The Republic of China's Retired Servicemen's Engineering Agency (RSEA) has a ten-year history of work in Indonesia. Amid sometimes difficult conditions, it has always completed projects on schedule and with high quality, a record not matched by many other firms that contract in Indonesia.

RSEA recently has been actively seeking work overseas, and today 40 percent of its business takes place outside Taiwan. Indonesia is RSEA's second largest foreign market, and through the years it has provided RSEA with over US$200 million in business. Now there are 500 RSEA engineers and technicians in Indonesia, and the agency employs about 5,000 local workers.

RSEA was one of the first foreign construction firms to do business in Indonesia; its first project was the Padang-Sawahtambang portion of the Trans Sumatran Highway.

The director of RSEA's office in Indonesia, C. H. Tsao, remembers, "In those days, Sumatra was only starting to develop and our work was attended with great difficulty.

"We shipped our equipment to the nearest port, but the port didn't have cranes, so we had a ship equipped with cranes come from Singapore to lift our heavy machinery. Then we had to build our own service roads and bridges to get the caterpillars and other machines to the worksite.

"The climate here is also a problem. Indonesia has a six-month-long dry season, then six months of rain. We had to plan each day's work so that we wouldn't leave flattened roadbeds exposed to rain that would ruin them."

Two current projects of RSEA in Indonesia are the Surabaya-Malang Highway in east Java and the Rarem Dam in south Sumatra. Fang Chih-wei is general superintendent of the project. He said, "The difference between an ordinary road and a superhighway is that the materials have to be better, and the road very smooth for fast traveling cars, and since a superhighway has no traffic lights or intersections, we have to build overpasses and other separations between lanes, requiring many bridges. In forty-two kilometers of road, we have to build sixty-two bridges.

"Building bridges in soft soil is an engineer's nightmare. The soil along the highway route is especially soft, and we often have to drive piles sixty meters into the ground to reach bedrock. We've been packing earth and pile-driving for a year.

"According to the original plan of the design department, we needed to use a lot of explosives to prepare crushed rock for the project. But importing explosives into Indonesia can only be done in small batches. Rather than delay the work by waiting for the explosives, we came up with other methods.

"For instance, we drilled holes in boulders to develop crack lines, and then smashed them with a wrecking machine to get crushed rock. And all over the ground there were small stones; we used metal mesh nets to strain them and get the size stones we needed for construction work. Instead of the easy method of using explosives, we used a method adapted to specific conditions here. Not only was it faster than waiting for explosives to come, it even turned out to be cheaper."

Rarem Dam is a special show-piece of RSEA's work, as it is now nearly a year ahead of schedule. The planned completion date was August 1984, but the dam may be ready by the end of this year. Few foreign firms in Indonesia can match this record.

The project's contracted cost is US$27.5 million. The dam will allow the irrigation of 11,400 hectares in the dry season, and twice as many in the rainy season, benefitting 57,500 people.

Rarem Dam project engineer, Fan Kuo-chang, says, "We keep right on working in order to make a maximum profit and to get done with this so we can go on to other work. We are using more local workers than we originally planned, but labor costs were never the major portion of our overhead. We think it is better to use more workers and finish sooner, than to keep the machines tied up longer. You might almost say we use human wave tactics.

"The Indonesian workers are exceptionally willing to take on overtime work. Indonesian regulations, which we follow, call for an escalating scale of overtime pay--the more overtime hours worked, the higher the hourly rate. Many of our workers make more from overtime pay than from their base wages. The workers seem to like to work for RSEA, and their morale is high."

The morale of the Chinese workers is also high. Fan himself is a young man, and his subordinates even younger--the average age of the engineers is 28. Talented young engineers take tests to enter RSEA, and through vigor and a desire to learn, gain experience and advance.

Fan understands these desires and encourages his engineers to periodically trade responsibilities in order to gain well-rounded experience. But to keep the work from suffering during the times when new engineers enter a particular team, Fan personally keeps track of each worker's situation, helping him and guiding him through difficulties. This is tiring for Fan, but great for the workers' morale.

