Project and Risk Management
This domain tests whether you can plan and control a project with earned value, analyse float on a network, and run a risk process that produces usable contingency rather than a register nobody reads.
Planning and scheduling
- Build a WBS first, then an activity-on-node network. Forward pass gives ES and EF; backward pass gives LS and LF; total float = LS − ES, and the critical path has zero float.
- PERT expected time = (O + 4M + P)/6, activity variance = ((P − O)/6)². Path variance is the sum of variances along the path; z = (Target − Te)/σ_path.
- Resource levelling may extend duration; state that trade-off rather than hiding it.
Earned value
- PV is budgeted cost of work scheduled, EV is budgeted cost of work performed, AC is actual cost.
- CV = EV − AC, SV = EV − PV, CPI = EV/AC, SPI = EV/PV.
- EAC = BAC/CPI (typical variance persists); ETC = EAC − AC; VAC = BAC − EAC; TCPI = (BAC − EV)/(BAC − AC).
Risk management
- ISO 31000 defines risk as the effect of uncertainty on objectives - upside included. The process is scope and context, identification, analysis, evaluation, treatment, then monitoring, communication and recording.
- Treatment options: avoid, reduce, transfer, accept, and for opportunities exploit or share. Escalation for risks outside the project mandate.
- Score probability × impact on a defined scale, then run Monte Carlo for a P50 and P80 contingency rather than adding percentages to every line.
- ALARP governs safety risk: reduce until further reduction is grossly disproportionate to the benefit.
Worked example
A project has BAC HK$10 million. At month six: PV = 5.0, EV = 4.5, AC = 5.4 million. CPI = 0.833, SPI = 0.900, CV = −0.9 million, SV = −0.5 million. EAC = 10/0.833 = HK$12.0 million, so VAC = −2.0 million. To finish within BAC, TCPI = (10 − 4.5)/(10 − 5.4) = 1.196 - the team must run about 20% more efficiently than planned, which is a genuine forecast, not a scolding.
Safety, Health, Environment and Sustainability in Industry
This domain tests whether you can name the governing Hong Kong legislation, apply the hierarchy of control, and quantify exposure or emissions instead of asserting that conditions are acceptable.
The statutory map
- The Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance (Cap. 59) and its subsidiary regulations regulate industrial undertakings: general safety at work, confined spaces, work at height, lifting appliances and electrical work on sites.
- The Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance (Cap. 509) imposes a general duty on every employer in any workplace, including offices and laboratories, and places duties on employees and occupiers to cooperate. Industrial workplaces are therefore covered by both regimes.
- The Employees' Compensation Ordinance (Cap. 282) mandates employees' compensation insurance and statutory benefits without proof of fault, while preserving common-law claims. Accidents are notifiable to the Labour Department.
- Environment: Air Pollution Control Ordinance (Cap. 311), Noise Control Ordinance (Cap. 400), Waste Disposal Ordinance (Cap. 354) with chemical waste producer licences and trip tickets, Water Pollution Control Ordinance (Cap. 358) discharge licences, and the Energy Efficiency Ordinance (Cap. 614) with its building energy and audit requirements.
Control and exposure
- Hierarchy of control: eliminate, substitute, engineering control, administrative control, then PPE as the last line.
- Noise exposure under the Noise Control Ordinance: an eight-hour limit of 90 dB(A) in industrial undertakings and 85 dB(A) elsewhere, with a 3 dB exchange rate.
Sustainability
- The Hong Kong Climate Action Plan 2050 targets carbon neutrality; quantify with the GHG Protocol scope 1, 2 and 3 and verify to ISO 14064-1.
- Listed companies report under the HKEX ESG Code, which is progressively aligning with the ISSB climate standard; ISO 14001 and ISO 50001 anchor environmental and energy management.
Worked example
An operator is exposed at 95 dB(A) for eight hours. Applying the 3 dB rule (90 dB(A) for 8 h, 93 for 4 h, 96 for 2 h), the permitted duration at 95 dB(A) is about 2.5 hours. Options are: engineering enclosure or damping to bring the source to 90 dB(A); job rotation limiting exposure to 2.5 hours; or hearing protection devices with an assumed protection level well below their laboratory rating. Protection is the residual measure, not the solution.
Traps that cost marks
- Reaching for PPE first, or treating a valid licence as permission to exceed its conditions.
- Assuming OSHO covers only factories.
- Confusing statutory compensation with common-law damages.
- Quoting an average dB(A) without exposure duration, or ignoring the 3 dB exchange rate.
Professional Practice, Ethics, Standards and Hong Kong Statutory Context
This domain tests whether you can act as a responsible engineer: know your legal standing, keep public safety above commercial convenience, handle conflicts honestly, and understand how standards bite in Hong Kong law.
Status and duty
- Corporate Membership of the HKIE is a learned-society credential earned through accredited academic qualification, structured practical training and the Professional Assessment. The title Registered Professional Engineer is separate, conferred under the Engineers Registration Ordinance (Cap. 409) through the Engineers Registration Board. Holding one does not give you the other.
- Practise only within your competence and sign only what you have supervised and checked.
- Where safety advice is overruled and a real risk remains, escalate in writing, keep records, and report to the appropriate authority if the risk to life persists.
Ethics in practice
- Core duties: integrity and honesty, competence, objectivity and independence, confidentiality, fair dealing, and service to the public interest.
- Conflicts of interest are declared and managed, not hidden: disclose in writing, withdraw from the decision, share no confidential information, and decline if the conflict is pervasive.
- Bribery is an offence in the private sector as well as the public sector under the Prevention of Bribery Ordinance (Cap. 201); cartels, price fixing and bid rigging are serious anti-competitive conduct under the Competition Ordinance (Cap. 619); personal data handling follows the six data protection principles of the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance (Cap. 486).
Standards and liability
- Hierarchy: Ordinance, then subsidiary regulations, then codes of practice (relevant to enforcement and defence), then standards such as ISO, BS or GB, which bind only through contract or legal reference, for example the Building Energy Code under Cap. 614.
- Negligence requires duty of care, breach, causation and damage; limitation periods are generally six years in contract and tort, three for personal injury. Professional indemnity insurance covers claims, not misconduct.
Worked example
You are invited to evaluate equipment from a supplier where a family member is a sales director. Do not simply declare it verbally: disclose in writing to the client and employer, withdraw from the tender evaluation and any scoring, hand over no confidential data, and record the steps. If your role makes withdrawal impossible, decline the assignment. Undisclosed interest is the finding an inquiry punishes, not the relationship itself.
Traps that cost marks
- Equating RPE registration with HKIE membership.
- Accepting hospitality that creates a sense of obligation and calling it industry practice.
- Assuming an ISO certificate proves legal compliance.
- Signing drawings you have not checked, or using client data after moving employer.