Can you hire a firm to stamp final design documents? 3

[psmpsm]

I am exploring solutions to a situation I see myself being in, in the near future.

Basically, I am tasked with being EoR for design work, when I was hired for study work. I have no design experience in this field (I do in another field). My manager is not licensed, but has the experience, and wants to help me get the design correct so I can stamp the end product. To me, this is a violation of both responsible charge and well as competence statutes.

My solution is this - is it possible for me to perform the design on a project, and hire an engineering firm at the end of it to fully evaluate the design and for them to stamp the end product? They will be responsible charge since they will look at every detail of the work and redo the calculations. I am thinking that is legal.

I'm not asking if they can just give it a quick review and stamp it - that is clearly unethical. But for them to do a detailed review, and then stamp at the end. This removes liability for me, and keeps my employer happy as they won't have to hire an additional engineer to fulfill this function.

I would like to keep this arrangement for a couple of years until I can ethically declare myself competent enough to stamp documents on my own.

 

[phamENG]

Depends on where you are. In some states, that is legal - as long as the EOR has reviewed the work and has an understanding of it that would equal his/her understanding of it had he/she done all the work themselves and they have the authority to make changes as they see fit, then they can do it. I've never heard of an especially reputable firm jumping at this kind of stuff, though.

In other states, it's not. Here in VA the regulations clearly state that I can only put my seal on work product that was produced by me or by a person working for the same firm I work for.

One common exception is prototype drawings. In some places you can alter and stamp prototypical drawings (like a hotel that is identical everywhere it's built). So if you are building a bunch of identical data centers, that may work.

 

[stevenal]

Why wait until the end? I would suggest meeting with them regularly to review your work and give direction going forward. Responsible charge clearly established.

I know in the field of social work, licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs) are commonly hired by those not yet licensed to review cases and progress toward licensure.

 

[psmpsm]

Stevenal - would doing something like this, make our firm look bad?

Essentially they were supposed to hire a design engineer for this purpose but they decided to drop that responsibility on me, which is unfair. I don't think I'm being unreasonable asking them for this.

 

[Settingsun]

From a standpoint of pure expedience, you don't need to worry about the ethics. That's the stamper's problem.

I think you need to judge what looks bad with respect to early involvement of the stamper. We don't know the full picture. My instinct is to get them involved early, even if just once at a stage you'd call 'concept design'. Plenty of projects have gone from bad to disaster when the only review was held when design was complete (three weeks after due date) and 120% of budget already spent. Reviewer finds a problem when it is vital that none be found.

 

[phamENG]

From a standpoint of pure expedience, you don't need to worry about the ethics. That's the stamper's problem.

I'm not sure I understand steveh49's point here, so I apologize if I'm reading it wrong; but I disagree with the 'face value' of that statement. OP is a licensed PE. If this situation is unethical and it comes to disciplinary action with the board, he's just as likely to get hit with a fine or whatever they decide is required for knowingly setting up an unethical situation.

It only looks "bad" if you are an engineering firm that is properly licensed and insured and advertises full design services. I don't think you ever answered that in your other posts. Does your company have a Certificate of Authority and Firm License in all states where these will be built? If the answer is no, then you need consultants regardless.

I worked for a sign company for a while after college. I would design the sign structure and have our in-house drafting department draw up the preliminaries for the estimators. They would price it. Then those would go to outside consultants (we built signs for all 50 states and several other countries) to prepare full, formal calculations and any permit drawings that may have been required. They would also let me know if I made a mistake or needed to change something. Once that was done, those would be submitted for permit and would go to the factory so the manufacturing engineers could finalize the manufacturing details and put it into production. Even if I had been a PE at the time, I would not have been stamping anything, because the company didn't have the correct license for me to do so.

 

[271828]

Why wait until the end? I would suggest meeting with them regularly to review your work and give direction going forward. Responsible charge clearly established. ...

I think that's the only way to be in responsible charge.

https://www.nspe.org/resources/issu...es-and-position-statements/responsible-charge

psmpsm, "responsible charge" was described in at least one of your other threads, so presumably you understand what it means. If I understand you correctly, you're asking about the sealing equivalent of "I know XYZ is against the law, but is it wrong if I partner with someone else who will XYZ." That would seem like a pretty easy ethics question.

