engineer

customer service representative

Amec Foster Wheeler

AMEC Foster Wheeler truly is a great company to work for; I have always gone from Project to Project for most of my carrier, but with AMECFW I decided to stay for the remainder of this Project based off the management and co-workers in my team.

Learning potential during this time has been great, and I've come quite a ways from being an Intermediate Supply Chain Person to moving up to Senior levels and now having a clearer vision of my path and where I want my carrier to go, and most importantly how to achieve it.

A typical day at work is fairly standard with information gathering for various shipments always being a priority and always double-checking shipping documents plus drawings to ensure everything is correct prior to any loadings of materials or deliveries to Site.  Most often the main points of contact I deal with our Expeditors and Engineers with AMECFW plus my shipping counter-parts at various Vendor pick-up locations along with the carriers selected for use on my Project.

My co-workers directly related to the Logistics Group I work with have been great and they are the primary reason I decided to stay with AMECFW this long.  Co-workers from other departments have been good to work with, 

Would have to say the most enjoyable part of the job I had was knowing that I could do a full day's worth of work and still have my experience and suggestions valued.  One of the biggest lessons I've learned from my Manager is know when to do the work, but also suggest a better way of doing the work if I found one - he was a Manager who would listen to any proposal and back you 100% and always had time to listen and talk to the people he managed, though he preferred to call us teammates rather than his employees.

The hardest part of the job has only started within the last 6 months during this time of recession of the Oil and Gas industry; massive turnovers and layoffs were happening on a weekly basis, leaving openings to positions of management and leadership that were filled with experienced personnel (absolutely no questioning these individuals experience in the industry), but no leadership to guide these individuals in a new direction for the Project.  This included my Logistics group as well as my Manager has moved onto another Project.  

I have noticed a trend that with lack of direction, a person will always fall back on what they know and work towards making a project viable again through those means, which works well on smaller projects but not projects that have multiple departments or are the size of this current one I am working on.  

Any potential for advancement due to my contractor status is gone as AMECFW has stated that most Contractors would be let go at some point unless they are critical to an ongoing project- it's a policy though I understand as most EPC companies work in this fashion so I am not surprised nor have any malice for the company in this regard.

I truly do think AMECFW is the greatest company I have thus far worked for and I know they will be able to rebound and come back stronger in the Oil and Gas and possibly Energy Industries in the future.  But for now my need to learn and continue my education in Supply Chain with a focus on Logistics is something I want to pursue, hence I feel now is the time to explore new challenges and see where this can lead me.

Got to work each day, made myself tea in the break room, then sat down at the computer for 8 hours (with a 30-minute break). There were 3 layers of management that would separately ask you to work on different and incompatible tasks leaving you to have to sort out the mess. Management demanded quick and quality results and did not care if your work was documented; There was no standard of documentation. The attitude was get the job done fast to pass it on to the people out in the field ("its their problem now"). Because of the messy archives determining what was and wasn't completed was difficult if not impossible often leading to unnecessary repeated work. Management at the upper levels was slow and unorganized. My first month was a slow work load for me while everyone around me was stressed so i asked my supervisor (was replaced that very same month) for more work. He had told upper management and they responded 3 months later, when the department I was at needed me the most, by transferring me without warning to a department that had no work for me. 

Documentation and management aside, work gets done quickly at AFW. You will end each day feeling tired but very accomplished with your work. AFW strives for workplace safety and a diverse and inclusive work environment. Work fast, confront management about poor decisions, and don't work overtime.

Typical day at work is good. There aren't a lot of surprises. Sometimes there is some variance in print requisitions or perhaps a discrepancy is found on a courier invoice when reconciling it that may require some investigation to fix the problem. Sometimes senior document controllers may have new information to share and tasks to learn. I learned something new everyday that helped me in my work and helped me to help others as well. It is a corporate company that deals with a lot of confidential information, so there is a lot of training involved for anti-corruption and business conduct. It is also very safety oriented. There is an HSSE department at each office around the world and at every mine site. Safety is #1. I enjoyed working with wonderfully professional colleagues each day. Getting to know them was a pleasure. The most difficult part of working for a company like this was watching the mining industry fluctuate and change to where hundreds of engineers and people in the company have been layed off from the positions. When the projects run out, so does the work. If the mining industry falls flat, so does the income of project work.

