Engineering & Construction

Design, Engineering & Project Management Consultancy Services

Concept-to-completion design, detailed engineering and independent project management consultancy.

Our engineering and PMC practice supports projects from feasibility through to close-out. We produce the design, control the programme and cost, and act on the client's behalf to hold contractors to specification — whether we deliver the construction ourselves or not.

Scope of Work

Feasibility studies, concept design and front-end engineering design (FEED)
Detailed multi-discipline engineering and shop drawings
Programme development, planning and schedule control
Cost estimation, budget control and variation management
Contract administration, tendering support and bid evaluation
Site supervision, quality assurance and progress reporting

What is Design, Engineering & Project Management Consultancy Services?

Design, engineering and project management consultancy (PMC) covers the work done before and around construction: establishing whether a project is viable, producing the drawings and specifications it will be built from, and then controlling cost, programme and quality on the client's behalf while someone builds it. A PMC acts as the owner's technical representative — it holds contractors to the specification rather than executing the work itself.

Why it matters

The cost of a project is largely fixed before anyone arrives on site. Decisions made during concept and detailed design determine the quantities, the buildability and most of the risk, yet they are the cheapest decisions to change. Projects that skip proper engineering do not save money — they convert design cost into variation orders, which are priced after the contractor has been appointed and competitive tension has gone.

Who needs this service?

Asset owners without an in-house engineering department sized for capital projects
Government and semi-government entities required to demonstrate due process on public spend
Investors and developers needing an independent view of cost and feasibility before committing
Industrial operators expanding a facility while their own engineers remain committed to operations
Clients who have inherited an underperforming project and need it re-planned and brought under control
Organisations tendering work who need specifications and bid documents written to a defensible standard

When to engage this service

A capital project is being considered and its cost and feasibility have not been independently tested
Design deliverables are needed before a scope can be tendered competitively
A project is running late or over budget and needs an independent diagnosis rather than more reporting
The owner needs a technical representative on site but does not want to build a permanent team
Multiple contractors must be coordinated and no single party currently owns the programme
A facility must be permitted, and drawings need to be produced and submitted to the required standard

Industries served

Oil, Gas & Petrochemicals
FEED packages, brownfield modification design and the interface management that tie-ins into live plant demand.
Infrastructure & Public Works
Design and supervision on publicly funded works where procurement must withstand audit.
Power & Water
Utility engineering, load studies and the phasing plans that keep supply available during construction.
Healthcare Facilities
Clinical adjacency planning, medical gas and essential services design governed by licensing requirements.
Manufacturing & Industrial Plants
Process layout, utility sizing and the constructability review that precedes a production line installation.
Commercial & Mixed-Use
Concept-to-tender design and cost planning where returns depend on delivery date certainty.

How the work is delivered

Step 1: Feasibility and concept

The requirement is tested before it is designed: site constraints, utility availability, regulatory pathway and an order-of-magnitude cost. The output is a decision document that says whether to proceed, not a drawing set.

Step 2: Front-end engineering design (FEED)

The basis of design is fixed — capacities, standards, materials of construction and battery limits — and developed far enough to support a reliable cost estimate and a competitive tender. Freezing the basis at this stage is what prevents scope drift later.

Step 3: Detailed engineering

Multi-discipline drawings, specifications, datasheets and bills of quantity are produced to construction issue standard, with interdisciplinary clash review before release rather than discovery on site.

Step 4: Tendering and contractor selection

Bid documents are assembled, queries administered, and submissions evaluated on a like-for-like technical and commercial basis. A recommendation is made with the reasoning documented, which matters when the award must later be justified.

Step 5: Construction supervision

Work is inspected against the specification at defined hold points, submittals and materials are reviewed before incorporation, and progress and cost are reported against the baseline rather than against the previous report.

Step 6: Commissioning and close-out

Testing is witnessed, the punch list is driven to closure, and the owner receives as-built drawings, operation and maintenance manuals, warranties and the record set needed to operate and later modify the asset.

Why clients choose this delivery model

Independent of the construction outcome
PMC can be engaged on projects built by others. When the consultant does not also hold the construction contract, its assessment of quality and progress carries no conflict of interest.
Design and build under one roof when wanted
Where a client prefers single-point responsibility, the same organisation can carry the design through to construction — removing the gap between what was drawn and what is buildable.
Cost controlled where it is still cheap to control
Estimating and value engineering are applied during design, when alternatives can still be compared on paper, rather than during execution when every change carries a variation premium.
Documentation built for audit
Tender evaluations, instructions, variations and approvals are recorded as they happen. Public-sector clients in particular need a file that stands up to review long after the project team has moved on.
Realistic programmes
Schedules are built from resourced activities and permit realities, including long-lead procurement and regulatory approval durations that optimistic baselines routinely omit.

