Arc Flash and Short Circuit Studies 1

[v6racer]

I have only had one of these done and I would like to know what you consider the minimum deliverables that you would want. We just got a paper report and the labels but I thought we should have received the electronics files from the analysis as well. Is that unreasonable? The next time I asked for a study from the same company the price went up 500% and they couldn't find their previous data to adjust for the minor changes in the one-line so it became an important point.

 

[dpc]

Not unreasonable - you just need to write in the contract or PO.

 

[Heaviside1925]

OP,
I have heard of firms hijacking deliverables, but I have never worked for one. The firms I have worked for basically had the mindset that any work you've done in pursuit of completing a project for a client, is the clients, provided its of quality, does not require the submission of any propriety of work of the firm, or would reveal protected communication within the firm. Of course, we had a standard deliverable set based on the original PO but if a client wanted to see the calculations for something or was using like software and wanted the native format of a file such as Etap or AutoCAD. None of the firms I worked for had any issue with providing those. That said, I have been involved with projects with multiple engineering firms where the client would ask another firm for something like I mentioned, and the firm would want typically a substantial sum for the additional deliverables requested. Some clients would pay, others would tell them to go pound sand and blackball them from the facility. Maybe I'm naive and this is how business is typically run but I never found it ethical, considering I had already done the work for the client and in my mind it is theirs.
dpc has a good point in making them contractually agree to it but from a personal perspective, I would not want to do business again with a firm like that. They may be the low bidder but, is it because they are truly more efficient? Or do they just intend to nickel and dime you later with change orders and hold deliverables hostage?

 

[wcaseyharman]

I would always ask for the software project files, otherwise you end up being stuck with that firm or do the whole study over with another company.

 

[waross]

If there original price was reasonable, you can probably get another company to redo the study for only about 100% (and save 400%) rather than pay 500%.
If you can't find another company at a comparable price, then you know why the original price was so low.

--------------------
Ohm's law
Not just a good idea;
It's the LAW!

 

[dpc]

I'll just add that I worked as a consultant my entire career and I was always told that the client has a legal right to any electronic files that were produced specifically for his project, just like they are entitled to copies of any documents produced for their project. But I would always recommend putting this explicitly in any contract.

 

[OscarLaguna]

In my experience is not common for the engineering company to provide the simulation packages or the study. Since the study needs to be reviewed/updated every 5y, or every time the topology changes, it's not in the best interest of these companies to give you the .oti files.

 

[FacEngrPE]

I am supposed to write FAR consistent statements of work.
Purchasing wants to award to the lowest technically acceptable bid.
In this environment, if I want the engineering model source files, they need to be part of the deliverables list, or it is an extra cost change order. The purchase order also needs to purchase the rights to use the model in the manner you want.

Oscar's point that the results change whenever the topology changes is a valid concern if you want to use the model in house, maintaining an arc flash model so it continues to provide useful results requires some ongoing effort.

 

[Electic]

If the original contract for services did not say they were to turn over the electronic files, they might have not formatted them appropriate for the consumer. It is a liability to send out an electronic file, and then watch some inexperienced operator come up with invalid results because they thought it was a simple process to slightly modify one part.

It takes more time to model a system in a way that supports any conceivable user. That combined with rising costs may have contributed to escalated quote.

One more consideration: we have modelled several pump stations located in similar geographic area. We had a pre-existing model of a utility substation, and could model the power company distribution easily to the local site. But that model existed from previous unrelated work and had other projects hanging on to it. This was our method to minimize customer cost, but to then clean that all up and document each previous information source could cost 5x what we had quoted.