1. Civil engineering, construction, petrochemical, mining and quarrying
Projects in this category are the ones that most easily come to mind when industrial projects are mentioned. Once the common feature is that the compliance phase should take place at a site that is exposed to the elements and typically away from the contractor’s main office.
These projects incur special risks and organizational problems. They often require massive capital investment and deserve (but don’t always get) rigorous progress, financial, and quality management.
For very large industrial projects, the funding and resources needed are often too great for a contractor to risk or even find. Therefore, organization and communications are likely to be complicated by the involvement of many different specialists and contractors, with the major players possibly acting together as a consortium or joint venture.
2. Manufacturing projects
Manufacturing projects aim to produce a specially designed piece of equipment or machinery, ship, plane, land vehicle, or some other piece of hardware. The finished product could be designed specifically for a single customer, or the project could be generated and financed within a company for the design and development of a new product for subsequent manufacturing and sale in quantity.
Manufacturing projects often take place in a factory or other home environment, where the company should be able to exercise management on the ground and provide an optimal environment.
Of course, these ideal conditions do not always apply. Some manufacturing projects may involve work outside the home base, for example, on installation, commissioning and start-up, initial customer training, and subsequent service and maintenance. More difficult is the case of a complex product (such as an airplane) that is developed and manufactured by a consortium of companies, very possibly overlapping international borders, with all the consequent problems of risk, contractual difficulties, communication, coordination and control.
3. Project management
This kind of project shows that every company, regardless of its size, can expect to need project management experience at least once in its life. These are the projects that arise when companies move their headquarters, develop and introduce a new computer system, launch a marketing campaign, prepare for a trade show, produce a feasibility report or other study, restructure the organization, set up a show or, in general, are involved in any operation that involves the management and coordination of activities to produce a final result that is not primarily identifiable as a hardware or construction item.
Although management projects may not result in a visible and tangible creation, it often depends on their successful outcome. There are well-known cases, for example, where the failure to correctly implement a new IT system has caused serious operational failures and exposed responsible managers to public disrepute. Effective project management is at least as important for these projects as it is for the larger construction or manufacturing project.