The overall project process and basic project requirements are outlined and a range of reasons are suggested as to why projects underperform. Some of the difficulties of establishing priorities are discussed in the context of achieving best value rather than simply low cost. The results from some recent research into current design practice in the built environment and how designers are educated and trained are summarised. This brief paper limits discussion to those areas that are considered to have the potential to deliver the greatest returns particularly in combination. They are the role of clients and their advisors, the education and continuing training of professional designers, improving understanding of the design process by all stakeholders, and the application of information and communications technology to establish a project platform for the communication of strategy, objectives and information. These lead to the focus on design as a fundamental driver in delivering best value and hence the importance of managing design. Various concepts and processes are proposed, together with a range of methods and techniques that can be applied depending on the type, scale and nature of the project.

Consulting engineers now run the risk of a criminal conviction under the UK Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. Surviving the financial impact and inevitable reputational damage from a corporate manslaughter conviction would be a huge challenge to most consulting engineers. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of literature that imparts knowledge and understanding of this risk. As a contribution to the necessary remedial action, this paper applies legal analysis and research methods to the Act, case law and construction industry practice. It assesses the likely impact of the Act on the consulting engineer with respect to five preconditions of a corporate manslaughter conviction: (a) the organisation charged with it is one to which the legislation applies; (b) the organisation owed the victim a ‘relevant duty of care’; (c) the way in which the activities were managed or organised amounts to a ‘gross breach’ of that duty of care; (d) the way in which the organisation’s activities were managed or organised caused the death of the victim; and (e) ‘the way in which the organisation’s activities were managed or organised by its senior management was a substantial element’ in the gross breach of duty.

Since the late 1950s, researchers have studied the soft logic of scheduling, in particular the precedence constraint between activities used to compute the critical path. However, by proposing only external constraints and simulating work production through lags, the precedence logic lacks precision. These gaps diminish the reliability of the schedule and impair the internal monitoring of activity interdependencies. Chronographic logic addresses such limitations by introducing the internal division and proposing internal monitoring as a function of production. This paper proposes the concept of probabilistic production-based dynamic functions which would replace internal divisions with a mathematical function that permits the tracking of the dynamic interdependencies between two in-progress activities. A case study compares the overall schedule calculation using traditional precedence logic with the dynamic production-based function. This simulation was designed to investigate the overall impact on the critical path and the criticality of each activity. The result is a new method of implementing scheduling logic that takes into account the impact of the internal changes of workload and allows the use of internal margins. These self-adaptations provide a better simulation of construction-site conditions which help to produce more realistic results.

The technical review of civil engineering projects by independent experts has been performed in South Africa on an ad hoc basis for many years. The scope of an independent review was generally limited to particular elements of the project in which the implementing authority (or the designer) considered that a review would be advisable. Later, with funding agencies such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) becoming involved in the financing of infrastructure development, such as roads or water supply projects, individuals were routinely appointed to act as independent reviewers of the main technical aspects, during both the design and construction phases. It would be natural that, as the size, complexity, and cost of projects have increased, the practice would have become more widespread, but in recent years it is only for large bulk water storage and delivery projects that independent technical review panels have been mobilised. This paper discusses the history and current practice of independent technical review in South Africa, the structure of the panels, extent of their involvement in projects, their relationship with project teams, and finally their perceived effect and benefit to the project. In the view of client bodies, the benefits that have accrued from the use of technical review panels have justified their cost.

Most engineers start their career by completing an accredited degree. The accreditation process is an internationally recognised fully audited process that ensures that the learning outcomes of an accredited engineering degree meet the needs of industry. The process is managed by the professional institutions under licence from the Engineering Council. Employers are engaged in setting the learning outcomes and in the auditing process; academics are involved in designing the programmes and in the auditing process; and students are provided with a clear route to achieve the educational base necessary to become a professional engineer. There are a number of accredited routes to complete the educational base including higher education, workplace education or a combination of both.