Moving beyond Project Engineering to Project Management – some thoughts

As shown in previous articles, engineers are expected to go beyond their core profession and become both visionary and multidisciplinary, taking full account of models that are changing faster all the time.

In a Project Engineering mission, an engineer manages the project at the technical level so as to match the business case with which he or she has been presented. The engineer puts solutions in place, ranging from design, supplies, contract management and installation to commissioning, while managing the costs linked to the equipment and the technical solution envisaged.

For the sake of completeness, a mission should also include Project  Management, which consists of steering the project beyond the technical processes alone, building in such notions as cost reduction, capacity improvement, overall integration and so on, the aim being to make the project viable and profitable, above and beyond the deliverables themselves.

A good strategy includes Project Management

It still often happens that a project, though well managed from the technical point of view, lacks governance and a clear view of objectives at this stage.

And yet even if a project is a success in technical terms, abiding by the specifications, budget and schedules, it may still struggle to achieve its final goals if such important factors as marketing, overcoming cultural barriers, risk-proofing etc. are neglected. So Project Management does need to be incorporated into the overall methodology.

For a project to succeed, Project Engineering and Project Management must go hand in hand. The engineers who work for Syngenia have taken that on board.