The Place and the Role of the Construction Engineer in Project Management

Purpose: - Building and construction continue to represent an important activity in the development of humankind. In the past 20 years, the Romanian construction industry has gone through several stages, transitioning from monopoly to liberalisation, and implicitly from exclusive state ownership to mostly private ownership. If the investment projects in this sector are to be legitimate and sustainable, the individuals that manage them must have a thorough training as Project Managers as well as construction engineers. The current stage of the construction industry development in Romania requires an internationally recognised management framework, such as the PMBOK Guide (A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge). This study highlights the effectiveness of using modern management tools in construction projects in the current Romanian construction industry. Methodology/approach: - All project managers' goal is to finalise the project in the best possible conditions, avoiding failure as much as possible. Failure in a construction project means negative effects on the environment, additional costs for dismantling, wasted financial and material resources; this alone should be a great incentive for project managers to eliminate as many as possible of the errors that cause failure. Starting form this idea, this study outlines and highlights the features of the construction project, as well as the implications concerning the construction engineer, using the PMBOK guide as a base. This study carries out a review of the particulars that set construction projects aside as a separate category. The analysis performed is based on current information concerning the construction market, and this adds to its relevance. Practical implications: - The growing interest for infrastructure and construction is a result of the natural aspiration for development and for reaching European standards. The latter issue requires that the industry assimilates specific technologies, as well as modern tools for monitoring and analysing the management of the projects. In Romania, once foreign investment was attracted, established management strategies were put into practice. In the past 20 years, the process has also been driven by the manager's desire to improve their knowledge and skills in the interesting and challenging domain of constructions. Originality/value: - The originality of the study resides both in its starting point as well as in the way the management features are detailed from a construction industry perspective.