Registration starts at 7:15 am, meeting starts at 8:30 am.

The Mississauga Chapter of Professional Engineers Ontario is planning a conference entitled “Engineers as Managers – An Owners’ perspective on Capital Engineering Projects” scheduled for Saturday, May 3rd, 2014. A similar conference was held in 2010 and it was a resounding success that was very beneficial to chapter members. Based on the experience we gained from executing that event (over 350 attended the one-day seminar), we hope to build an even better conference this year.

The main purpose of this conference is to enable engineers to become successful managers. One area of project engineering is managing a project on behalf of an owner and this conference will focus on this aspect in great detail. Contractual requirements, cause of litigation, and managing delays will be discussed. Engineers will have the opportunity to meet one-on-one with corporate leaders and learn first-hand how to be an effective manager. Business experts will share their wealth of knowledge through panel discussions and seminars.

This event is a great opportunity to network and exchange ideas. The event will be of considerable value to those who contemplate becoming, or already are, managers and directors. Participants will learn the value of managerial spirit for self-promotion at a workplace benefiting their current employers.

There are two sides to every project. In the engineering world there are the companies or governments that commission large scale projects – buildings, manufacturing plants, refineries, power plants and mines – and the contractors who make them a reality. Both play critical roles. Owners initiate and fund the projects; contractors provide the engineering and construction manpower and expertise to make them a reality.

Owners are intent on building so they can have a working facility: a manufacturing facility or plant from which they will be able to generate revenue and profits. To contractors, the project is itself the profit center; it is what they generate their revenue from.

This divergence of positions between the owner companies and the contractors creates a series of issues common to any project. In this conference, we will look at both sides of the project build: the owner company requirements, needs and expectations; and the contractors’. Each side has different drivers and requirements and in order to be
successful, engineers on both sides of the project need to understand the differences.

Two panel discussions are organized to examine this issue in great details.

Owner Panel Discussion: Key executives from owner companies will discuss what they look for in engineering contractors when hiring for their capital projects. We will explore the capabilities, behaviours and experience they look for in contractors and the processes they go through to select the right ones. Each executive will discuss their real experiences of projects that have both succeeded and failed and share their insights with each.

Contractor Panel Discussion: Executives from contractor engineering companies will discuss what they believe are the keys to delivering owner satisfaction on projects. They will discuss how they prefer to manage the owner/contractor relationships and what they do to ensure their customers are satisfied. We will ask each panelist to give recent examples of one good and one bad project particularly in regards to the owner relationship and expound on the circumstances that made them so.

The Engineers As Manager seminar includes the following topics:

• Interface/Project Management
• Contract Management
• Owners Management
• Effective Project Engineering Management
• Common Contractual Pitfalls in Large Scale Engineering Projects
• How to Become a Good Eng. Manager
• Cost Analysis and Project Controls
• Risk Analysis
• Owners Representative/Consultants Role

Special thanks to following companies for their support and participation.

• Hatch
• Bechtel
• AECON
• AMEC
• Candu Energy Inc.
• SNC Lavalin