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Visits of the PLP Companies

Name: Yi Liu

Student Number: 0847832

PLP group number: 23

PLP Companies: JNE; Stantec

Submission Date: November 18th, 2009

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Letter of Transmittal

Yi Liu

177 Haddon Ave. S

Hamilton Ontario, L8S 1X9

liu223@mcmaster.ca

November 12th, 2009

Dr. John Wilson

McMaster University

Civil Engineering Department

Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4L8

Dear Mr. Wilson:

I am submitting to you the report, due November 18th 2009, that you requested. The report is

entitled PLP companies visits. The objectives of the report is to inform you of my visits of the PLP

companies that our PLP group assigned, which are JNE and Stantec. The contents of this report

concentrates on my experiences and what I have learned from the visits of the two PLP companies.

This report includes some information of these companies as well. If you have any question or

comments of this report please feel free to contact me at the address above.

Sincerely,

Yi Liu

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Executive Summary

This report provides brief information of two professional engineering companies, JNE and

Stantec, which are based on the PLP group visits. The main body of the report includes company

introductions, types of services that the two companies provides, clients of the two companies,

employees of the two firms, how the two firms operating and other relevant information.

JNE is a professional engineering consulting firm which provides a variety of services to

worldwide clients. This company is running under a basic project management process which is

detailed on section 2. There is a concise introduction of a galvanizing line, which is the largest project

that was done by JNE most recently, in this section as well.

The second company, Stantec, is a professional engineering design firm. Hundreds of Stantec

employees are doing their best to offer sustainable solutions to their clients all around the world. The

Stantec office that our PLP visited offers services basically on transportation and infrastructure

management fields.

The report also investigates a summary of experiences of the PLP visits. We have learned the

many operations within the company which has provided us with the foresight of our career.

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Table of Contents

Title Page ------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.

Letter of Transmittal ------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.

Executive Summary ------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.

Section 1: Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.

Section 2: PLP Company A: JNE

2.1: Brief Introduction ----------------------------------------------------------------- 6.

2.2: JNE Employees -------------------------------------------------------------------- 6.

2.3: Service & Work of JNE ----------------------------------------------------------- 7.

2.4: Project Management Process ----------------------------------------------------- 7.

2.5: Galvanizing Line ------------------------------------------------------------------ 8.

Section 3: PLP Company B: Stantec

3.1: Brief Introduction ------------------------------------------------------------------ 9.

3.2: Stantec Employees ------------------------------------------------------------------ 10.

3.3: Transportation & Infrastructure Management ---------------------------------- 10.

3.4: Infinite Sustainable Solutions ----------------------------------------------------- 11.

3.5: Brief History of Stantec ------------------------------------------------------------ 12.

Section 4: Summary ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 13.

Section 5: Recommendations for the PLP Program -------------------------------- 15.

Section 6: References ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 16.

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Section 1. Introduction

Communication plays an important role in Civil Engineering field. As future civil engineers, we

are improving our communication skills, as well as getting more idea about what professional

engineers do for the society by visiting engineering firms. This report covered some brief information

about two engineering consulting companies, JNE and Stantec, in Hamilton.

The presenters of both firms introduced their services, employees, clients and some other related

information. JNE focuses more on heavy industrial, power and automotive projects and Stantec is

working mainly on transportation, infrastructure and architecture sides. Both of them are working with

clients all over the world and maintaining good relationship with their clients. One of our purpose of

the PLP visits is to have better understanding of how engineering consulting companies establish

relationship with their clients and how do they keep this relationship in long-term, which will be

included in the summary section of the report.

The visits also provide us more information about how do the offices get work, how they work

for their projects and relevant conditions that they need to finish the projects. The companies are

getting jobs from different ways such as word of mouth from their old clients to others and website

postings. Moreover, the two firms have their own project management processes. As the presenters

introduced, JNE always have a team consist of a head engineer, some managers for different sections

and engineers majored in different areas. In Stantec they are using some software system to control

and keep track of the whole process of their works. Besides, both of the companies are performing

their works based on computer technology since it works much more accurate, easier and faster.

Finally, the visits also taught us how the employees working together even though they are

majored in different engineering fields. Most of the information that covered in this report are from the

PLP group visits recording and the rest are based on the two companies websites.

