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Engineering and Construction

Stop digging if you are already in a hole!

One of the biggest problems impacting the engineering industry, in India, is retention of experienced engineers in the design department. Organizations are dealing with the situation by forcing the designers to stretch beyond the official working hours which in turn is causing burnout of designers.


Engineering and Construction

Critical Chain Project Management

The age old problem

In the last fifty years, the project management body of knowledge has evolved a lot but the world of projects has not shown commensurate improvement. Numerous studies conducted over the years prove that existing project management practice is not very effective.


Engineering and Construction

The curse of multi-projects

The problem of multi-project environments

Most multi-project environments (where resources are shared across projects) have adubious reputation of very low on time delivery performance (less than 10%), as per the originally committed dates. Yes in many cases, the due date performance looks better, but only as per the revised dates! (or not considering that the scope may have been compromised to meet the deadline).


Engineering and Construction

What is more important in projects – Time, cost or quality?

Project management literature talks about the need to measure and control all three variables of the project – Time, Quality, and Costs (or budget). Most project managers would tell from their experience that there are inherent conflicts between these variables.


Engineering and Construction

Part 1: Caught in a Time Wrap! Part 2: Light at the End of the Tunnel

Accelerated construction projects using the Theory of Constraints Light at the End of the Tunnel

Large construction and erection projects seem to have a dubious record - most of them are delayed with significant cost overruns.


Engineering and Construction

Enabling Resource Productivity in Project Environments

The fact that a person was late as per planned duration does not necessarily mean that he was inefficient. At same time a resource completing work on planned time does not necessarily mean that he is efficient.Managers are intuitively aware about these biases in decisions. So in many cases, they rely more on their experience about resources to rate them rather than just relying on the numbers.


Engineering and Construction

Right for Accounting. Wrong for Project Management.

Getting it right in accounting…

Financial accounting is a challenge in project organizations involved in delivering large construction projects for its clients. The activities can start in one financial period and end in another. Unlike regular production, where we wait till dispatch of completed goods to recognize revenue, we cannot wait till the delivery of complete project for revenue recognition.


Engineering and Construction

Deadline Culture - does it help?

Interestingly, a deadline provides an important piece of information to the resources - How much delay can they afford in starting the task!

"When are you going to finish this task?" Every person in the corporate world will relate to the above question as a boss or a subordinate. The bosses love questioning while the subordinates don't quite enjoy answering...