Responsibilities of a project engineer

The scope of a construction project manager’s responsibilities can vary widely. In this article, the project manager is assumed to be someone who also has design responsibilities and is the client’s representative. For clarity this article uses the term ‘project engineer’ or simply ‘engineer’.

Typically, the project engineer will oversee the appointment of one or more contractors who will also have their own ‘project managers’. The contractors’ project managers will have different legal responsibilities to those described in this article.

All case law in this chapter is based on U.S. Law and cases in U.S. courts.

Sections

Introduction	An overview of the life cycle phases from the perspective of the project engineer.
Engineer’s obligations to the owner	An explanation of the standard of care the engineer must provide, including contractual obligations and his or her liability for cost estimates.
Engineer’s liability to third parties	An introduction to subjects such as privity and foreseeable harm.
Engineer’s inspection responsibilities	The engineer’s responsibilities for inspecting the contractors work.
Engineer’s role in the claims process	Including the engineer’s role as agent and arbitrator.

References

J.T. Brown	The Handbook of Program Management	McGraw-Hill Companies 2008
T.J. Esque	No Surprises Project Management	ACT Publishing 1999
Project Management Institute	The Standard for Program Management	PMI 2008
Project Management Institute	A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge	4th Edition, PMI 2008
	Mastering Project Management Basic	Boston University, 2005
Project Management Institute	Practice Standard for Earned Value Management	PMI 2005
S.J. Amos	Skills and Knowledge of Cost Engineering	AACEI, 2004
A.Damodaran	Strategic Risk Taking	WHARTON School Publishing 2007

Thanks to Ignacio Manzanera for providing this book