I’m currently wrapping a project I’ve been working on for the last year, involving construction of precast units. I’ve been on this job for about 15 months and have been freed of the Project Manager as of Jan 2009. My responsibilities increase but my title and pay did not – as it happens with these companies.
We were basically on the home stretch there. The first couple of weeks back in the new year were probably the busiest but were the most fun. I was in control, just me and a Supervisor in the field.
Safety was going great, having changed the culture and transformed workers from a building trade to proper construction workers over the past year. Quality of construction had also improved. In addition to my usual tasks as project engineer, I was now in control of the schedule as well as signing invoices – these are probably the main roles that the manager did, not much else.
I was on great working terms with the procurement assistant (we get things done, our managers seemed to make things difficult). We were on track to complete production in March and demobilise site by the end of April. We’re going to achieve that.
From next week I’ll spend a couple of weeks in the office wrapping up the MDRs and the Project Closeout Reports etc. I’ll suspect I’d be involved in closing out all outstanding accounts and purchase orders as well.
Next career move: looking to get into the commercial area – contracts, estimating, forecasting, becoming an expert in the areas where a lot of people seem to lack the skills required to win and successfully (commercially) manage projects.
Just another day in the life of a project engineer!
