Engineering World

Construction Project Management, in its present form, is the end product of my over 25 years of experience at a senior level of planning and managing major construction projects, both in India and the Middle East; and imparting instructions on the subject to practicing professionals, engineers, and engineering students. Project is a mission, undertaken to create a unique facility, product, or service within the specified scope, quality, time, and costs. With the emerging global opportunities, projects cross geographical boundaries, corporate channels, traditional systems, and cultural diversities. The knowledge areas needed to manage such projects comprise project management techniques, general management practices, and technology-related subjects. The project management techniques of planning, scheduling, and controlling are the tools and devices that bind the subject’s knowledge areas. These techniques can be applied to all types of projects. This book covers its application in the field of construction.

The subject matter of the text is usually covered in one-semester senior and one-semester graduate-level courses dealing with the analysis of beams, plates and shells, stress analysis, pressure vessels, analysis of thin-walled structures, advanced statics, or special topics in solid and structural mechanics. As sufficient material is provided for a full year of study, this book may stimulate the development of courses in advanced engineering design. The coverage presumes knowledge of the elementary mechanics of materials. The text is intended to serve a twofold purpose: to complement classroom lectures and to accommodate the needs of practicing engineers in the analysis of beam, plate, and shell structures.

The courses “Theory of Reinforced Concrete Structures” [1-1] and “Strength and Constitutive Relation of Concrete” [1-2] were started in the early 1980s for the post-graduate students in structural engineering and related fields in Tsinghua University. The lectures, and the syllabus, and the contents of both courses are varied during the teaching practice. Two courses are composed and named “Principles of Reinforced Concrete” in the 1990s. The author gave a lecture on this course for several years and wrote the textbook of the same name [1-3], based on the teaching draft. After the book was published in 1999, it is also adopted as the textbook or main reference for similar courses of both post- and under-graduates of many universities in China. And, it is helpful as well for the university lecturers. In addition, some- times the book is used by structural engineers during their scientific or technical work.

Projects and multi-project programs are vital to all business, industrial, and governmental organizations. They are the vehicles for achieving the strategic goals of every complex organization. How to best manage these projects and programs has been the subject of hundreds of books, articles, conferences, and seminars over the past several decades. This book presents a unique view of project management from the total company viewpoint based on successful experience within a large Italian corporation with global operations.

Project Management has often been called the “accidental profession.” That designation has come about due to the preponderance of PM practitioners who have found their way to this field, not through a structured education or career strategy, but rather as a side trip from their planned careers. My side trip has lasted some 40 years and, thanks to many whom I have met along the way, the side trip has become a journey of discovery and fulfillment. This book records much of what I have learned and disseminated during that trip. Therefore, it is only fair that I express my gratitude not only to the direct contributors to this material, but also to those who helped to pave the way.