With the inception of ground breaking inventions ranging from the healthcare to the engineering sector, world has embraced a new face of productivity enhancement. No matter what the area is, efforts are being made to incorporate the new ways of doing things which would add more value compared to the conventional norms being followed by players in the market. In the light of exponential growth & value added hype, it would be wise to recall the wisdom of Charles Darwin.
“The species most responsive to change will survive”
Engineering sector, comprising of construction & fabrication work, is one of the catalyst pillar for the development of any country. Even a French dictum states “when the construction industry prospers everything prospers”. Escalation of engineering sector is of vital importance for all regions of national and international economy, as well as everyone involved in the industry like contractors, workers, financiers, architects, engineers. Every year, billions & billions of dollars are pumping into the development projects worldwide, which has created a great need of documenting it in terms of lean management. Alike other sectors, cost & project management needs to be strengthened in these areas to generate an optimal level of profitability while ensuring a good quality product at the end of the day. Big guns are striving to achieve the minimal lean wastages & better project execution in the light of certain KPI’s which affect the bottom line of year’s financial statement, greatly. It can go as;
“Produce a better quality product (engineering output) at a minimal cost & within a minim time”
Pakistan & Engineering Sector
Pakistan, being an underdeveloped country, has observed a significant shift in the development of infrastructure & engineering horizons. Today many companies are being created with an aim of attaining a big market chunk. Amidst the hype of all these matters, an alarming situation unproductivity & optimal resourced utilization is arising which can lead to the terminal point of many organizations, if not tackled well in time. Let’s discuss some major norms to understand the manner of achieving the subject, clearly;
- When it comes to attaining the projects, than mostly big (limited) companies are in competition with the generic contractors who does not have that level of overhead expenses & extensive working modules like register organizations. Mostly it has been observed that the major deciding factor in PRIVATE SECTOR is the PRICE. This variable is the king in terms of project allocation to any company. Thus, when the work is allotted to the conventional con tractor than the documentation & cost saving modules just fade away in the air. Likewise, when registered organizations tend to quote higher than the respective competition than they also provide that level of quality & inline documentation to match their standards. Thus, project allocation, only on the basis of RATE, must be minimized & quality factors must be put in to achieve the utmost result
- Similarly, with the entrant of CPEC in Pakistan, bulk amount of companies are being register without having any long term goal of differentiating themselves in the long run. Effort is made to do the as much as possible without assuring the optimal utilization of resources. One thing, in this aspect, needs to be realized that Pakistan’s companies are going to be competing with Chinese organizations in an upcoming decade. Any organization which would not go for the lean & cost saving modules implementation in projects will soon find itself in a huge trouble.
- Business is like warzone. Each company try to attain the market share by beheading the competition. In such brutal arena, if an organization isn’t working to develop its biceps, tricepts or honing the sword wielding art (project management modules), than soon it will be buried in the books of history. Every single day, multiple engineering companies are approaching the brink of destruction due to lack of planning & nonserious attitude towards going lean.
- Similarly, one of the major concern in the engineering project is communication gap. Client & contractor do not stand on the same page, which usually leads towards non value added heated debates. If the international benchmark is computed in this aspect, than the practice of establishing certain key business drivers must be done in between both parties & daily data analytical report must be generated which would be in favor of all concerns. It will not only ease the communication flow but also maintain the documentation of complete project on a daily basis.
- Japan adopted the Lean philosophy & prevailed over the whole world. If the bottom line of lean, empowering the personnel with right training, is adopted in the engineering sector, than loyal army of staff can be gathered which can invade any large project easily. By developing the workforce & investing in their training & welfare, wonders can happen in the subjected sector.
- From EPC project to the commissioning ones, lean six sigma modules must be adopted din terms of reporting or documenting the data. It will not only help in the building of momentum but would also ensure the best possible resources consumption.
- Engineering goods export of Pakistan has also seen a significant decline globally due to the high cost & low quality invited in the production processes. In order to compete with the global market, we must strive extract the maximum out of limited resources or nobody will be able to build the shinning legacy in this aspect.
