Reasons for engaging consulting engineers

Consulting engineers are engaged by clients for certain reasons, it can be:

Client do not has engineering capability.
Builders, developer, manufacturing organizations or government do not have engineering capability of their own and need to utilize consulting engineers for their engineering work. Client may rarely use engineers, and keeping engineers on staff may become an overhead for client. Therefore, it is good to engage engineers by project basis. As for example, an investor needs to build one factory. The best way is to engage a consulting engineer to look into his requirement. The consulting engineer has to demonstrate his expertise and experience on field of engineering. Upon completion of work, the investor is not further obligated to the consulting engineer and has not incurred continuing overhead expense.

Engineering staff not qualified in work area.
Now days, a client especially property developer will have an in house engineering department. In certain case, the staff is not skilled in the discipline required for a particular assignment. A housing development company may competent to design housing project. However, company needs to hire a consulting engineer to design a bridge in the housing development project where only sporadic needs for the project. It will not economical to retain such skill in house. As a result, the company obtains it from outside professional, the consulting engineer.

In-house engineering staff sized for normal workload.
Certain clients may have a fully qualified in-house engineering staff that has the capability of undertaking special assignment. Unfortunately, the client cannot be free from their daily regular workload. It is not economical or efficient that to engage more staff to handle only for case of peak workload.

Need outside expert knowledge
Normally a client hires a consulting engineer in order to obtain opinion of an acknowledged expert of a project. As for example, in-house engineering team is doing bridge with normal RC beam design. When there is a need of design pre-stress RC beam for a bridge and the team do not has the expertise knowledge, client can engage pre-stress bridge engineer to design and gain the knowledge of pre-stress RC beam design. In-house staff can gain the expertise knowledge on the engagement of engineer.

Economy
It is the most common way for client engaging the services of consulting engineers is the acknowledgement of least expensive way to accomplish an engineering task. A consulting engineering firm can able to setup a team with experience and knowledgeable staff. The team can more efficient in undertake and complete the assigned project. The consulting engineer has regularly in handling similar task, can productively start on the project immediately.

www.civilstructural.com.my

How to determine preliminary type of foundation without Soil Investigation?

Reading Level: Intermediate

Normally before construct a building, we need to check soil condition for that building. It can be done by carried out soil investigation(SI). The analysis of SI report can be used for determine type of foundation.

As a consulting engineer, it will be often that engineer need to prepare RC drawings for client. Client need it for quantities purpose. Normally, SI will carry out at the later stage i.e. after the earthworks completion.

As a result, how do consulting engineer to carry out preliminary selection of foundation?

Preliminary selection of foundation can be based on the earthworks drawings. A simple way is refering to the cut and fill area in earthworks drawings. Where cut area will select as pad foundation and fill area will select as pile foundation. When fill area is less than 1.2m, it still can be used as footing foundation because footing need a certain depth for construct.

Another method of determination is by on site excavation, engineer need to go to site to witness the ground condition. Engineer can observe how the excavator excavate earths. Will the excavator can easy remove the soil. Will soil is loose at vertical sides of excavation hole. If the answer is YES, then ground is soft. It can be recommended to use pile foundation else pad foundation can be recommended.

www.civilstructural.com.my

Tips for General guide line for site inspection on RC structure elements before concreting...

Reading Level: Advance

One of the duty for consulting engineer is to carry out site inspection such as steel rebars checking. When carry out site inspection, engineer has to inspect ALL the RC elements that need for concreting. How to proper inspection steel bars works?
(Tips)
1.Before carry out inspection, engineer has to study RC drawings, identify all the critical or important RC elements, i.e. heavy reinforced elements. During checking of rebars, engineer has to pay more attention on these elements.

2.Checking elements must in sequence of go for horizontal elements and then vertical elements or vice versa. This to avoid duplicated members check, miss out members and work can be done more systematically.

3.Extra attention on the cleanliness of formworks, spacer blocks, formworks, rebars are tighten up where not shown on drawings.

4.Do not argue with any foreign workers! Always make comments to main contractor.

5.If found any dispute that unable to solve at site, recommend just walk a way. Go back to office and make comments in writing.

www.civilstructural.com.my

Tip for speed up piling working when broken pile encountered...

