Competing against engineers that under-design

[AmirZamanian]

I work in a market that includes engineers that routinely under-design the buildings they engineer. Specifically, I seen many designs that are based on moment arms for overturning that are shorter than where they must be. I have seen designs that calculate uplift forces for shear walls inaccurately. They assuming that shear wall of buildings see only the shear from the roof. They routinely ignore the uplift that would be imparted onto the shear wall by the seismic force acting at the center of gravity of the roof. The same calculations ignore the uplift that is transferred to the shear wall by wind forces. If going by the letter of the building code, this is an underestimation.

Does any one have any suggestions for dealing with this? Do I go to the building departments and ask them if they sanction the practice that my competition engage in? Do I just let my clients go off to those that are exposing themselves as well as my client to potential liability? Am I obligate under the board rules to alert authorities to this practice? Do you suggest I take the bull by the horn or pretend that I don’t know what I suspect?

There is a wide spectrum of avenues this issue can be approached and dealt with. The way I see this, I would be unfairly competed against as long as there are other engineers who are willing or unaware that they are assuming the liability associated with shorter moment arms for wind and seismic case as discussed above. I may point out that this practice expose everyone involved to potential risks. In support of exposing this practice, I have an ethical dilemma and continence to deal with. I may also choose to underplay this and take the complacent approach. This wouldn’t rock many boats and wouldn’t pull chains.

On the other hand, my predicament cannot be a unique and I cannot be the first engineer to come face to face with such dilemma. I am hoping that I can draw on someone’s experience in similar position.

I appreciate any comments and suggestions on how to deal with this seemingly no so unique situation.

Thanks
Amir Zamanian

 

[111213]

hi amir,

i work also as an structural engineer and we have also a
hard competition resulting in very light steel structures.
so the structural engineer is fully responsible for the
correctness of his calculation or design.

for example if there is severe damage to people or buildings, the structural engineer can even go in jail !

i thinks this is in your country the same !

but if you see things that are obviously dangerous to other
people, then you are obliged to the police for example

please excuse my moderate english !!

wolfgang

 

[AmirZamanian]

Thanks 111213

Given what you said, what do you do? Do you allow your clients to go to others that under-design or did you try to fend for yourself and point the inferior design to stakeholders, thus exposing others, possibly getting a chance to retain your client, and certainly dealing with the aftermath?
I would really like to get a feel for how others faced with this issue would react.

Thank you
Amir Zamanian

 

[111213]

amir,

if there are clients seek these under-designing engineers, they will find someone who does it.

its like people who like to drive without brakes, you can
try to explain themselves the risks but you cannot stop
them.

thanks god, my clients want economic and save designs,
and not an underdesign.
but if anyone wants an underdesign, i would try to explain
him the risks, but if he would go to another its his own risk.

are there so much people who want an underdesign of you ?

 

[jike]

We are often accused of "over-designing" when architects or contractors compare the cost of our work to those that "under-design". They assume that the cheap way is correct and we are "over-designing".

I find that this is more of a problem with smaller buildings. With larger buuildings, everyone is pretty much designing and detailing the same.

Without someone calling attention to these practices, everyone suffers. Clients do not want to pay higher fees because the engineer or architect that under-designs is only charging a minimal amount.

 

[AmirZamanian]

Jike & 111213:

I have felt the pressure to "measure down" to those that under-design. It also the case that these encounters have been builders of smaller buildings. You are also accurate that the engineers that have given into this are often the less pricey ones. It is possible that they can afford it because they don't spend as much effort in their designs as they otherwise would have had to.

It is a hard place to be in. I would hate to lose the business, but that has often been the outcome. Do you let the business go to your under performing competition? Do you happen to come across this often?

 

[Lutfi]

First:

If you are sure and truly aware of bad or under designed structure, it is your ethical duty to alert some of the situation before it makes it into the 6 o'clock news!

I would start by calling the engineer, owner, and the state board of engineers. Public safety is the utmost duty for us structural engineers.

Second:
Unless you mean that other engineers perform engineering work much cheaper than your firm, design fee wise. Then theses engineers skimp on the design information and details. They also tent top produce poor quality plans. This is a separate and soar issue to me.

Does everyone agree with me?




Regards,
Lutfi

 

[111213]

hi lutfi,

i agree.

at first, every engineer has to decide for himself if he
want to to his job right or not.

there is always someone, who offers the same job for less money.

if you do an job properly for less money, you just lose some dollars.

if you systematically underdesign, chances are good that you land in jail an lose all !

so never ever underdesign !

 

[Stress02]

I don't ever stoop to the level of the "underdesigners".
I want to stay in business and out of court. I also want to be able to afford my insurance.

I once reviewed some marginal or questionable design work, and the Engineer said that he had never been accused of overdesigning. I didn't respond, but I knew that from reviews of some of his other jobs.

If the client wants cut rate construction, he also wants cut rate design fees; once you get in the circle it's hard to get out. I'd rather try to not hurt our profession that way.