Kindly note that I am managing the Project Controls for more than 12 years. I have experience on PMC, EPCM, and EPC of Oil and Gas, Buildings, Chemicals, Petrochemicals, and Mines and Refineries Projects. I am expert in Planning, Scheduling, Cost Controlling, and Project Controls and have leadership in Project Engineering, Procurement, Contracts, Controls, and Construction.

My Controls Management covers Projects of more than 10 Billion USD contract value. 
I am highly skilled in Planning and Progress Monitoring, Cost Controls, Plans and Budgets, Commitments, Payments  and Expenditures, and Margin Analysis, and can set up the Project Controls System and develop and implement the controls procedures in any kind of project.

Change Management of Budgets and Trends, Variations, and impact on Contingency and TIC are also part of my experience, in addition to the Risk Management, Causes and Effects, impact on Cost and Schedule, and mitigation Strategies.

There is little or no job security which does affect the way people work... why bother to go the extra mile for people who don't care if I still have a job tomorrow... Loyalty is for a select few.
Safety is a joke really... the culture seems to be about getting a quota of Near Miss Reports in irrespective of the quality to get a reward each month... it does little to improve anything.   Other safety is based on parenting skills... and worrying about women's footwear!
 Not a company of first choice!

That said, while you have a job... the money and benefits are good... that's more down to the Client paying for it rather than AMEC...

Planning and time scales- issues both with AMEC and their Client lead to unrealistic timescales for completions and that leads to great stress - those who can't cope or kick back seem not to be around the following Monday......

A typical day on project can be very occupied at the height of the project.  I learnt a lot about forecasts, actuals, budgets, variances, FTEs, KPIs, compliance, audits, change orders, project baseline scope and estimates.  Management was keen and kept asking questions to make sure the project is progressing within guidelines with proper authority, controls and as planned.  One of the challenging part of the job was being pulled in different directions at many a times during the course of the project. Nonetheless, it was rewarding as well as hectic at times.  As I look back at it, it was good and refreshing as it never stays the same.

This is a geotechnical part of the company. The routine job was to approval of various test results of soil, concrete and investigation reports of foundations certification

 Practical knowledge of soil mechanics. The behavior of soil in different loading condition, Subsurface investigation for all types of building foundation, roads, bridges, runways including land development. 
Overall well-managed company, acceptable workplace culture, dealing with the inaccessible ground in the deep winter  is the hardest part of job and also such places has less fun.

An ideal typical day of work starts with checking on engineers working in the filed on various projects that I am engaged in. Field work typically leads to reporting and analysis in the office. Upon report completion and the supervision of intermediate level engineers I am contacting clients to update them on project progress and following up for future work to be engaged in.

I have been dynamically engaged with various coworkers working in the filed and office to complete reporting and proposal writing. to complete reports and project work and hand in to the client on time and budget gives me satisfaction and sense of achievement.

My new job in Amec Foster Wheeler Saskatoon is entirely different from my previous job in the Middle East and in the Philippines. This is my first time to work in mining company and the system is a litle bit different from my previous experience especially on the design of Electrical Modular Substation wherein my previous experience are mostly on stick built Electrical Substation. The new technology for the Design of Modular Electrical Room including the Heat Tracing system is an added knowledge to me.

- Management is awful.  They do not care about their employees at all and will out you into unreasonable situations.  
- They pay is awful and gives you no incentive to work hard
- You are not given any respect from management
- Never know how long you days will be, which makes it impossible to plan things after work
- I cant say enough how awful the management is here.  Would not recommend working here specifically because of this.  
- Only positive thing to say is your co-workers are awesome and share the same hate for management that you will.  So at least you will have that in common
- Very slow winters 
- You do not get paid even if you at work waiting for someone or something.

DONT WORK HERE

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Engineer 1 salary reported	$89,100 per year
Customer service representative 1 salary reported	$49,500 per year

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