What impact can specialised water management expertise have on your project? In this Expert Profile, we hear from Yang Liu, Design Manager – Water at Coates, who leverages more than 20 years of engineering experience to help customers manage and treat water, making cities better places to live.
The new Expert Profile series showcases the expertise and innovation that define Coates’ approach to solving complex challenges.
A key part of this success is Coates Engineering Solutions, which delivers tailored, end-to-end solutions for temporary works across a wide range of projects. Specialising in areas such as water management, shoring and propping, the Engineering Solutions team combines technical excellence with industry-leading equipment to ensure projects are completed safely, efficiently, and sustainably.
To kick off the series, Yang Liu, Design Manager – Water, shares his insights. Yang has worked at Coates for more than six years. He holds a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from East China University of Science and Technology and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sydney.
Please describe your role and what an average workday/week looks like.
My job is to strategically deliver water management solutions for our customers, enabling them to maximise the environmental, economic, and planning benefits of their projects.
What are some of the biggest challenges your customers are facing right now?
When dealing with water problems on-site, many customers find that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach won’t work, because the equipment they purchase for one project may not always meet the needs of the next.
How does your team help customers overcome these challenges?
By hiring rather than buying water management equipment, such as dewatering pumps, sediment tanks and sludge management systems, customers can outsource the risk and investment of equipment ownership. This also saves them the time and expertise needed to manage water issues, as well as the investment in maintenance and process management, and accountability for the overall success of the solution.
In our team, we have engineers, project managers and field technicians with extensive experience in the water space. We aim to deliver projects seamlessly and respond promptly when the unexpected suddenly happens on site – as it often does with water.
The professional service from our team ensures our clients have peace of mind when managing water on their projects. I think this is the reason why the water team has been engaged with hundreds of projects with new and returning customers.
Can you describe any interesting industry trends, or any new/developing technology you’re excited about?
One of the most pressing challenges on any metro construction project is the limitation of space. This scarcity requires efficient design solutions to make the most of the available area. With Australia’s largest range of dewatering and water treatment equipment and over 145 branches, our national teams can quickly get to site to resolve water issues by offering our customers the right solution.
What’s your favourite thing about your role, or the industry you support?
My proudest moment is seeing our projects completed on time, within budget and with minimum impact on the environment. I especially enjoy working on projects that help make our cities better places to live.
When my kids ask about the tunnel we’re driving through, the light rail we’re riding on or the airport we’re walking into, I’m always very proud to tell them their dad worked on those sites as part of Coates’ Water engineering team. It makes you feel great knowing what you do every day is connected to your community.
For more on how Coates Engineering Solutions can support your next project, visit: coates.com.au/engineering-solutions
