BW [1] - AN INTRODUCTION TO MECHANICAL CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

AN INTRODUCTION TO MECHANICAL CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Construction, the word is familiar to everyone mainly with the picture of civil construction in mind. How a factory is made? How a refinery is made? How a ship is made? These all to be constructed by mechanical process and that is mechanical construction to my definition.

Mechanical construction history dates back to metal age where man became familiar to use metal as the medium in various activities. In the development of new metal processing methods and inventions of new metal formulations made the metal applicable to almost all activities.

In the development of metal and its uses necessitated the requirement of specialized persons for performing activities in metal. The engineering branch based on mechanical was developed and mechanical engineers came in to scene.

When come to the mechanical engineering branch, the most known area where a mechanical engineer can work is the automobile industry. The requirement of mechanical engineer for refineries, cement plants, petrochemicals, fertilizer plants, pharmaceuticals and other types of plant construction and maintenance necessitated specialized mechanical engineer in these areas and mechanical construction engineer came in to picture.

What are the roles of a mechanical engineer in the field of construction? He acts as planning engineer, quality control engineer, quality assurance engineer, erection engineer, piping engineer, structural engineer, static equipment engineer, rotating equipment engineer, billing engineer, estimation engineer, pressure testing engineer, commissioning engineer, box-up engineer, welding engineer, NDT engineer etc.

The implementation of more and more refineries, petrochemicals, cross country piping’s, pharmaceutical plants etc increased the requirement of mechanical construction engineer. The increase in requirement demanded more and more experts/specialists in the field.

The knowledge for working in the mechanical construction cannot be limited to mechanical engineering related fields also. Familiarity with Civil, electrical and instrumentation field also needed to some extend to become successful as a mechanical construction engineer in his career.

Each and every item for this mechanical construction industry is supplied by other mechanical/ electrical/ instrumentation industries and those industries also require mechanical engineers for their day to day activities. There is an interlinked system of requirements of mechanical engineers everywhere in world where the mechanical works are happening.

A mechanical engineer working in mechanical construction industry can be called “mechanical construction engineer”. This is to differentiate the mechanical engineer working in other fields such as automobile industry, production related functions, logistics related functions etc.


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