Project Management vs Project Engineering

For years I delivered capital projects in large FMCG's under the typical project engineering model with good success.  The process included solution building, design, procurement, contract management, installation and commissioning.  Cost management was given to the engineer due to mostly 100% of the project budget being capital equipment.  The timeline was usually driven by equipment deliveries hence again the project engineer was managing this at a technical level.

Managing projects at this level essentially rewrote the project scope from cost reduction, capacity improvement etc to commissioned new equipment or what I term the project deliverable enabler not the project deliverable.  Now this works for small to mid sized projects but accountability must be assigned for benefit delivery.  This is often missed and left to operations to extract the benefit during their day jobs.  Essentially the project is being managed at the technical level but often without governance or direct management of the project objectives.

Once I realised this I decided to apply a proven methodology (PMBOK) to a significant brownfield project whilst the engineering project managers took care of the project enablers.  The result was astounding on many levels and made me realise that regardless of size every capital project can benefit from a knowledgeable PM running a methodology.

The most obvious project failure examples is where a new plant is constructed to specification and commissioned within budget and time, however the delivery of the benefit (usually much higher risk) takes years to materialise with extrapolated ramp up periods, commercial plan not robust, cultural barriers etc.  At a project engineering level the project is a huge success but can be an enormous failure compared to the project charter.

In closing for all projects I suggest a bare minimum of project management be applied above the project engineering function to ensure the objectives of the projects are managed with a level of governance to suit the risk.