Benchmarking: Benchmarking is improving the services, products or procedures by comparing with best technique available worldwide in any field

(Codling, 1992, p. 7). Benchmarking has helped to improve business values in many industries (Zwikael and Globerson, 2006). It was found by Zwikael and Globerson (2006) that Construction and Engineering Industry has highest success rate in projects due to best planning for project management among four industries of Construction and Engineering, Software and Communications, Services and Production and Maintenance. Hence, planning practices in Construction and Engineering industry is set as benchmark to improve planning process in my current field of Engineering Consultancy which comes in consulting industry.

Comparison of Construction & Engineering and Consulting Engineering Industries Construction & Engineering and Engineering Consultancy industries are related to each other as the ideas, concepts, designs and innovations from Engineering Consultancy come to reality through Construction and Engineering industry. Both industries derive each other in different ways, type of construction and method of construction is always determined by the engineering consultant (United Nations Center for Human Settlements, 1996, p. 64) which impacts the planning stage of construction industry. Kirmani and Baum (1992) stated that consultant plays key role in determining the quality of construction work. Management processes in both industries are controlled by professionals with same educational background (engineering studies) which makes many things same but there are also some differences between these industries. Construction and Engineering industry has projects of very high cost and too many resources whereas and engineering consultant design the same project in a cost which is fraction of construction budget and with few resources. Construction firms deal with numerous types of resources whereas consultant firms have only one main resource as skilled labor. Low cost of project, fewer requirements of resources and less risk involvement effect importance of project management and specially planning stage in consultant firms. Construction firms concentrate at schedule and cost limits (Zwikael and Globerson, 2006) as any change in these will considerably affect the profit of organization, customer satisfaction and quality of work are also main success criterias. Consultant firms give more importance to quality of work and client satisfaction.

Planning Techniques in Two Industries Engineering Consultants often dont give much importance to plan the projects in detail which cause over scheduled or over cost project. A comparison between practices in construction engineering and consultant engineering planning methodologies is carried out to find the area of planning which needs improvement in engineering consultancy firms. Project planning is

consists of going through different tasks of Joint Project Planning Session (JPPS), development of WBS, estimation of task duration, estimation of resources, resource planning, estimation of cost and construction of project network diagram (Wysocki, 2012). Construction and Engineering industry and Engineering Consultancy Industry start with good JPPS as many stake holders are involved in one project. WBS is very important in construction industry and given too much importance to know the required tasks to be completed and their link to each other (Harrison and Lock, 2004) while engineering consultant firms dont concentrate much at WBS. Sequence of activities in consultant work especially design jobs is not complex so several times consultant firms dont develop WBS and only develop resource breakdown structure. Task duration estimate is very important in planning as it decides the accuracy of resource planning and cost estimate. A project manager in construction industry try to know task duration for each activity at site and list this at WBS to know the total duration of project completion. Whereas, in engineering consultancy firms task duration estimate is not very accurate due to lack in detailed WBS and due to expectation of change of scope during the project (Joia, 1998). Low accuracy in task duration estimate has impact at resource allocation and cost estimate, which is also not very accurate. Project manager in Engineering Consultant industry also dont give much attention to the project network diagram and main focus is only at resource breakdown structure which sometimes cause negligence of some critical activities and could delay the project. Consultant firms normally achieve high rate of client satisfaction through maintaining quality of work which is their main concern. However, profit ratio for consultant firms could be improved by giving more importance to planning phase specially the building of good WBS and doing right estimate for task duration.

Impact of Planning at Project Success Any change in duration of project will affect the cost of project (Harrison and Lock, 2004) and change in cost estimate has impact at business value added by the project to the organization. Cost, time and quality of work are major criteria to decide project success (Atkinson, 1999) and any inaccurate estimate of task duration and cost effect the project success. It is recommended that engineering consultancy firms should also follow the standard planning procedure for creating WBS and estimate of task duration for high success rate of projects.

References Atkinson, RR (1999), 'Project management: Cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, its time to accept other success criteria', International Journal Of Project Management, 17, 6, p. 337-342, Scopus, EBSCOhost, viewed 6 February 2013.

Codling, Sylvia (1992), Best Practice Benchmarking: A Management Guide. Google Books [Online]. Available at: http://books.google.com.sa/books?id=bvWGuX7yGugC&dq=benchmarking+google+books&sou rce=gbs_navlinks_s, (Accessed at: 6 February 2013). Harrison, F. L. and Lock, Dennis (2004) Advanced Project Management: A Structural Approach, 4th ed, England, Gower. Joia, LA (1998), 'Large-scale reengineering in project documentation and workflow at engineering consultancy companies', International Journal Of Information Management, 18, 3, p. 215-224, Scopus, EBSCOhost, (viewed 6 February 2013). Kirmani, S. and Baum, W. (1992) The Consulting Professionals in Developing Countries: A Strategy for Development. World Bank Discussion Paper No. 149. Infrastructure and Urban Development Department. World Bank, Washington, D.C. United Nations Center for Human Settlements (1996), Policies and Measures for SmallContractor Development in the Construction Industry, Nairobi: Un-Habitat. Wysocki, Robert K. (2012) Effective Project Management Traditional, Agile, Extreme. 6th ed. Indiana: Wiley. Zwikael, O. & Globerson, S. (2006) The benchmarking of project planning and success in selected industries. Benchmarking: An International Journal, 13 (6), pp. 688700.