I realize there are legions of PEs out there sealing designs for which they have not been in responsible charge. It's something we as a profession need to take a stand against IMO. Legal in a specific state or not, IMO.

 

[Settingsun]

Nothing to do with ethics IMO. It's all to do with dancing to the tune. Psmpsm is proposing a thorough review. For whatever reason, that's not sufficient according to many regulators, even though the outcome is the same as supposedly ethical processes, and functionally equivalent aside from different letterheads of designer and reviewer.

I'm curious: do North American regulators work the same as in Australia? Here, you're pretty much bulletproof if you work for a medium or large company (eg psmpsm). Sole practitioners, on the other hand, will feel the full wrath (phameng). I think that tints people's ethics and is maybe the case here.

(We're all Western here - so very likely criminals in the eyes of our respective governments, one way or another.)

 

[phamENG]

pretty much bulletproof if you work for a medium or large company (eg psmpsm). Sole practitioners, on the other hand, will feel the full wrath (phameng)

Sort of, but not for the reasons I think you seem to be implying. Usually, big and medium companies have the means and wherewithal to avoid these situations (full time legal teams, lots of experience, access to clients and projects that don't require you to sail close to the wind). The small firms and sole practitioners either don't have the resources for appropriate counsel on such matters or they'll do 'anything' just to keep the lights on. So more infractions occur in the small firms and sole practitioners as a result. At least that has been my experience:

I've worked for a big manufacturing company, a small firm, then went to a Fortune 500 company, and back to very small again. The manufacturing company I described above, but I wasn't licensed so while the policies were good they didn't really impact me. The first small firm had lot's of questionable practices that carried over from the last financial downturn - they were doing what they felt they had to do to survive. At the big company, I was the only licensed engineer on site and management (and the attorney who had an office there) were very skittish about my seal and set down a policy that I was not to use it on anything without direct approval from the site GM. Which was good, because they knew they didn't have the licenses or insurance to authorize me to use it.

(We're all Western here - so very likely criminals in the eyes of our respective governments, one way or another.)

Ehhh...not really. I've never gotten that impression in anything here. Our system here is imperfect and needs lots of improvements, but it beats most of the alternatives I'm aware of.

 

[gte447f]

psmpsm, in the scenario you describe and are inquiring about, I have to ask, what purpose and/or role do you and your firm serve? Please don't take offense, but what I mean is, if you are hiring another firm to "look at every detail of the work and redo the calculations", then they are basically doing everything, as they should be, and you are collecting a fee to do nothing of value. I presume they will be expected to collect less fee than if you were not involved, which makes the situation even more ridiculous. I suppose you might pull the old line about, "I'll be doing all the drafting", but, frankly, who cares, I would rather me or my firm get paid to profit from the drafting also.

As you can probably tell from my response so far, this sounds to me like another example of a tired old scenario that many of us have encountered over and over before of people trying to skirt around what is essentially unlicensed engineering practice.

 

[psmpsm]

Gte447f:

Our firm is a manufacturer that is starting to get into services. I was hired to do one aspect of the services (studies) but because I appear to be very competent and have my PE, they decided to ask me to do the design as well. That way they don't have to hire an engineer for design. To fill in the gaps for my lack of design experience, my manager said he will teach and/or assist in the design.

I agree with you that hiring another firm to stamp the drawings isn't ideal.. but they have put me in this position and I don't see a way around that. I have design experience in another industry, but not in this one, so for me to be the EoR and stamp drawings is not supposed to happen, in my opinion.

 

[phamENG]

What is your service area? Are you strictly local, or do you perform work around the country?

 

[IRstuff]

For whatever reason, that's not sufficient according to many regulators, even though the outcome is the same as supposedly ethical processes, and functionally equivalent aside from different letterheads of designer and reviewer.

That's because "responsible charge" is not present. Ostensibly, there ought to be a series of "in progress" reviews to make "responsible charge" plausible; for example, MIL-STD-1521 compliance would include System Requirements Review, System Function Review, Preliminary Design Review, Critical Design Review, Test Readiness Review, and Production Readiness Review. Test Readiness Review is for qualification and design verification testing, so that might not apply here.

Each of the reviews would entail a series of presentations from various disciplines or teams working on the project.

