Civil and Environmental Engineering Management - Coursework Example

Name : xxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxx Title : Civil and Environmental Engineering Management Institution : xxxxxxx @2010 1. Civil and Environmental Engineering Management Engineering is a profession that involves different kinds of work specialization all of which require good management and planning of events. In order to succeed in engineering work, one needs to develop a good plan for his or her work with proper consideration of time, human resources, financial resources and other physical resources. Good and proper management of engineering work including good time plan will generally lead to a lot of benefits including successful and timely completion of engineering contracts, good value of earnings which will improves individual living standards and a good reputation that will see the engineer win more contracts and work practices. In order to achieve all this, one needs to set up a well structured management plan for his or her engineering work (Leone 2001). Civil and environmental engineering work will require good planning. Planning is a very vital management tool for engineering work that involves identification of the goals towards which the engineering work is based on, the objectives and the methods that will be used to carry out the engineering work. Good management will also call for planning for the resources required to implement the methods proposed. Planning also involves fixing of dates for work completion and allocation of resources to various engineering work. Allocation of responsibilities to various engineering personnel is a vital part of management and requires understanding of the personnel available so that the appropriate responsibilities are allocated to the right personnel. In this case, as engineers, we need to plan for various strategies to be applied in execution of engineering work, developing a business plan for the engineering work, planning for the whole engineering project, planning for the staffing process, advertising and planning for promotions in the course of the work. There are so many other things to be planned in engineering all of which contribute to success of the engineering work, good earnings and good reputation that can change once life to be better (Badiru 2005). The other aspect of management of engineering work is organizing resources. In order to conduct the engineering work successfully, one need to make sure that all the resources available are well organized and managed. To manage resources, one needs to come up with different departments of engineering that will deal with own specific resources. For example, all issues dealing with human resources should be handled under human resources department so that there is clear and organized protocol incase of mismanagement of resources. Therefore, there is need to have file systems and offices that will handle various resources with proper record keeping to ensure accountability in terms of use of the resources. This will mostly apply to physical and financial resources that are necessary to facilitate the engineering work. Good management of resources has very many benefits both to the engineering work and to personal life. First, good resource management and allocation will minimize wastage of resources and thus cuts down expenditure leading to efficiency in production of the whole engineering work. In this way, we say that the engineering work has been done efficiently and effectively. Second, good management of resources will ensure successful completion of the work without shortage in cases where the resources are not provided in exact quantities. Thirdly, good resource management and allocation will contribute positively to the personal life of an individual engineer where by he or she will be able to efficiently manage whatever resources he has to lead his day to day life without shortage or wastage. This will definitely improve his or her standard of living (Blanchard 2005). Another vital aspect of management when it comes to engineering work is leadership. This involves self management, managing others and improvement in work performance. In order to improve the performance in engineering work, a team work spirit has to be developed in a case where more that one engineer or people are involved in the engineering work. The team has to come up with an appropriate direction that will be followed by both the engineering groups and individuals so that all the team members can work towards the same direction. Strategic direction need to be organized and this should aim at achieving the aims, goals, objectives and mission of the engineering work. Organization performance management should be championed well in order to pursue the set direction (Badiru 2005). Considering the idea of self management, engineering work requires self management both at individual level as well as at group level. In order to make the engineering work effective, participative management of all parties has to be embraced. Self management at group level involves introducing self managed groups in the engineering work and this will help achieve staff empowerment, ownership promotion and creating some sort of commitment and initiative to the engineering work in progress. Therefore, self management at group level will help improve the quality of the engineering work output achieved. Self management at individual level is purposely meant to reinforce self management at group level when dealing with engineering work. Without good self management at individual level, self management at group level may not be successful. In order for the engineering plans to work well, individual self management is vital to make individual members to be responsive to any external challenges that they may face when performing the engineering work and develop self learning from the experience they gain during the work. There is need for self consent and autonomy when performing engineering work and this will contribute to the success of the work. In order to ensure success in engineering work, there are five steps that must be applied both in self management at group and individual levels. First, there is need to analyze the environment in which the engineering work need to be implemented. This will help plan well for the resources and other requirements of the work. Secondly, there is need to plan for the work. This will ensure the individuals carry out the work in an efficient and effective manner following the work schedule. Developing and setting directions for both individuals and groups is also very necessary so that the entire engineering team works towards the same direction. Then what follows is implementation of the engineering work in the environment as part of the real work. Finally there is monitoring and evaluation of the engineering work. This will help in finding out whether the work or project was successful or not. It will also help identify various processes to be corrected for easy management of the project. Monitoring and evaluation are vital as they lay a foundation for the next course of engineering activities to avoid repetition of previous mistakes and improve performance (Fabrycky 2007). Apart from self management, engineering work also requires management of others. In order to manage other people well various factors need to be put into consideration. The first one is competency. Engineering staff should be encouraged to be competent so that they can be able to carry out their responsibilities as expected and this contributes to success of the work. Management involves consideration of the persona and social competence without discrimination. The second one is recognition. You need to recognize others and their opinion. Respect to others will enhance good relation and commitment to the work. Recognition of the social and cultural factors that affect various individuals is part of the management that will ensure success in engineering work. You need to develop confidence in each and every team member so that they can execute their duties confidently. Any conflicts and miscommunication among people involved in the work should be sorted out by fair intervention and setting out proper communication channels. All this will contribute to the success of the engineering work in progress (Salvendy 2001). Management of engineering work as specified above relates to my own experience and activities in life in terms of planning, proper organization, allocation of resources, leadership, controlling and coordination of engineering activities all of which led to my successful completion of management of intellectual property (IP) and extension of the “reach to the south” engineering project that involved reviewing of the environmental engineering design, making sure that the design meets the set standards and supervising the building phase to make sure that the engineering work and services are done to the required standards. It is this management aspects that contributed to my high and timely work output deliverance leading to my good reputation and good earnings that improved my living standards (Turner 2002). 2. Conclusion Management of engineering work simply calls for some vital aspects including good planning, proper resource organization and allocation, good leadership, controlling and coordinating all engineering processes and activities. When all this is done, good work output is achieved, good reputation earned and good earnings received. This will generally improve the performance, living standards and engineering work experience. 3. Bibliography Badiru, A 2005, Management skills for engineering work, CRC Press, London. Blanchard, B 2005, Management of Engineering Systems, Prentice-Hall, New York. Fabrycky, W 2007, Management of engineering projects, McGraw-Hill Book Company. Leone, 2001, Engineering management, Great Lakes Press, America.  Salvendy, G 2001, Handbook of engineering: Technology and operations management, Interscience publishers, Wiley. Turner, W 2002, Introduction to industrial and systems engineering management, Prentice Hall, USA. Read More