Engineering performance in the US industrial construction sector

Industrial facility construction constitutes a major sector of the construction industry in the US. Even with the long history of building industrial facilities, it is not uncommon for industry professionals to encounter unanticipated cost overruns and schedule delays on projects. These experiences are leading the industry to become increasingly aware of the effects of a project's early stages, particularly the engineering stage, on successful or unsuccessful implementation. This article presents a study conducted by the authors to investigate the current status of engineering activity in industrial construction projects, the extent to which engineering influences project performance, and the current practices in engineering performance measurement and control. The study was pursued under the sponsorship of the Construction Industry Institute (CII) research team on engineering productivity measurement (RT-156). Part of the data needed for the study was obtained from the CII Benchmarking & Metrics Committee (BM&M), while the rest was collected specifically for the study through questionnaire surveys among CII member companies. The statistical analysis, covering areas such as project cost, project schedule, scope and development changes, and field rework, clearly shows that many project deviations emanate from the detailed design phase where most engineering activities take place. The study goes on further to review the practices of measuring and controlling engineering performance in the industrial construction sector. Techniques pertaining to the earned value concept were generally found to dominate the practice of engineering performance control in the surveyed organizations. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]