Luis Nieto
Project Engineering manager/ Coordinador de Proyecto / Coordinador de ingeniería / Senior Project Engineer /
In this article we address the term Engineering as the technical work of design of infrastructure and industrial facilities and systems necessary to make a reality either new facilities or expansion of existing facilities. The engineering work function can be handled as within the typical managerial work cycle: • Planning • Organization • Direction (Execution) • Control Let's see the characteristics of each function. Planning ________________ If we have an engineering team that is part of a company or industrial production group, we will typically have a group of small projects or sub-projects to undertake in the year and for which goals are established, either their completion and closure or achieve defined progress for the year or period in question. The corporate organization establishes at a management level much higher than the management group of the engineering executing group these projects and their goals for the period that is normally the current year. If we have an engineering team that is part of a consulting firm, the work planning is carried out according to the contracts that the firm obtains in the period, but also to the technical works that arise as a complement to the preparation of offers that it needs to be presented according to the needs of customers. Within the term “Planning” we include the activities for defining the general schedule to undertake the execution of the projects. That is, define the durations of the different activities of each project, their precedence and therefore the total duration of each project, work, assignment, etc. This allows the organization to establish an action plan in order to provide the necessary resources for the purpose, human resources, office infrastructure, hardware, software, reserve of financial resources to undertake the planned operating expenses. The "Planning" also refers to the plan that must be established for each project or assignment, for its execution, monitoring and control. That is, project management. To do the planning it is necessary to establish a "Work Breakdown Structure" known by its acronym in English as WBS, which consists of classifying and ordering the activities and deliverables (products) according to geographic areas, production units, engineering discipline involved, areas established by the organization that owns the project, as well as any other category that is needed for each particular project . This WBS establishes classifications by levels, for example Level Zero corresponds to the Project Identification. Level One can refer, for example, to production areas such as: (a) Electricity Generation; (b) Water Treatment Plant; (c) Process plant X; (d) Auxiliary and service units; etc etc. Depending on the project, Level Two may refer to the discipline or specialty to which the activity or deliverable belongs: (a) Process engineering; (b) Mechanical engineering; (c) Electrical Engineering; (d) Control Engineering; (e) Civil Engineering; etc etc. Once the general schedule is set, still in draft, the measurement milestones are established with which the monitoring and control will be carried out. These milestones will correspond to agreed percentages of progress, which means that each milestone will represent a percentage of project execution or completion. Meeting the milestones are the goals of the project. The planning must be agreed by all the executing members of the work and of course, the interested entities, internal and external clients. Organization ________________ With the term "Organization" we refer to the personnel or human resources that will constitute the necessary work team in the engineering executing group, as well as its functions and its hierarchy. This function includes the recruitment, selection and hiring of professionals in accordance with the requirements of each project or in accordance with the perspectives of the need for personnel in the medium and long term. The work team will include the technical personnel responsible for producing each deliverable, but also, the necessary administrative management personnel such as the project or assignment planner, Quality Assurance and Control personnel, document control personnel. These personnel are normally partially assigned to the project, not requiring a full assignment. Even the technical staff can be partially assigned according to the need of each project. Direction ________________ With the term "Direction" we refer to the managerial function itself to lead the work team towards the goals established in the planning. Within the corporate level of the organization, this is the executing management level, which is responsible for ensuring that the project is executed on time with the assigned resources and within the established quality standards. This function requires that it be performed by personnel preferably knowledgeable in the engineering, preparation, planning and production functions of the deliverable, as well as its defense before its client and before internal and external quality audit. It also obviously requires possession of leadership and management characteristics to motivate, support staff and demand quality procedures. Within this function, follow-up activities and the preparation of progress reports are established. Regular follow-up meetings are usually held with team staff, likewise, follow-up meetings with internal and external customer entities. The function includes, as indicated in the next point, the taking of corrective measures in time to compensate for deviations in the achievement of goals. These corrective measures, if they require additional resources, must be presented to the other entities or managements of the organization for their approval. The function includes the measurement of established efficiency indicators and comparison with universal parameters accepted as referential. This leads to the preparation of the corresponding reports. It is recommended that, no matter how small the project, an execution manual be drawn up that establishes the internal and external communication procedures, the interested entities, the executing entities, the planning and its milestones, the evaluation indices and standards as formats to be used, for deliverables. Control ________________ With the term "Control" we refer to the managerial function to measure, evaluate, compare and correct deviations, in both, execution times and the quality of deliverables. For this reason, this function is closely linked to the participation of the Quality Assurance and Control staff and the Planning staff. As described above, the idea is to take corrective measures in time to compensate for deviations in the execution of the processes. The Control includes, of course, the consumption of resources and their revision Conclusions and Summary The engineering management function is closely linked to the project management function, since engineering work can be divided into a series of "projects" or "assignments" to which project management procedures and techniques are applied in greater or lesser extent. The engineering function requires special coordination not only between professional specialties (disciplines) but also between executing staff and support staff. Being the deliverables or products of the work (documents and plans) written material, they constitute the description of the results of calculations, assumed premises, theories used, standards and codes respected and conclusions that summarize the best options found for the design of facilities. The importance of a library containing the engineering work within an organization is appreciated when the need arises to create projects for the expansion, modernization, modification, or transport of existing facilities.
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