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Section 2. PLP Company A: JNE

Figure 1. Galvanizing Line (http://www.jneconsulting.ca/ourwork/ps-galvanizing.shtml)

2.1 Brief Introduction

JNE Consulting is a multi-disciplinary engineering services firm based in Hamilton. The PLP

office are basically offering heavy industry, power industry, piping design and some other engineering

services. The company also provides construction, detail design and project management services. The

wide range of engineering services makes JNE get many huge projects, for example the most recent

one that they completed is the Galvanising Line for Dofasco, which worth about $200 million CDN.

The clients of JNE Consulting are vary but mainly large industrial clients such as Procter & Gamble

Inc. and US Steel Corp.. Although JNE does not have too many advertisements they still have plenty

of clients all over the world since they have excellent public reputation from their old clients. JNE are

maintaining long term relationship with their clients with their quality works.

2.2 JNE Employees

There are about 400 JNE employees worldwide, and 35 of them are working in the office that

our PLP group visited. Most of them are engineers, technologists and technicians who are majored in

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different areas; there are also some office supports. The engineering specialities of the office are in

structural, geotechnical, mechanical and piping fields that are operating mainly by senior engineers.

JNE Consulting hire co-op students and junior engineers as well. What they do basically are some

supporting works, for example inspections, sketching and calculation, which will supervised by senior

engineers; in this way, the juniors will learn more working skills and get more experiences. All

employees are planned for 40 working hours per week, but there may some variations since different

projects require different amount of work. Furthermore, the JNE dose not offer continuing education

and professional development program themselves, they encourage employees to take those courses.

Besides, JNE expect their employees to get PEng license after four years of work experiences which

shows the engineer remain in good standing and have liability insurance.

2.3 Services & Work of JNE

The main areas that JNE working for are: heavy industry, power industry, consumer products and

pharmaceuticals; these works require both field inspections and indoor work which will be double

checked afterwards. The office also provides equipment sales and supply, construction management,

process design, inspection services and some other related services. As JNE committed, they provide

high quality services to their clients no matter the project is only a small single discipline project or a

large multi-discipline project. All projects are under Pre-Start Health and Safety Reviews (PSRs)

which includes safety studies about how to prevent the injuries while using different equipments and

how to use some safety devices.

2.4 Project Management Process

JNE has there own project management process to ensure their jobs are in high quality. There

always has a group of engineers which are working in different braches for each project; there will has

an engineer whose responsible for the entire work, then there are some managers and engineers, whose

are majored in different engineering fields, work for separate tasks. Workers need to ensure that every

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project is running on time, on budget, as well as on high quality by report periodically to the managers.

Because of the increasing technical demands of industry, the most used technology of JNE in

performing their works are computer based. Furthermore, all works will be double checked by some

other engineers who did not working on the project. After all these done the managers report their

work to the head engineer and he need to check out everything and assemble the separate works

together and stamp which means the whole project is complete.

2.5 Galvanizing Line

Steve Bohm, the presenter of JNE, talked some detail about the galvanizing line during our

group visit. The background of this project was Dofasco needed a new design and construction of Hot-

Dipped Galvanizing Line which would increase Dofasco’s galvanizing production by 400,000 tons per

year. JNE was asked to provide the preliminary line arrangement drawings of this project. The project

also been asked to be complete as soon as possible which needs good communications between

engineers and clients. JNE proved their high skills by taking 16 months to complete the whole project

successfully.

Figure 2. Drawing of Galvanizing Line

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Section 3. PLP Company B

Figure 3. Logo of Stantec

3.1 Brief Introduction

Stantec is an engineering sustainable design firm which founded in 1954. The company provides

engineering design services in transportation planning, landscape architecture, transportation,

infrastructure, project management, and so on. There is a diverse range of the clients of Stantec, the

office work for government, individuals, commercial firms, industries; most of them are provincial

and some are municipal. The office always getting jobs from the website of ministry of transportation

by submitting formal proposal. As Tim Beliveau, the presenter of Stantec, told us, there are about five

or six projects in transportation and ten to twelve projects in infrastructure that the office work for in a

typical year; and there will be some software system to keep track of every step of every project. The

route planning in northern Ontario (highway 69) was the largest project that the office undertaken in

recent years and it takes about three years of work.

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3.2 Stantec Employees

There are about fifty five employees in the office that our PLP group visited, most of them are

in transportation section and the rest are in infrastructure section; there are twelve thousands Stantec

employees worldwide. Different Stantec offices have different specialities, the one that we visited

represent civil in major. The office consist of engineers, architects, urban planners, environmental

planners and geologists. The office hire junior engineers as well; the work for junior engineers and co-

op students are basically some project related works in the first year and they will have more work

opportunities after they get more experiences. The office also offer continuing education to help their

junior employees learn and grow.