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[gte447f]

psmpsm, it's the hiring of another firm that I take issue with. Either your firm does it, or why are they even involved? That's what I meant by what purpose do you and your firm serve in this scenario. Did your firm sell engineering services that they are not qualified to preform? It sounds like it. At least they must be licensed, thanks to you it seems, but are they really? Do they have a certificate of authority in your state? Is it dependent on your license or someone else's? If someone else's why can't they stamp?

Now, if you are "very competent" as you say that you appear, and you have your PE as you say, then perhaps you can stamp the design. We all have to start somewhere when applying that first stamp.

 

[psmpsm]

Gte447f:

Our firm could theoretically do 80-90% of the design work and have an outside agency review it at each stage to stamp it at the end. Our firm is qualified to do the services, it's just that the PE-subordinate role is reversed - they have a PE (me) with no experience in the industry, and they have my manager (non PE) with plenty of experience. In reality it should be the manager with the PE and the subordinate with or without the PE, and the manager stamping the subordinate's work. That is reversed here. I know for fact there's no way I will get all the design correct on my own so much of it will be my manager's work. I do not say this because of lack of confidence, but because when I was involved with design work in another industry, it was not nearly as cut and dry as study work. It takes many projects/years to really become competent in design.

To put it simply if there was a job posting that required someone to be an EoR for datacenter design projects, there's no way they would hire someone for that job with no datacenter design experience, let alone stamp the drawings.

Our firm is still working on getting licensure in the appropriate states (doesn't seem like much of an issue, unless I'm mistaken). It would seem that their licensure is dependent on me being licensed.. which is troublesome considering if for unforeseen circumstances I'm no longer with the firm, they would have to reapply for licensure.

 

[phamENG]

This sounds like a bit of a train wreck waiting to happen.

We have a manufacturing business looking to expand outside of their focus area into design. Businesses grow and expand in new directions all the time, but rarely do they do it successfully. That's red flag number 1. They are doing it with an inexperienced PE (at least in the target design market). Red flag number 2. They are naming this relatively junior employee as being the engineer in charge of operations on all of their firm licenses and certificates of authority. This should be a partner/senior management level position. Red flag number 3.

Perhaps you should sell them on a middle of the road approach. Find a firm specializing in data center design with licenses in all those states that you can partner with. You do studies and preliminary designs so the company estimators can put a package together. Then you hire the engineering consultant under a design-build contract to produce the full design while you move on to do the next study.

 

[psmpsm]

phamENG

Your red flag number 3 really puts things into perspective. When you say it like that.. there's no question that this whole situation isn't right. I guess I have all the ammunition I need to let my company know.. only concern is, I take on the risk of getting fired if I go through with telling them.

If they get licensure with me listed as the EoR for each state.. and later on I push back, will they have to go through the entire licensure process again, or is it a much quicker ordeal to list a new EoR?

Believe it or not, I even mentioned the principal/senior management concept to my manager.. and he was actually willing to see if the firm could get me up to that level. As much as I would love the money that comes with that role, I know I'm not qualified and would rather play it safe.

Also, we will be operating in maybe 5-10 states depending on the project, atleast for now.

 

[gte447f]

I agree with phamENG. This sounds like a trainwreck. You and your firm are either qualified to do this work or you aren't. If you aren't, then forget all this trickery about hiring outside firms to "review" your designs. In my opinion, these are just not-so-creative ways of trying to pass off liability, at best, and trying to skirt the engineering licensure laws and rules, at worst. If you want to do this type of work and you're not qualified, then you have to get qualified first, which means hiring appropriate management level licensed engineers. There is tons of money in data center design. Hiring appropriate staff should not be an issue if you're firm is serious about this.

 

[MintJulep]

What motivation does your company have to pay twice for the same design?

 

[psmpsm]

Gte447f:

You aren't wrong, really what I am trying to do here is pass off liability. I don't see anything ethically wrong with that as long as the appropriate steps are followed; my manager and myself intend to provide as high quality of a design as possible, but the very last step of stamping the product is where the problem occurs. Having another firm look things over and stamp it is reasonable, unless I'm mistaken?

Mintjulep:

How do you mean, pay twice for the same design? We are doing 80-90% of the work in house and will consider having an outside agency alongside us to serve as responsible charge.



We know that there may be gaps and whatnot initially, and are prepared to incur the costs of subcontracting some of the work if we need to. Heck, my manager is already on board with having an outside firm review the work since we don't have that depth in house. I just haven't sold him on the idea of having them stamp.