In Civil Engineering field the most common position a common man will know is a Site Engineer. Basically a site engineer is one who takes care of a building from foundation stage to the finishing stage. A Diploma holder or a civil engineering graduate is eligible for the post of a site engineer.
During college life of a civil engineering student it is very fascinating to see huge building, towers, irrigation projects etc but as soon as you come out of the academics there starts a tug of war between your basics which you learnt in classes and with practical site, you feel it’s completely different sitting in classes and writing notes and actually giving instructions to labors. Site engineer job actually looks very difficult in the beginning as most of the students who are graduated don’t know the local names of the construction tools used, site engineer has to deal with unskilled labor’s, understanding the different drawings on site (some you may have never seen), there may be extra working hours initially and most importantly site engineer will be held responsible is anything goes wrong on site as he is the in charge of the particular site. One needs at least 1 year to cope up with all difficulties encountered while learning this great job as time passes everything seems to be easy but it doesn’t mean that site engineer should be relaxed he has to get updated with latest technologies and also previous 1 year experience will come handy to learn something new and get acquainted with new techniques in construction industry.
Now we will look into the important points to be remembered by a Site Engineer
- The day any graduate joins as a site engineer devote your 50 percent of the time to analyse and understand the drawings because without drawings site engineer will not sustain, site engineer should be capable to read drawings accurately.
- Prepare the list of materials or man power required for the assigned project.
- Always study the layout plan well in advance before going on site as it helps you to understand the things accurately.
- Make a separate register for DPR (Daily Progress Report), in this site engineer has to note down number of manpower assigned to work, assigned job name, quantity of job done till the end of the day.
- Site engineer should be aware of the reinforcement details, excavation of soil for the foundation, scaffolding etc.
- Site engineer should be aware of common tests such as cube test, slump test on fresh concrete, sieve test, moisture content test which are done on site and should know the the range of values of test so that site engineer can take necessary decision on materials.
- Silently notice the amount of time taken by the labors to complete the assigned job and as time passes you will develop the art to judge the amount of time taken for each piece work which will help you to deal with your seniors and vendors.
- Do not hesitate to learn from anybody, you can learn a lot from masons, bar benders as they do the things practically but at the same time be careful not to show you don’t know the things.
These are some of the points a beginner site engineer has to remember to excel in his assigned work.
Er. Abhishek Kumar
Project Engineer
Alpha Corp Development Pvt. Ltd.
New Delhi, India