3.3 Transportation & Infrastructure Management

Transportation planning is the first speciality that the office that we visited focusing on. Stantec

offers both professional engineering transportation design and transportation planning services to their

clients, which including airports, rail, bridge, roadways, alternative analysis, bicycle/pedestrian plans

and other traffic engineering related projects. The office also offers some management related services

such as access management, transportation demand management and cost evaluation. Another

speciality of the office is infrastructure management. Stantec offers asset data collection, software

design & development and other relevant management consulting services in this area in order to give

their clients long term maintenance of infrastructure. Same as JNE, most these services are supported

by computer techniques and required field inspections.

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Figure 4. A bridge model in Stantec office

3.4 Infinite Sustainable Solutions

“Stantec is One Team providing Infinite Solutions.” The commitment of Stantec is to provide

infinite sustainable solutions to their clients. Stantec emphasized the integration of their solutions

which will give their clients and users the most economic and social benefits. Moreover, Stantec trying

to design environmental-friendly projects which will also minimize the damage to the environment.

The figure below shows how Stantec contribute their sustainable solutions and future which consists

of three parts: economics, environment and society.

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Figure 5. Sustainability of Stantec (http://www.stantec.com/aboutus.html#about_sustainability)

3.5 Brief History of Stantec

Stantec was founded by D.R. Stanley in 1954. The firm doing water and sewerage projects by a

small team which consists only about 30 employees. After about twenty years of efforts, the company

completed its first acquisition in 1976. The company kept developing and expanding by adding more

and more services in their offering list which also increased their clients. By the end of 1993, Stantec

already had over 800 employees. Stantec made lots of milestones during the next decade, for example

the company made history with the completion of the Confederation Bridge in 1997. Today, there are

about 12,000 employees of Stantec working worldwide and the company is trying their best to become

a top 10 global design firm.

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Section 4. Summary

The PLP group visits gave us a great opportunity to get a better understanding what services are

offered by professional engineering firms for the society and helped us open our eyes to future careers.

Both of the two PLP companies that we visited are trying their best to give their clients the best plans,

models and solutions by their experienced employees. The visits also let us know more about who are

these companies working for, where and how they complete their projects.

The PLP companies open their doors to a wide range of positions for co-op students and junior

engineers who majored in different programs. Junior engineers always being asked to do some support

works since they are not familiar with the professional engineering working procedures. Moreover,

senior engineers and other staff will supervise and help juniors on their works. Most companies will

offer some training courses to their new employees as well. After years of learning and practice, the

juniors will become high skilled and experienced engineers.

The presenters of the two companies that we visited also gave us some brief introduction about

the projects management procedure of their firms. As Steve Bohm, the presenter of JNE, told us, the

final checking section is extremely important since quality of any projects are closely related to clients

and users safety, as well as their firm’s reputation. All team members of a project need to double

check their own part of work carefully, then the head engineer will also check everything out. There

also have some examinations which will be done by several engineers who did not work for the

project. On the other hand, Stantec pays more attention on how to give their clients sustainable

solutions. What they are trying to do is to provide high-quality solutions which have balanced

integration of requirements of their clients, economic values, social benefits, and environmental

values.

In conclusion, the visits of the two professional engineering companies provide us more detail

about their nature of work and operations, which are important information that helped us to make

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choices of our future careers. Besides, junior engineers or co-op students will be asked to do support

works during their first working years and we have to learn and gain experience from the tasks that we

did and the failures that we made.

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Section 5. Recommendations for the PLP program

1. Provide more details about the PLP final report, such as show some good examples of PLP reports.

This may help students more clear on what they should write on each section, what format should they

use in their PLP reports now and what are the differences between the reports that they are doing now

and the reports that they will do in the future.

2. Change the PLP reprot from individual work to group work. Since students visit PLP companies by

groups, it is better to work as a team to finish the final report which will also help students to improve

their communication and teamwork skills.

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Section 6. References 1. Steve Bohm, personal communication, October 15th 2009

2. Tim Beliveau, personal communication, October 19th 2009

3. JNE official website, retrieved November 17th 2009, website:

http://www.jneconsulting.ca/index.shtml

4. Stantec official website, retrieved November 17th 2009, website: http://stantec.com/default.htm