Leading without losing track of the details

Project director Lars Boysen discusses how he views the role of an engineering manager, and why that person is instrumental to have on the team when executing large-scale engineering projects.

Why is an engineering manager important in pharma engineering?

As a project director, I am in charge of heading up complicated, large-scale engineering projects. When you start up a project, it is essential to align your team and get people moving toward the same targets and working together in an efficient way. The engineering manager is central to setting up a project in an organised way, one that will allow us to benefit from the knowledge we’ve acquired during previous projects.

On those larger projects, where there are so many details to account for, the engineering manager also plays an essential role in making sure that everything is controlled and in order, according to our procedures. They bring a broad understanding of all the different disciplines that come into play as well as the process-oriented aspects of a project – for example, how the mechanical equipment works in actuality or what to be mindful of when working on a design. In this way, the engineering manager has a very strong influence on the setup of a project, all the way from the use of procedures down to how the team is organised.

What are the benefits of becoming an engineering manager?

A single project here at NNE can often span a wide range of disciplines, so you inevitably end up working with colleagues from another discipline than your own. In that respect, you end up learning about how those other areas operate. Some engineers can be a bit reluctant to go into project management because they are concerned that they’ll lose that connection to the technical parts of their discipline. As an engineering manager, however, you’re able to get involved with both – it’s a chance to take a leadership role without leaving the technical details behind.