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Deacon Engineering Limited Is an Integrated engineering services and manufacturing company operating In Pakistan and the Middle East. The company offers services cover engineering, procurement, manufacturing, construction, commissioning and maintenance. Deacon Is a multinational company renowned in the region for its quality, safety and on-time delivery of projects and products. Name of Organization Deacon Engineering Limited. Title of Position B) Background Planning & Cost Control Engineer Zinnia Barrage project was conceived by Government of the Punjab through
PM(ProJect Management Office) for Punjab Barrages, Rehabilitation & modernization projects.. Zinnia Barrage is situated about 203 kilometers (126. 138 miles) downstream of Travel Dam. It Is 5 Km away from Calabash town. The site Is connected by road with the Karachi seaport, the road distance between Zinnia Barrage and Karachi Is about 1159 km, the mall road gauge railway connecting Karachi to Appeaser Oval Sundial Dad Keel-Attack passes close to the Zinnia Barrage. Educated is the nearest railway station which is about 6 km from the barrage site.
This project is a Joint venture of Deacon and ICC (China national Electric Wire & Cable Imp / Expo ). Project has commenced on June 18, 2012 after receipt of letter from the Engineer(Consultant) to commence whereas a formal agreement was signed on May 09, 2012 between Head PM for Punjab Barrages and the Joint venture of Deacon-ICC. The DEL scope of work comprised of the following main items: a) Civil Works Construction of new Subsidiary Weir 800 Ft id’s of the existing Barrage. Construction of Navigation Lock Wall.
Construction of left & right id’s Divide walls Construction of left & right Fish Ladders Construction of left & right Abutment wall Left & right Guide banks Road on left Marginal Bund (LAMB). Spurs Replenishment of existing stone aprons Instrumentation b) Related Works Temporary diversion channel for feeding Dhal canal if instructed by the Engineer. Care & Handling of water including construction and removal of Cofferdams lulls & d/ s of the Barrage and the working pads that the Contractor may require.
Development of park. Rehabilitation & reconstruction of existing Calabash Bridge. C) Barrage Colony Rehabilitation & up-gradation of buildings and offices. Construction of new buildings and providing offices with equipments & furnishing. Road Network Water supply system, tube wells & overhead tanks ; Sewerage system, sausage pit Boundary wall Electrification The total project scope cost was over 11 Billion PEAK including mechanical works which is under our JP partner scope.
C) Nature of the overall Engineering Project The primary responsibility of this department is to help sites implement the project management systems, including but not limited to providing assistance in project schedule & cost monitoring, generation of all project related reports and their bequest screening to provide a one page summary report for executive study. Updates activities related to his discipline in Level-Ill plan in close co-ordination with Discipline I/C, Construction Manager and Planning & FEED Manager.
Identifies updated requirement of manpower, direct materials, direct consumable and equipment based on 3-months look-ahead plan. Generate discipline-wise progress and efficiency reports from PC’S on daily, weekly and monthly basis. Monitors and analyzes progress, efficiency, consumption of direct materials, direct consumable and equipment utilization. Prepares Cost to Complete and Cost at Completion by evaluating balance work, inventory and work in process on monthly basis. Gets data from in-house software like PC’S, GEMS, EDGES, Store to analyze work performed vs.. Cost incurred on daily basis and highlights variances. Estimates cost impact whenever there is change in scope of work or plan is revised. D) Chart of Organizational Structure The project was under construction of temporary site facilities, when I Joined the project as a virtual team member. I worked as planning / cost engineer on this project for a year or so. Today when I look back I consider this as one of the most valuable experiences of my career as it helped me in developing true understanding of project management fundamentals.
Getting an exposure of this magnitude & that too so early, my work & dedication earned me due respect & appreciation amongst my fellow colleagues and seniors. Some of the major tasks performed during this assignment are elaborated below. 1 . Weekly Progress demonstration: One of my main assignments was to monitor the progress of different activities of site. I used to make a detailed presentation to client showing the site performance urine the meetings by taking weekly quantities of different items completed on site with a comparison against plan.