Engineering early versus resolving it during construction

Criterion	Split discipline packages	Single accountable contract
Cost of a change	Priced as a variation after award, without competition	Compared on paper while alternatives still exist
Tender quality	Bidders price risk they cannot see, or exclude it	Like-for-like bids against a defined scope
Programme certainty	Design queries interrupt site progress	Construction proceeds from issued-for-construction drawings
Audit position	Decisions reconstructed after the fact	Evaluations and instructions recorded as they occur

Saudi regulations and compliance

Saudi Council of Engineers accreditation

Engineering practice in the Kingdom is regulated by the Saudi Council of Engineers, which accredits both individual engineers and engineering offices. Design deliverables submitted for permitting are expected to carry appropriately accredited professional authorship.

Saudi Building Code compliance

Design must demonstrate compliance with the applicable parts of the Saudi Building Code — structural, electrical, mechanical, energy conservation and fire — for the occupancy in question. Compliance is demonstrated through the design documentation submitted for permit, not asserted afterwards.

Municipal permitting via Balady

Building permits are applied for through the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs and Housing and its Balady platform. Submission requirements, review cycles and re-submission time are programme activities in their own right and belong in the baseline schedule.

Public procurement: Etimad and the Tenders Law

Government projects are tendered under the Government Tenders and Procurement Law through the Etimad platform, which sets out how competitions are advertised, how bids are evaluated and how awards must be documented. Tender documents produced for public clients are written to fit that process.

Local content requirements

Public and semi-public procurement increasingly carries local content obligations administered by the Local Content and Government Procurement Authority. Because these obligations influence material sourcing and supplier selection, they are a design-stage input rather than a procurement afterthought.

Standards commonly specified

ISO 9001
ISO 19650
ISO 21500
ISO 31000
FIDIC
PMBOK
AACE International
ACI 318
AISC 360
ASHRAE 90.1

Codes and standards this discipline is routinely held to. The standards applied on any given project are those named in the contract.

Common mistakes to avoid

Tendering from an incomplete design, which transfers the missing scope into variations priced without competition
Treating the cost estimate as a single number rather than a range with a stated confidence and contingency basis
Appointing a supervision consultant that also has a commercial interest in the construction outcome
Omitting permitting and authority review durations from the baseline programme
Deferring long-lead procurement decisions until after award, when delivery time is already on the critical path
Running document control informally, so site works to drawing revisions nobody can later reconstruct
Discovering local content obligations after suppliers have already been selected

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a design consultant and a PMC?

A design consultant produces the drawings and specifications. A PMC manages delivery of the project against cost, time and quality objectives — which may include procuring and supervising the designer. The two roles are often held by the same organisation but they answer different questions: what should be built, versus is it being built correctly and on plan.

Can you take over a project that has already started?

Yes. That normally begins with a documented position review: verified physical progress against claimed progress, the status of the drawing register, open variations and claims, and a re-forecast programme and cost. The review is issued before any recovery plan, because a recovery plan built on the previous reporting usually repeats its errors.

What deliverables come out of a FEED package?

Typically a design basis, process flow and piping and instrumentation diagrams where applicable, equipment and line lists, single line diagrams, plot plans and layouts, material take-offs, a class-level cost estimate, an execution programme and a risk register. Collectively they should be sufficient to tender the work competitively.

Do you work with BIM?

Where the client specifies it. BIM is most valuable when the information requirements are defined up front — what the model is for, who maintains it, and what level of information is needed at each stage, in the manner ISO 19650 sets out. A model produced without those requirements tends to become a visualisation rather than a coordination tool.

How is an independent cost estimate produced?

From measured quantities against current rates, built up from resources rather than applied as a rate per square metre, with allowances stated separately for design development, escalation and risk. The estimate is issued with its class, its basis and its exclusions written down, so the reader knows what accuracy it can carry.

Who is responsible if the design is found to be defective?

The designer, within the liability terms of the appointment. This is one reason design and construction responsibilities are worth defining explicitly at contract stage: where they are split without a clear demarcation, defects tend to be attributed to whichever party is still on site.

Can you prepare tender documents for our own procurement process?

Yes — including scope of work, technical specifications, drawings, bills of quantity, evaluation criteria and the conditions of contract. For public entities these are prepared to fit the Etimad process and the Government Tenders and Procurement Law rather than as generic documents.

How is progress reported?

Against the baseline programme using verified physical progress, with earned value where the contract supports it, a live risk register, and cost reported as committed, incurred and forecast rather than as a single spend figure. The intent is that a report answers what to do next, not only what happened.

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