Leadership and Management in Engineering

This paper presents a case study of the construction of the Jamuna Bridge, the 11th longest bridge in the world. The bridge crosses the Jamuna River (the main channel of the Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh) from Bhuapur on the east bank to Sirajganj on the west, linking the eastern and northwestern parts of Bangladesh. In addition to two carriageways with two lanes each for road transport, the bridge also carries a dual-gauge (meter-gauge and broad-gauge) rail track, a 750-mm-diameter natural gas pipeline, and a 230-kV electrical transmission line across the river. Built at a cost of about $950 million, the Jamuna Bridge is one of the most expensive infrastructure facilities in the Third World. This project posed various challenges to the government of Bangladesh and the international agencies involved. Technical, financial, social, and political challenges had to be overcome, yet despite the complexity and inherent difficulty of this megaproject it is considered a success story. The factors that contributed to the successful construction of the Jamuna Bridge in Bangladesh are chronicled in this paper.

Rebuilding Together is an organization that repairs and rehabilitates housing for elderly and disabled homeowners using volunteer labor. Performing such repairs is not only a public service but can also provide project management and leadership training, since reality is the best teacher. Such projects can put responsibility for a meaningfully large project in the hands of technically qualified but inexperienced individuals and provide experience not easily available in the classroom.

Construction projects are increasingly complex, resulting in complex contract documents. Complex construction can likewise often result in complex disputes, which predominantly arise from the intricacy and magnitude of the work, multiple prime contracting parties, poorly prepared and/or executed contract documents, inadequate planning, financial issues, and communication problems. Any one of these factors can derail a project and lead to complicated litigation or arbitration, increased costs, and a breakdown in the parties’ communication and relationship. This paper reviews the current methodologies for preventing and/or resolving construction conflicts. It is not meant to be an exhaustive review of each and every process, but rather to give the reader an overview of the advantages and disadvantages of each process when determining which one is right for a particular situation.

Encouraging experiments and practices in e-commerce over the past several years are now contributing to and enhancing our understanding of the critical issues involved in leveraging the potential of these technologies. The e-commerce uptake of civil engineering design and consulting faces tough resistance on the technical, managerial, and organizational fronts where industries have developed and evolved to support the traditional business model. In this paper we discuss some anticipated technical, managerial, and organizational changes that are necessary in adapting the e-commerce model for our business. We present rationales for each proposed change, based on both e-commerce prerequisites and business requirements. Technical changes include standardization and e-documentation of business processes, dissemination and simplification of complex processes, digital transformation of business processes and interfaces, reduction of manual executions, and integration and optimization of the entire process. Managerial changes include job management from project centered to process centered, labor management from task centered to data centered, and supply management from organization centered to market centered. Organizational changes include elimination of middle management, breaking down of barriers between disciplines, and integration of information management.