Engineering leadership · Industrial control · Software
Singapore ·low@kahyi.com · kahyi.com/about/ · linkedin.com/in/kahyi
I lead engineering teams that modernize and sustain the control systems and digital infrastructure behind continuous, 24/7 operations. Over nine years in petrochemical operations, I have led control-system modernization, critical cutovers and the monitoring and recovery practices that keep systems available.
ABOUT / LOW KAH YI
Engineering is
a way of thinking.
I lead engineering teams that modernize and sustain the control systems and digital infrastructure behind continuous, 24/7 operations. Over nine years in petrochemical operations, I have led control-system modernization, critical cutovers and the monitoring and recovery practices that keep systems available.
NowLeading a controls engineering team in Singapore, and writing about how systems fail and recover.
EXPERIENCE / RESPONSIBILITY & CONTRIBUTION
A career close to the systems.Experience
MAR 2025 — PRESENT
Process Control Applications Section Manager
Leads a team responsible for process control applications, advanced process control and digital initiatives.
Leads a team responsible for process control applications, advanced process control and digital initiatives.
MAR 2024 — FEB 2025
Instrumentation & Control Engineer
Reliability improvements and upgrades across instrumentation and control systems.
Reliability improvements and upgrades across instrumentation and control systems.
DEC 2022 — FEB 2024
Control Systems Engineer
Control infrastructure modernization, cutovers and operational resilience.
Control infrastructure modernization, cutovers and operational resilience.
JUN 2017 — DEC 2022
Process Control & Automation Engineer
Automation lifecycle and reliability programs, directing two supervisors and 10+ field technicians.
Led site automation lifecycle management and reliability programs in a continuously operating petrochemical facility, directing two supervisors and 10+ field technicians.
- Delivered $10M+ in control infrastructure modernization across four legacy control and safety-system architectures with zero downtime.
- Directed a separate $5M+ program replacing 30+ end-of-life gas chromatographs, from competitive tender through factory acceptance testing and site implementation.
- Designed and deployed a 90-node industrial wireless network for gas detection and valve-status monitoring.
- Implemented advanced process control and real-time optimization platforms; consolidated legacy PLC control onto distributed control systems.
SKILLS & DOMAINS
Where I go deep.Skills
Control & safety systems
- Distributed control systems
- PLCs
- Safety instrumented systems (IEC 61511)
- Advanced process control
- Real-time optimization
- Instrumentation & analyzers
Infrastructure & OT
- Industrial networks
- Virtualization
- Real-time telemetry
- Historians
- IT/OT integration
- Industrial wireless
Resilience & delivery
- Critical cutovers
- Disaster recovery & business continuity
- Factory acceptance testing
- Vendor evaluation & tenders
- Risk assessment
- Capital program delivery
Leadership
- Second-line management
- Capability & succession planning
- Budget governance
- Cross-team delivery
EDUCATION & DEVELOPMENT
Education & development.Education & development
Georgia Institute of Technology
M.S. Computer Science
Machine Learning specialization
National University of Singapore
Bachelor of Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Functional safety
exida Functional Safety Practitioner (FSP)
IEC 61511 · obtained 2022
INDEPENDENT ENGINEERING
Ideas you can inspect.Independent engineering
Independent software and synthetic experiments, with inspectable assumptions and reproducible results.
One Plant
Follow one fault through the dependencies, heat balance, controller, alarms and recovery of one synthetic unit.
Systems · RecoveryInteractive labInfrastructure Resilience Studio
Replay synthetic power and cooling failures, compare changes, inspect measurement quality and assemble readiness evidence.
Power & cooling · RecoveryInteractive labAlarm Flood
Play the operator through an alarm flood, then see how priorities, delays and suppression change the same upset.
Alarm management · OperationsInteractive labControl Room
Tune a PID controller, compare responses and test uncertainty with reproducible studies.
Feedback · IdentificationTerms used on this page
- DCS (distributed control system)
- The computer system that monitors and controls a continuously running plant, spread across many controllers rather than one central computer.
- PLC (programmable logic controller)
- A rugged industrial computer that controls a machine or part of a process with fast, repeating logic.
- Safety instrumented system
- An independent control system whose only job is to bring a process to a safe state when a dangerous condition is detected.
- IEC 61511
- The international standard for designing, operating and maintaining safety instrumented systems in the process industries.
- Advanced process control
- Control software that adjusts many related settings together to keep a process closer to its best operating point than individual control loops can.
- Real-time optimization
- Software that repeatedly works out the most economical operating conditions for a plant and passes them to the control systems.
- Factory acceptance testing
- Testing equipment and its software at the supplier, against criteria agreed in advance, before it is shipped and installed.
- Virtualization
- Running several separate computers as virtual machines on one physical server, so they share its hardware.
- Telemetry
- Measurements sent continuously from equipment to a system that stores and displays them, so problems can be seen as they develop.
- Historian
- A database built to record plant measurements over time, so trends and past events can be reviewed later.
- Cutover
- The moment operation switches from an old system to its replacement.
- Analyzer
- An instrument that measures what a process stream is made of, rather than just its pressure, temperature or flow.
- Gas chromatograph
- An analyzer that separates a gas sample into its components and measures how much of each is present.
BEYOND WORK
Running & triathlon.
Outside work, I spend much of my time running and training for triathlons. I enjoy the routine of training, tracking progress and seeing how small adjustments add up over a season.