Collaboration

Group Work in Civil Engineering

Collaboration appears during every phase of a construction project. Whether the work is between individuals in the same company or an engineering firm coordinating with the city or state government, civil engineering relies on team work. This is mainly due to the scale of the projects. Even on a simple road and sub-street design there will be multiple people working on it. Needless to say, a sky scraper or large bridge could have dozens of engineers designing it.

Most projects begin with competition instead of collaboration though. Engineering companies attempt to out bid other firms for jobs offered by the city or state, followed by construction companies trying to get hired by the winning engineering firm. Once these original financial details are dealt with, team work and communication become the main focus.

Collaboration Inside a Firm

Although only one name will usually appear on a finished design, the work is usually divided by sub field. On a bridge project you might have multiple structural, transportation, water resources, materials, and environmental engineers. Each of these individuals must make sure their designs line up and function properly with the designs of the other engineers involved in the project. Recently technology has made this significantly easier. Since the information can be stored and edited online, multiple people could possibly be working on a design at the same time. 

Following completion of a design, it is sent out to the hired construction company and the inspectors. Inspectors normally work for the company that designed the project, but will occasionally work in the public sector. The inspector is the main link between the designers and the builders. Their job is to ensure that the project is constructed according to the plans and city or state ordinances.

Companies Cooperating

On a single project there will usually be a main contracting construction company. This single company will then hire many subcontractors to complete specialty work such as lighting and signage. On a large scale project such as the London Olympic Park there were as many as 23,000 companies 

that were subcontracted. The main contractor is in charge of organizing each company so that work will be completed efficiently. 

Once work is underway, the inspector will act as the communication link between the engineers, the construction company, and the city or state government. The city will be kept up to date on expected finish dates and deadlines. Anything that goes against city code will need to be passed through them. Finished work and used materials will be reported to the engineering firm for cost calculation. 

Website Redesign

The website redesign is similar in structure to engineers designing a project together. To help us with our limited contact time with our group, we are using One Drive to share our materials. Inside One Drive we are using Microsoft Word Online, so multiple people can work on documents simultaneously. Any revision one person makes will show up for the other group members as well. 

As far as the design itself, the website we chose is already aesthetically pleasing. The problem was finding information about their actual subject. Our challenge was to add this information without infringing on the appearance of the overall page. Our solution was to add tabs next to the existing ones. As long as the line of tabs doesn't get too long, the page still looks nice. The pages these tabs link to will mainly be text as our purpose is to inform the reader. 

I'm not sure if redesigning a website has anything to do with civil engineering, but it is a good common ground for group work. I've gotten to see what it takes to reach a shared goal with people of different backgrounds and educations. I believe this will not only help me as a future civil engineer, but will be useful for any other career field.