A. Hak Purmerend · Work preparation · 2025
Before a single
metre is dug.
Six months as work preparation engineer at A. Hak, a contractor in underground infrastructure. Cable and pipeline projects demand tight preparation: drawings, permits, materials, planning and safety all have to be right before the crew goes into the street.
Period
Six months 2025Role
Work preparation Link between office and siteField
Underground infra Cables and pipelinesObtained
VCA VOL Dutch safety certificationA project is won or lost at the office.
Whatever is wrong in the preparation comes back on site: incorrect quantities, material that has not arrived, a crew standing still. An hour of checking at the office is cheaper than a day of waiting with an excavator on the clock, and that is exactly what work preparation is about.
Working out
Work plans and calculations
Translating supplied designs and client information into how many metres of pipe or cable are needed, where excavation sits, which materials to order, and which steps the crew takes on site.
Coordinating
The office and the crews
Close contact with supervisors and fitters to keep the preparation aligned with practice: matching planning, discussing bottlenecks and clarifying information, so there are as few surprises on site as possible.
Safety
Permits and VCA VOL
Working underground is about controlling risk: utility location requests, working alongside roads and digging near existing cables and pipelines. I obtained my VCA VOL certification and translated those principles into concrete arrangements in the preparation.
What I learned here.
- Quantities and cost
Turning metres, materials and hours into a calculation and an order list, where a miscalculated quantity feeds straight through into the cost of the project.
- Structure in detail
Reducing drawings, utility companies, residents, materials and planning to information in which a supervisor sees at a glance what has to happen where and when.
- Office and site
Not just emailing, but calling, probing and making arrangements concrete, which is how misunderstandings in the field are actually prevented.
- Setting priorities
Several projects at once, with weather, deliveries and client changes as variables: deciding which information is needed first and adjusting when the situation shifts.
- Ownership
The quality of the preparation determines how execution runs: double checking, preventing errors and flagging in time when something does not add up.