To keep open lines of communication, the workers frequently hold meetings. Each week all section leaders meet to review progress. Every month, there is a meeting for supervisors above the level of foremen. Twice a year, there is a general meeting of all management and technical personnel.

Two problems discussed at recent meetings: The bedrock in the area weathers easily, so many paths dug out by the engineers do not hold asphalt coatings. It was agreed that as soon as a roadway was built, it would be coated with concrete to prevent erosion. The second problem was the many rocks on the new roads. Trucks were getting flat tires at a terrible rate. A simple reminder to drivers to be more careful brought a dramatic reduction in the number of flats.

"The meetings have one most important benefit," says Fan, "in that they let everyone know the progress of the other teams, and understand how they fit into the whole. This increases each person's sense of responsibility, so no one will impede the project's progress by failing in his own team."

Once the project was nearly the victim of its own success. The work was so far ahead of schedule that filling the dam embankment with earth, the activity most susceptible to damage from rain, came up just before the beginning of the rainy season. But the project took the risk, and the rain held off just long enough to let the workers complete the job.

The Rarem Dam team has developed intimate cooperation while on the job far from home, and Fan, speaking of the future, says, "Although we have a lot of competitors, if we all pull together and work hard, RSEA's morale is better than the others', and we can continue to keep the upper hand in competing for business."

[Picture Caption]

1. RSEA's work on the Surabaya Superhighway is difficult, and must continue through the night to make progress. 2. Most overseas sites don't have existing construction-material-processing facilities; the picture shows a facility built for the Surabaya project. 3. The Surabaya project employs many Indonesian workers. 4. A truck and a buffalo cart sharing the road--a sign of Indonesia's development.

1. The soil in the Surabaya area is very soft; it is usually necessary to drive piles sixty meters down. 2. An engineer supervises an Indonesian surveyor taking measurements. 3. The project is quality-conscious; the asphalt thickness is checked every few meters in a strict program of quality control. 4.5.6. The project uses giant machines to dig, pack earth, and water the roadbed. 7. A small village amid verdant fields appears quiet and calm.

1. RSEA's Rarem Dam project is the biggest in Sumatra; the dam's height reaches forty-two meters. 2. The construction work takes place in a large area, and trucks are constantly speeding down the road, making tracks in profusion. 3. The Rarem Dam workers built play equipment outside their housing for children to play on. 4. All the workers on an overseas project develop close ties, like a big family.

1. The gleaming lights of Jakarta at night. 2. RSEA has its Indonesia office in Jakarta, and uses a computer to keep track of files. 3. A truck on a hilltop to pick up stones.

2. Most overseas sites don't have existing construction-material-processing facilities; the picture shows a facility built for the Surabaya project.

3. The Surabaya project employs many Indonesian workers.

4. A truck and a buffalo cart sharing the road--a sign of Indonesia's development.

1. The soil in the Surabaya area is very soft; it is usually necessary to drive piles sixty meters down.

2. An engineer supervises an Indonesian surveyor taking measurements.

3. The project is quality-conscious; the asphalt thickness is checked every few meters in a strict program of quality control.

4.5.6. The project uses giant machines to dig, pack earth, and water the roadbed.

4.5.6. The project uses giant machines to dig, pack earth, and water the roadbed.

4.5.6. The project uses giant machines to dig, pack earth, and water the roadbed.

7. A small village amid verdant fields appears quiet and calm.

1. RSEA's Rarem Dam project is the biggest in Sumatra; the dam's height reaches forty-two meters.

2. The construction work takes place in a large area, and trucks are constantly speeding down the road, making tracks in profusion.

3. The Rarem Dam workers built play equipment outside their housing for children to play on.

4. All the workers on an overseas project develop close ties, like a big family.

1. The gleaming lights of Jakarta at night.

2. RSEA has its Indonesia office in Jakarta, and uses a computer to keep track of files.

3. A truck on a hilltop to pick up stones.