Reading Level: Advance

During piling works in progress, one of common problem encountered is pile deem to be broken. Normal procedure is piling contractor will highlight the broken pile to consulting engineer. Engineer will come out proposal of replacement pile(s). The process above will consume some time, it varies from a day or more.
(Tip)
In order to reduce this pitfall, it is good practice that consulting engineer will come out another set of piling drawings that include replacement piles group details. The replacement piles group can ranging from 1 pile group to maximum piles group required for that particular project. With the set of drawings, site representattive and piling contractor will no longer has to wait instruction from consulting engineer. They can proceed the works without any delay. Consulting engineer can save time on attention on the broken piles. Any way, it apply to common case of broken piles only.

www.civilstructural.com.my

Story about a civil and structural engineer (Part1)!

Reading Level: Beginner

University….

It had to go to more than 10years back. I obtained an offer from a local public university named Universiti Pertainan Malaysia (Now called Universiti Putra Malaysia(UPM)). The offer that I got wasn’t the program I selected. During that period, the offer was Degree in Civil Engineering and I did not know what the civil engineering is? I tried to ask around my friend, relatives and who ever I known, but no one can told me that what the program about. Time was critical; I had to either choose to accept the offer or enter to private institution. Due to my family financial problem, I had to accept the offer because cost of studying the program was low. It costs about RM300 per semester (+USD90). I had a live of university for about 4 years. On the initial period of studying, I still not really understand what the civil and structural engineering is? I learned theory of structural, hydraulic, hydrology and etc.

During one of the semester break, I obtained a part time work in working in a highway construction firm in Seremban (A town in Malaysia). I got the paid about RM300/month. This firm had a project to upgrade an existing road to 4 lanes carriageway. I acted as a trainer and assist a resident engineer. It was an interesting job for me, because I was working in the environment of civil works. It was unforgettable job. The work was much challenged. I had a group of workers who worked under my guidance. These workers were purely imported from India. Therefore, I had difficulty in communication with them. I had to use primitive body language to talk to them. Somehow, there were a lot of funny things happened. As for example, I asked one Indian to give me a rod, he said YES and through it away. When I asked him to crossover a road to assist me on certain surveying works, he just crossed road with alerting the traffic. Until cars which passed by had to stop to allow him to cross. Fortunately, no accident had happened. Later I found out that the India country with not much traffic. Therefore, they were not alert with traffic. I learned a number of practical works in this firm. I learned how to take levels by using leveling equipment. I learned how to check an existing level by referring to a datum level. I gained experience on measuring river velocity for obtaining the flow of river. And more on site works.

One of my unforgettable memory was I had help one main contractor who involved in an accident. The case was installation of bakau piles for slope protection. Piles were injected by using excavator’s arm. One of the piles was buckled due to over pressed, and it swung out and hit the main contractor. The contractor was injured. The incident happened with only Indian workers and me. I was nervous and did not know what to do. I just picked up his car key and moved him into car and drove to hospital. At the beginning, I did not know the dangerous of accidents at site. After the incident, I realized the important of SAFETY at site. From the time onward, I will be more alert on SAFETY measure. I will not do anything that I wasn’t knowledgeable. I got assistance before work into it. This was the first time I realized the works of civil engineering.

The works of part time is really enjoying. I even worked at Saturday and Sunday to gain some overtime claims. Some how, only one thing that I not prefer to is had to work under hot sun, my skin getting darker. I came like one Indonesia worker. People talked to me in Malay language.

When I was studying in university, I found out that the program of civil engineering was not easy. My friend who under other programs were simple and enjoy, where else, my ‘working’ time was from 8:00am morning until 11:00pm night. It was always busy and not much free time. The education program system also brought me into weekly exam. It made me minimum of one exam per week, until I had NO feel on exam. It also a number of course works, tutorials and projects. I was so busy until I never went home.

During my third year study, it was a practical semester. I got one offer to work as a trainer engineer in a civil and structural consulting firm in Seremban. The paid was low only RM100/month. It cannot cover my month expenses. Anyway, it was my first time dealing with civil and structural engineering practice. The working environmental was so difference to what study in university. I noticed that a number of knowledge that I study can applied into the daily works. Every thing was new to me; it made me very interesting in civil and structural field. I became to love it. I can visualize the real world with application of theory of civil and structural knowledge.

Somehow, it came to another factor of controlling the works i.e. money. I cannot work only to what I wanted; I had to fit the time frame of project. I cannot analyze a beam that took me half a day. I had to go into time management.

