Present value calculations are an essential part of almost every industry. I see projects every day whose economic basis depend on knowing the present value of a stream of cash flow. Unfortunately most of the time projects are justified simply on the basis of having money in the budget and choosing the next project in the priority list. A … [Read more...]
All of us have written technical reports for clients or other stakeholders. It is one of the tasks that are central to an engineer's job. In this edition of the technical brief, I will provide a checklist that should be relatively comprehensive. This has been taken from several of my old reports, and each of these were their own section (1.0, 2.0, … [Read more...]
Hopefully your projects never have this type of variance! A variance is defined as a schedule, technical, or cost deviation from the project plan. Variances should be tracked and reported, as well as mitigated through corrective actions. There are two types of variance which normally receive most of the attention: Cost Variance Schedule Variance Calculating … [Read more...]
We engineers exist, by definition, on the interface between the economic and sub-economic. It is often our job to try and define the boundary, and it is often defined by technological factors that have to be developed to a new point. Most colleges and universities give engineering students a course on engineering economics, but this does not translate to widespread use … [Read more...]
Could your projects use additional risk management? Experts agree that it is one of the most underutilized areas of project management. As engineers, when we're managing a project in our area of expertise we like to think we know the primary risks and we have them under control. But a small amount of risk management planning at the outset of every project will reap … [Read more...]
If there's one thing that is lacking in engineering college education, it's project management. Most college provide an overview as part of a general engineering course, and the good ones even provide a full course. We come out of university as technical experts, but most of an engineer's time is spent on project management. Therefore, I think that every engineer should … [Read more...]
For an engineering project, the typical life cycle looks something like this: Conceptualization. At the point which a need or opportunity is identified, an agency begins to develop a conceptual plan for a new product or service. Feasibility. Budget level estimates are prepared for the necessary phases and the financial implications (revenue vs. costs) are … [Read more...]
Scheduling is generally one of the critical variables to project success for engineers. In spite of this, most engineers don't understand the basics of project scheduling, except for remembering it from their college days. In this article I will document the two primary scheduling techniques available to the engineering project manager. Gantt Chart Gantt charts do an … [Read more...]
Engineering proposals are the industry standard document for which engineering consultant selection decisions are made. For engineering consulting firms, they are the primary method of securing new work. For the owners they are indispensible as a means to differentiate between consultants. But what are the major parts of an engineering proposal? Project … [Read more...]
Engineering projects come in many shapes and sizes, but they can generally be broken down into the following phases. Planning / Preliminary Engineering. This is the stage at which the options are considered and the pros and cons evaluated. Most engineering projects involve the creation of a new product or the destruction and re-build of an existing one, and … [Read more...]