 

[JedClampett]

I don't want to come off as defending engineers that under-design but I think there are two points to consider:
1) If the engineer is underbidding you, it's hard to do by under-designing. It takes more work to cut corners than to over-design. If I wanted to do a cheap design (engineer's cost only), I would use 2 x 8's at 12 inches everywhere. Then I wouldn't have to run any calculations.
2) I don't like to throw out accusations of under-designing unless I'm 100% sure I can defend them. I've thought structures were under-designed or badly designed, but after I talked to the designer realized that I missed some critical assumption or detail. I'm not saying you're doing that, but be careful.

 

[aggman]

I think their is something else to consider even though I am not sure it is really applicable to the original post. Engineering always falls back to engineering judgement. Some designs are very straight forward and their really isn't a lot of room to see load paths differently. But for more complex structures every engineer may have a little different perception of how it will fail and how to design for that. This often comes back to how an engineer is trained or what their normal designing back-ground is or even due to how familiar they are with a design. Everything is subject to the designers individual interpretation. I am not intending to conflict with the original post but only to possibly provide a different avenue to consider. I too agree that things are sometimes under-designed due to carelessness and pressures that are beyond our control. But it could also be perception.

 

[mrMikee]

I work for a manufacturer and I do product design and custom engineering mostly for cement silos, aggregate bins, and related equipment, so my experience with professional attitudes and organizational ethics could be different than others who post here in the "structural" forum that work in the construction and consulting business. It is my opinion however that in my industry underdesign (or no engineering at all) is not unusual and may even be common. There are probably several reasons for this. One is that these manufacturers feel they are exempt from codes and other requirements. Another is because building officials don't often require PE stamped drawings for our installations which makes my argument seem weak before management.

I realize this is a small portion of the construction industry and that manufacturing is probably a different culture than in general construction, but I bring it up here because of my conclusion that the "under designers" tend to pull down the rest of us. This can happen because the customer will go with the lowest bid and because management tends to favor the people (whether an engineer or not) with the lightest or lower cost design over the rest of us.

Understand that this is just my opinion based on how things look from my vantage point.

Regards,
-Mike

 

[JStephen]

I've seen that, too, Mike, from management that regarded "engineering" as "making shop drawings", therefore, whoever can churn them out the faster, with a cheaper finished product, is the better engineer, regardless of the extent of thought, or lack thereof, that goes into the design. I remember one project that I spent a good bit of time on due to a very awkward arrangement, then was actually yelled at for overengineering. If I had just pulled some numbers out of the air, I would have been criminally negligent, but would have been praised for the result. That puts one in a very peculiar result, when you are punished for doing well, and rewarded for incompetence.

 

[connect2]

All issues of cost or profit or the lack there of aside, its very time consuming to get involved in another structural engineers work, you have to be right its as simple as that. We have been involved a number of situations where designs of 'others' are not code compliant or justified by 'engineering analysis'. We always get involved with the engineer in question and to date have never had to go beyond that. At the end of the day the safety of the public is paramount and the profit an individual makes is their own business (literaly so to speak). As a profession we should keep our 'dirty laundry' to ourselves. Communication is a good thing.

 

[kidCivil]

my dolution would be to alert the client that the competitors design be checked by a third party (peer review), also notify the client that under designing can void their building insurance... that should make them see the light.

 

[GregLocock]

Who'd pay for that extra work?

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[kephamy]

You should alert the engineer who did the design first and give them a chance to defend their design. It might be that they were not aware of the mistakes. Then you should take further steps if the engineer is unwilling to cooperate.

 

[bjb]

This is a little off topic. In addition to other engineers who under-design, there is a problem with construction managers/contractors who try to pressure engineers to cheapen the design so they can save a few bucks. We expect this from them, but this problem is worse when they have the owners ear and they both start beating up on you. I suspect that some engineers under-design in attempt to keep owners and construction managers happy by saving them a little money. Sometimes this can bite you where the sun doesn't shine. We are trying to save a building that was built on 30 feet of peat and organics. The original soils consultant said that the entire building and floor slab needed to be pile supported. In comes someone else trying to be the hero, and they say it can be built on spread footings. Now one corner of the building has sank over a foot, the original designers are being sued for millions of dollars. Whas is worth it? I don't think so.

In my experience, this problem is worse with wood buildings, because anyone can drive some nails or pick up a circular saw, thus making them more qualified then some "college boy" engineer. We are basically being pressured right now to "not over-complicate" things to keep costs down. Translated, this means they want us to "wink" at some of the code requirements to save some pennies. Of course we will not do this. The contractor wants to pinch pennies so they can look like a hero to the owner, and both of them can profit monetarily when engineers don't follow the code and give in to them. However, the engineer has to shoulder all of the potential liability for the benefit of the other two. Why other engineers do this is beyond me, but they do. I think it is a mis-guided attempt to keep business, but what they are doing is dragging the whole profession down. Another thing, when the contractor does find an engineer to go along with them, and then they work with another engineer who will not, that engineer is guilty in the contractors eyes of doing things that are never done, and in 30 years he's never even seen anyone do anything like it.

With the unrealistic schedules, budgets, contractor/owner penny pinching, and reliance on the computer by unqualified but "cheap" individuals, I'm surprised we haven't had a major collapse for a while.