Various Types of Engineering

An engineer has become an increasingly important factor of our fast growing society. Long gone was the time when two or three types of engineering were the basis of technical successes. There are about 200 types which have evolved and are benefiting the society at large. A few emerging potential fields include chemical, civil, electrical, Management, Sciences, Geotechnical and Mechanical Engineering. All these fields, though different, are interlinked and are of great help to one another. For instance, one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century was the Computer. It was invented by a civil engineer back in 1941 to help his geotechnical engineer friend. Till this date, the computer is still improved by software and computer engineers.

The various types of have given a wide variety of options to all those students who wish to pursue engineering as a career. It has opened new fields. A student can now enter engineering keeping his or her own interest in mind, and further down the line can pursue a job that they always dreamed of doing or are the best at doing.

Chemical engineering has secondary branches to it. Agriculture, Biosystem, Environmental, Food, Forestry, Material, Plastic and Water Resource are a few to name. People living in the modern world are not very much aware of the wonders chemical engineering and its sub branches are providing to us. It has changed the entire agricultural system, the environment in which we live, and practically everything around us.

Civil engineering deals with building and construction, which partly includes Architectural as well, whereas Electrical focuses more towards Communications, Computer, Electromechanical, Electronic and Software engineering. Eng Management involves Industrial, Manufacture, Integrated, Unified, Production and Systems Engineering. Engineers belonging to Integrated and Unified Engineering are the ones who study main principles like mechanical, civil, chemical and electrical in general, and find the jobs accordingly in the industry.

One would be amazed to know that Eng Sciences included interlinked subjects such as Chemistry, Engineering, Mathematics and Physics. Students who have studied biology previously, and would like to become an engineer eventually, those students might find this field very interesting.

Those students who are willing to become geotechnical engineers have an option of selecting a special area of engineering in this particular field. For instance, Gas Engineering, Geological Engineering, Geomatics Engineering, Metallurgical Engineering, Mineral, Mining, oil and Petroleum Engineering. Geomatics engineers collect; display and analyze data about the Earth's surface and its gravity fields for uses such as mapping, legal boundary delineation, navigation and monitoring changes in the environment.

The most commonly adopted field worldwide is Mechanical Engineering. Its sub branches include Aerospace, Automotive, Biomedical and Naval Engineering. When thinking about popular types of engineering, aerospace engineering usually comes to mind. Aerospace is the specialty in which planes, helicopters, missiles, satellites, and spacecraft are designed, created, and tested.

The above will give an idea to the student to select a particular field of his own interest. Whichever field one must choose, it should be by choice not by force, or else the results will not be worth the effort put in studying.

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Quality and Safety Control in Construction

A variety of different organizations are possible for quality and safety control during construction. One common model is to have a group responsible for quality assurance and another group primarily responsible for safety within an organization.

In large organizations, departments dedicated to quality assurance and to safety might assign specific individuals to assume responsibility for these functions on particular projects. For smaller projects, the project manager or an assistant might assume these and other responsibilities. In either case, insuring safe and quality construction is a concern of the project manager in overall charge of the project in addition to the concerns of personnel, cost, time and other management issues.

Inspectors and quality assurance personnel will be involved in a project to represent a variety of different organizations. Each of the parties directly concerned with the project may have their own quality and safety inspectors, including the owner, the engineer/architect, and the various constructor firms. These inspectors may be contractors from specialized quality assurance organizations. In addition to on-site inspections, samples of materials will commonly be tested by specialized laboratories to insure compliance. Inspectors to insure compliance with regulatory requirements will also be involved. Common examples are inspectors for the local government’s building department, for environmental agencies, and for occupational health and safety agencies.

The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) routinely conducts site visits of work places in conjunction with approved state inspection agencies. OSHA inspectors are required by law to issue citations for all standard violations observed. Safety standards prescribe a variety of mechanical safeguards and procedures; for example, ladder safety is covered by over 140 regulations. In cases of extreme non-compliance with standards, OSHA inspectors can stop work on a project. However, only a small fraction of construction sites are visited by OSHA inspectors and most construction site accidents are not caused by violations of existing standards. As a result, safety is largely the responsibility of the managers on site rather than that of public inspectors.

While the multitude of participants involved in the construction process require the services of inspectors, it cannot be emphasized too strongly that inspectors are only a formal check on quality control. Quality control should be a primary objective for all the members of a project team. Managers should take responsibility for maintaining and improving quality control. Employee participation in quality control should be sought and rewarded, including the introduction of new ideas. Most important of all, quality improvement can serve as a catalyst for improved productivity. By suggesting new work methods, by avoiding rework, and by avoiding long term problems, good quality control can pay for itself. Owners should promote good quality control and seek out contractors who maintain such standards.

In addition to the various organizational bodies involved in quality control, issues of quality control arise in virtually all the functional areas of construction activities. For example, insuring accurate and useful information is an important part of maintaining quality performance. Other aspects of quality control include document control (including changes during the construction process), procurement, field inspection and testing, and final checkout of the facility.

Construction Cost Estimates

Construction cost constitutes only a fraction, though a substantial fraction, of the total project cost. However, it is the part of the cost under the control of the construction project manager. The required levels of accuracy of construction cost estimates vary at different stages of project development, ranging from ball park figures in the early stage to fairly reliable figures for budget control prior to construction. Since design decisions made at the beginning stage of a project life cycle are more tentative than those made at a later stage, the cost estimates made at the earlier stage are expected to be less accurate. Generally, the accuracy of a cost estimate will reflect the information available at the time of estimation.

Construction cost estimates may be viewed from different perspectives because of different institutional requirements. In spite of the many types of cost estimates used at different stages of a project, cost estimates can best be classified into three major categories according to their functions. A construction cost estimate serves one of the three basic functions: design, bid and control. For establishing the financing of a project, either a design estimate or a bid estimate is used.

1. Design Estimates
For the owner or its designated design professionals, the types of cost estimates encountered run parallel with the planning and design as follows:

* Screening estimates (or order of magnitude estimates)
* Preliminary estimates (or conceptual estimates)
* Detailed estimates (or definitive estimates* Engineer’s estimates based on plans and specifications

For each of these different estimates, the amount of design information available typically increases.

2. Bid Estimates
For the contractor, a bid estimate submitted to the owner either for competitive bidding or negotiation consists of direct construction cost including field supervision, plus a mark up to cover general overhead and profits. The direct cost of construction for bid estimates is usually derived from a combination of the following approaches.

* Subcontractor quotations
* Quantity takeoffs
* Construction procedures.

3. Control Estimates
For monitoring the project during construction, a control estimate is derived from available information to establish:

* Budget estimate for financing
* Budgeted cost after contracting but prior to construction
* Estimated cost to completion during the progress of construction.