There is a very important role for engineers in construction as they are involved in the construction operation from beginning to end. Their part in construction will include the structural design, planning, bidding, management of construction workers and the safety of workers and equipment at the site. There are so many construction projects that engineers are a part of such as the construction of highways, infrastructure, buildings, bridges, dams etc.
The main responsibilities of a civil engineer are engineering consultation and contracting. Those who are involved in the consulting stage are concerned with the design of the structure and those involved in the construction process will have a range of tasks and responsibilities as site engineers. They will need to ensure that the construction goes according to plan and secure the safety of the construction workers through the implementation of safety procedures and equipment. Professional engineers Mackay will specialise in many areas of engineering. Civil engineers will assess the feasibility of the construction site at the beginning of planning. This will require extensive investigation into the site and identifying problem areas such as a weak soil condition that will require special foundations.
Once the feasibility study is completed and the site is cleared for construction, the structural design needs to be done. The architect will provide the plan of the building to which the civil engineer should plan out the load balancing details, foundation specifics and overall design of the structure. This will also run side by side with a preliminary costing for the structural systems selected. All risks of the project will be identified at the beginning and solutions will be formulated by a team of engineers to counteract them. Once the structural design is confirmed and the project starts, the bulk of the structural management falls to the civil engineer. This requires the management of the construction crew and monitoring the progress of the construction.
They will keep the project manager in the loop regarding the progress of the site and any issues that need to be looked into. If there are any issues, they will propose solutions to resolve them. This will require recalculation of cost and reassessment of the project timeline. If there is a significant delay, the engineer will propose methods of how this can be alleviated by identifying more activities that can occur side by side and increasing the staff at the site to the full capacity of the site. The structural engineers need to have a communication line between the architect and the subcontractors. There are different engineering specialists that get involved in a construction project such as quality engineers, planning engineers, billing engineers, safety officers etc. The quality engineer will ensure that the quality of the construction is up to industry standards and there are sufficient quality assurance and quality control procedures in place. The safety of workers and equipment is overlooked by the safety officer. Planning engineers will ensure smooth organisation of the operation which includes the management of workers and materials at the site.