stockouts, cost overruns, and all the pitfalls of poorly managed construction projects.

What I like about Oracle Academy, and this goes for the Java curriculum as well as Oracle Primavera, is that it eases the lecturer’s load. I don’t have to put together slides because they are pre-built, and it saves so much time. Likewise, exams and quizzes are all provided by Oracle Academy.

I am hoping that other departments within Engineering will adopt Primavera for project management courses. And I have on my roadmap for next year to start teaching the Oracle Academy database curriculum. That will complement my Java courses and give students well-rounded skills in programming, coding, and database design.

Oracle Academy: What sort of jobs do graduates expect to get?

Sayed Muchallil: Undoubtedly, graduates with top-line Primavera skills are guaranteed good jobs. I talked with a friend who works in the multi-national renewable energy industry. He told me that the company needs more and more people who have knowledge in project management. And certified Primavera P6 is a good start. Certification also will increase the graduates’ opportunities to get their first job in software industries.

Oracle Academy: Can you tell us something about your interests outside of the university?

Sayed Muchallil: It’s computers and systems that are my passion. I come from a small village that had no computers. When finally I had access, it was through DOS and Pascal, changing the disc each time. I first accessed the Internet with a 256 kbs modem.

Today I follow developments in cybersecurity, stopping people from breaking into systems, patching the security holes. I am now a certified ethical hacker, an ethical hacker instructor, and I have a security certificate from a multi-national technology company. I follow website fingerprinting and all other elements that protect the cloud ecosystem.

Thank you, Sayed Muchallil, for your passion for Oracle Academy and for preparing your students to make a positive impact.