When working in consulting office, I also exposed to site experience. When I went to site, it was very interesting to me. I saw people built a houses, roads, drains etc. I noticed how my design work was transferred into real world. I felt proud about my works. It brought me more into the world of civil and structural engineering. I was thinking that I had to become a “good” civil engineer in order to serve public. Since I was young, when ever I went to site, some experience contractor will take advantages on “stepping over” me on certain issue that I was no experience. They tried to frighten me and made me went out from site. Therefore, at the initial period; I was really afraid of going to site. Especially on attend site meeting. During meeting, people will ask me some queries and I did not know how to answer. It was one main thing that I could not handle.

Time passing fast, I entered final semester, it was project semester. I selected a computer programming project for a prestress beam design. This was my first time dealing with computer programming. I found computer programming so interesting. I liked to program. I had chosen a Borland C++ language to work on it. Since the language was new during that period; I got no assistance on the language. I always struggled on coding. There was a time; I got one problem that made my program unstable. I could not find the source of problem for a period of 1month. It made me could not sleep at night. My supervisor saw my problem and advised me to stop, but I refused to do so. When time of project getting short, it made me madly, until I almost wanted to change my project. Anyway, I was able to manage the problem and finished the project.

Finally I managed to obtain Bachelor of Degree in Civil Engineering. I missed the live in university. Through out the time in university, what I really learned from it was; how to become more independent? How to get the resource when problem happened? Who to refer to if something happened? How dealing with people?

www.civilstructural.com.my

One of the common defects on house renovation!

Reading Level: Beginner

Now is common that people has their house renovated. It mainly carried out after house owner has obtained approval from relevant approval agency.

One of the common defects that are the cracks line will be appeared along the joint between new building and existing building. If the building foundation is pile foundation then the effect of cracks will be more significant. It is because most of the extension works that carried out by renovation contractor is using pad foundation. If existing building is pile foundation and new extended building is pad foundation; then there will be significant of differential ground settlement. This differential settlement will make cracks happened.

www.civilstructural.com.my

Tips to work more efficiency in office?

Reading Level: Beginner

When you are working in a consultancy office like me in Malaysia, it is quite common that you will be an all round worker. i.e. you have to handle a lot of project from design level until construction level. It also includes the management level works.
Below are some tips for working more efficiency:

Every day, all corresponding letters or faxes must be attended immediately. Avoid any delay on these. Else you will receive a number of complaints from client. Unless the request needs a lot of attention, then you have to arrange a time to attend it.

Any return calls must proper manage. Select a best time for you to return call.

It is recommended that to do any brain thinking works in early morning; because it is the best time for thinking. Try not to do any brain thinking works after any site visits; especially in the hot afternoon. It also not recommended that when your emotion is bad such as angry.

If you feel tired than push the entire difficult tasks to another time, else what you do now will have a lot of mistakes. When human is tired, performance is low.

During meeting, try to answer any questions arise and resolve in meeting. But if you are not sure about something, remember not to commit it.

Try not to do long overtime work such as every day work until 1am or 12am morning. Next day start working in 7am. Overtime works for short period only. If you continue for a few weeks, you will find that you will be tired in day works. As a result, your performance will drop. This is not to ask you to lazy.

After a long working period, a tea break is a good time for you to relax. You will be more effective when you return to work.

When you assign any duty for your workers, bear in mind that you have to follow up with them through out the process. Do not last minute, call up them and ask for results! If your workers not doing your works, then how?

Project files management is important. Every completed project must be proper filed. No doubt that you may feel that this is waste of time but it will be helpful when you are looking for this project file after say 3months. If you put else where, you will be required a search for project file. Sometime, it consumes half a day or more. In a way, you are wasting your valuable time.

Project files management also important in computer filing system. Do not simply save you file any where in hard disk. Put into a proper folder and with good naming to folder. If some file had a lot of amendment, one of the ways is to save in date format. After some time, you can trace it more effectively. Remember to backup your files more frequently, you will not know when your hard disk is going to damage, your computer attacked by virus and etc.

Try to manage necessary thing to be brought to site! Do not left any things in office when you go for site visits. Otherwise you have to pay another journey to there. You will not feel it when is near by. How about to trip that need a day journey?

www.civilstructural.com.my