Primary Functions of a Cost Engineer – Estimator

admin — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 09:18:52 +0000

The Cost Engineer has 3 principle functions:-

1) To estimate and give advise on prime costs, ie labour and materials (including purchases from other manufacturers and sub-contract work) to assist Management to negotiate prices, ideally in advance of the work being started, or as early as possible after that time.
2) To investigate pricing/costing anomalies including changes to work package estimates on Design and Production programmes. To collaborate with in house finance to advise on the engineering aspects of overhead charges.
3) To assist Company Business Project authorities by the provision of estimates, for project assessment and control purposes, on that equipment or process for which they bear management responsibility for.

The detailed objectives of the Cost Engineer are:-

1) Advise internal departments in Company Business of reasonable estimates of prime cost (labour, materials and sub-contract cost) for the forward pricing of risk contracts.
2) Examine the results of selective post-costing in relation to the estimates on which the prices were based and to extract and apply any lessons for future cost estimating.
3) Advise on the direct labour base proposed for Company business overhead recovery and on the technical aspects of indirect costs generally. To conduct technical discussions with contractors and to assist in company assessment (Costs, Delivery, Capability, Past Performance, Financial situations and Cost Systems).

Maxtec Consultancy: Cost Engineering and Estimating ¦ Strategic Business Development

Primary Functions of a Cost Engineer – Estimator