The pattern for concrete poured in sub weir panels for consecutive 14 days is shown below in which Planned concrete poured is presented against the daily quantity achieved for that specific period and I used to run this analysis for all important construction BOX heads (cost centers). This analysis was very useful to get a flavor of the actual vs.. Planned progress in key construction disciplines & received due appreciation from both client & my senior management. 2. Manpower Analysis for Site Activities (Actual vs.. Anticipated): This exercise was very important to accomplish the project activities with optimum cost. The purpose of this exercise was to keep a striking balance between the Revenue and Cost, indicating areas having inefficient operation for initiation of the corrective action thereby ensuring the desired bottom line for the company. The manpower analysis is performed to find out the exact number of manpower deployed to undertake a specific Job. This exercise was based upon MS established norms which were developed through experience of past projects.
Man-hours are calculated against required quantity and converted into man-months to complete a specific activity and are then compared with craft wise manpower deputed with each supervisor to undertake the planned task. The excess manpower thus identified is then redistributed to achieve the objective of gainful deployment leading towards maximum resource efficiency. An example of one such analysis performed for concrete with manpower required & its comparison with actual is attached below. . Weekly Efficiency/Productivity Report to monitor the construction Activities: One of he main responsibilities I was entrusted with was to prepare the weekly efficiency/ productivity reports to track the project progress through man-hour approach. This is a very significant indicator to assess the project performance against plan thereby ensuring desired profitability for the contractor. For this purpose I used the Deacon in house software named DAMS (Deacon Progress Monitoring System).
The activity involved calculation of the total man-hours earned during the month for each cost centre against the earned quantities and compare it with the planned man-hours ND quantities and then calculate the efficiency by dividing earned man-hours by 4. Project Financial Analysis ‘Balance Cost to Complete (BCC): One of the most important activities performed on a regular basis in such projects by all contractors is to determine the realistic cost to complete the remaining activities.
In order to do this activity a comprehensive financial analysis is required to be performed. Even though I was working in a Junior capacity with no prior experience, management assigned this very critical Job to me based on my performance in some of the other areas. I took this assignment as a challenge. Initially I struggled a bit but was then very quickly able to understand the requirements & devised a fool proof process for the determination of the same.
I took all the statistics like BOX item quantities with their unit rates, materials, manpower, equipment and their POOL, productivity rates of the machines and subcontractor scope of work then identified their remaining work to be done and compared it with total contract sum amount. This particular assignment contributed a lot towards my professional enrichment. It provided me an insight into the project financial, a key element, knowledge of which is essential for reports development & project execution / management.
I used the formula for calculation which was given in the contract as PA= Pop*(Pan-1) Where, PA= Price Adjustment Pop= Amount to be adjusted Pan= Price adjustment coefficient One such calculation for Interim Payment certificate (EPIC) is reproduce below, Challenging Task Assigned and Accomplished: I was given the task to audit the scaffolding measurement sheets (about 1000 in numbers approximately) provided by our sub-contractor for invoice payment. I checked one by one all the sheets and pointed out an error in calculations made by the sub-contractor. The impact of the error was an over invoicing of about 2,500,000
PEAK. I showed this calculation to my boss, who after cross-checking, agreed & appreciated the thoroughness of my work. The assignment boosted my self- confidence & established my repute as someone capable to handle diverse assignments. Summary exposure that I got helped me brush up my engineering as well as management abilities. I learnt how to work in a team environment, the assignments given inculcated leadership attributes like decision making & problem solving up to a great deal. The learning gained thus came a long way with me in all my future assignments thereafter.
Working as a virtual team member also was a unique experience, making an impact on the site progress while sitting in the home office was quite challenging & I am happy to report that I managed that challenge pretty well. The project also gave me an opportunity to apply my engineering knowledge to the maximum possible extent. Some of the worth mentioning things that I learnt on the professional side include, costing, scheduling, financial analysis, progress monitoring & contract management for a project of this magnitude. All in all it was an excellent exposure that had lasting impressions on my career afterwards.