Industrial engineers are responsible for ensuring the operations of an organization are optimized. Often industrial engineers must lead different types of projects in which knowledge of project management becomes a critical tool to successful complete a project. The use of project management can help an engineer in terms of time management, scheduling of tasks, compliance with deliverables, and risk assessment (“The importance of project management”, 2017). Properly managing the time of the members of the team is imperative to ensure a project is delivered in a timely manner. Delivering a project late can cause the client to be unsatisfied and the risk of them hiring the competition in the future.
Engineers that learn about project management are better able to lead the team members working on a project. It is important for engineers leading a project to provide support and feedback to his subordinates. The use of project management concepts such as the work breakdown structure (WBS) can help guide the actions of the team members. The use of WBS helps identify the major functional deliveries and it subdivides those deliveries into smaller systems and sub-deliveries (“Work breakdown structures”, 2018). This technique is very useful since it creates a schedule of tasks for the members that dissects the project into a sequence of deliverables.
The use of project management helps engineers identify the risks of a projects and it helps mitigate those risks. Some of the risks that project managers must mitigate include compliance with the project specifications, avoidance of internal conflicts, budget constraints, legal requirements, and ensuring the project is delivered within the deadline. Another critical skill that engineers must possess to become good project managers is leadership. Leadership can help motivate the employees to reach a higher level of productivity. The main cause of project failure is a lack of leadership from the project manager (Krahn, Hartment, 2006).
- Krahn, J., Hartment, F. (2006). Effective leadership: A combination of project management skills and competencies in context. Project Management Institute. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/leadership-project-manager-skills-competencies-8115
- “The importance of project management.) (2017). Trsstaffing. Retrieved from https://www.trsstaffing.com/news/importance-project-management-engineering
- “Work Breakdown Structure.” (2018). Workbreakdownstructure.. Retrieved from https://www.workbreakdownstructure.com
