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.

 

[gte447f]

psmpsm, you are mistaken. I do not think it is reasonable. It sounds to me like plan stamping on the part of whatever firm you get to go along with this scenario, and practicing without a license on the part of your firm (it doesn't sound like ya'll have a certificate of authority).

Mintjulep's question should have been, why would the owner want to pay twice for the design, meaning there are two firms involved when there only needs to be one. Or you could ask, why would the other firm that ya'll hire want to do the design for half price, assuming ya'll aren't going to get paid double for the design so you can hire another firm to do it.

 

[gte447f]

You say your firm is prepared to incur cost to hire an outside firm to review, but they should incur cost to hire the appropriate personnel in-house to abide by the engineering licensure laws and rules.

 

[psmpsm]

Gte447f:

Plan stamping was not my intent; if it came across that way, my apologies. Ideally I would like to have the outside firm intimately involved. We don't want any questionable actions on behalf of our firm such as having someone stamp at the very end with minimal knowledge of the product.

As for practicing without a license - we are in the process of gaining licensure wherever we need. Is that process very lengthy with many hurdles? It didn't seem that way when I read the paperwork for each state, unless I'm mistaken (again).

As far as the owner paying twice for the design - we would not be asking the owner for additional compensation to hire that other firm - it would be coming out of our profits. My understanding is that our firm could do the vast majority of the gruntwork as part of the design, and the outside firm would just provide direction and review it. An analogy would be a manager directing a subordinate; manager doesn't do the work, but he oversees it and checks it.


As far as hiring a firm to make sure we are abiding by the rules.. I suggested that to my management. Nothing came of it unfortunately.

 

[phamENG]

My understanding is that our firm could do the vast majority of the gruntwork as part of the design, and the outside firm would just provide direction and review it.

This is the crux of your misunderstanding. In order to "review" the design to the level that would make it realistic and ethical to say they are in "responsible charge", that review will have to include verifying ever single calculation and design decision. In essence, they have to do the design over again and make sure the answers match. So your company has to pay your salary to do the design, and then pay a consultant to do the same thing. If they do any less, they are at some shade of rubber stamping.

 

[psmpsm]

phamENG,

That makes sense. Fortunately, I was hired for a different function - so it would seem that any work I do for the design is just a bonus to work that I am already responsible for. Therefore, I have doubts that it would be seen as paying twice. They avoided hiring a separate design engineer for this function so there is some savings there.

Atleast, that is how I would sell the idea.

Also, is there any substantiation as to your comment that the EoR being listed on the certificate of authority/license is typically a partner or principal? It doesn't say that is a requirement on the paperwork, although I 100% agree with you.

 

[moon161]

I think OP could make use of a good lawyer, and not necesarilly their employer's.

 

[CWB1]

Before peeking down too many rabbit holes I would strongly recommend stepping back to investigate whether/not your employer needs work stamped for legal reasons or if they simply want a stamp for marketing/other. In this circumstance I would be pretty confident in assuming the later and if told the former then I would be curious to know details why.