Project management detailed engineering

Many oil and gas companies do not consider the detailed design and construction of production facilities as part of their core business. This is often the stage at which work is contracted out to engineering firms and the client company will switch manpower resources elsewhere, although some degree of project management is commonly retained. 

Most detailed programs for plant-related projects are prepared using simple critical path analysis (CPA) techniques. CPA is a well-known and familiar technique to most engineers and is incorporated into most modern PC-based planning and scheduling systems. Such a system typically has the following features that a plant project manager will find useful ... 

In a major project, in addition to the general contractor, the Project Manager is usually assigned a team of engineers specifically dedicated to support the project and follow up on the details of the work to be performed and monitor progress. The Project Manager s role is mainly to provide overall direction, ascertain that proper controls are established and monitor their implementation to insure compliance to project objectives and specifications. 

Contractor Selection Detailed Engineering Procurement Construction Management Project Control Contract Administration Communications Regulations Compliance Startup... 

Project Manager has overall responsibility for Detailed Engineering, Procurement, and Construction. The Venture Manager and Project Manager are the two key managers in every successful capital construction project. The major part of this book is aimed at how tos for the Project Manager. 

Some engineering and construction firms, as well as some of the computer programs in the market, carry the breakdown to the level of nuts and bolts (square feet of forms, pounds of rebar, field welds and bolt-ups, individual instruments, etc.). That level of detail might be important to some nitpicking accountant or perhaps to an efficiency expert in the field, but has no use for the Owner s Project Manager interested in the overall picture. 

Finally, the Project Manager must document (or insure that the Cost Engineer does) the estimate review in sufficient detail to be useful for future reference. The review should be part of the estimate package discussed in Section 10.4 Anatomy of an Estimate. 

A bid package must address commercial terms as well as technical details. The preparation of the commercial selection is the responsibility of the Contracts Engineer. The Project Manager assembles all the technical details and is responsible not only for the technical section but for the overall completeness of the package. After all, it is the Project Manager who has to live with the contractor and make it perform. 

The Project Manager and the Contract Engineer must have a good understanding of the scope and the cost of the work in order to evaluate bidders and analyze the bids. To do so, they need a good cost estimate with detailed or semi-detailed takeoffs. 

This section is usually prepared, under the supervision of the Project Manager, by whomever performs the detailed engineering. It must include all pertinent drawings and specifications. 

Frequently, all the detailed engineering, and even purchasing, is contracted with a single engineering firm. In that case, it becomes very important that the contractor understands that the scope of the contract work is strictly detailed engineering and procurement and that the Owner will assume the project management and control responsibility. 

Occasionally, the Project Manager will run into a proposal to do the detail engineering on a lump sum basis at a fraction of the budget cost. Before falling into the temptation and accepting the offer, the Project Manager should first ... 

Discuss the various ways in which detailed engineering could be executed to minimize project costs without impairing quality and alert the Project Manager of the potential pitfalls. 

The discussions are limited here to only the execution of detailed engineering. All other related functions, project and construction management, purchasing and subcontracting, as well as project controls, are discussed in other chapters. 

This section provides insight into the behind-the-scenes workings of an engineering contractor s office, discusses the procedures that govern them and focuses attention on those that should be followed and/or enforced by the Project Manager during the detailed engineering phase. 

In the absence of a general contractor, the Project Manager must step in to fill the breach and insure, through hands-on action and/or direct supervision, that the essential activities required for proper coordination and control of the detailed engineering phase are performed on a timely basis. Those activities include ... 

The extent of the Project Manager s participation depends on the option followed to execute the detailed engineering. Under the single contractor approach, hands-on participation will be minimal, while in-house engineering will result in the most work for the Project Manager. 

Some owners only have general specifications and rely on engineering contractors to provide their own detailed project specifications. When the engineering is done in-house, they would use the specifications from some recent project in the same location. In that case, it is the Project Manager s responsibility to review and update them and, above all, make sure that they provide quality and safety consistent with the project requirements without unnecessary gold plating. 

The scope of work of any engineering firm doing the detailed engineering should include the assembly of a technical package to select construction contractors on a competitive basis. However, where the engineering is done in-house, it is up to the Project Manager to do that work. 

Establishing a fixed layout early on in the project should be one of the Project Manager s prime objectives since this is a means of insuring effective and economical detailed engineering and early project completion. Achievement of these goals requires ... 

Detailed engineering is dull and often repetitive work. It does not often attract really imaginative engineers. When they encounter a design problem that requires innovative thinking they are usually inclined to take the least risky and frequently most expensive approach. In order to minimize cost the Project Manager must monitor their work to identify these problem areas and review their solutions. 

The Project Manager is not expected to do a detailed audit of all invoices and backup materials, but only to monitor the critical items and point out to the accountants those areas where close scrutiny is warranted. The detailed audit is the job of accounting. It behooves the Project Manager to sit down with the Contract Engineer, at the beginning of the contract work, to review the contract, to understand all the critical provisions, and to summarize them for the benefit of the members of the project team. 

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