Do You Care About Delivering Quality? 6

[Honzolive]

Hey Everyone,
For context, I work with a medium sized multidisciplinary engineering firm (<50 people), myself being Mechanical by background but have moved into a more Lead/PM role recently.

Since joining the company, I’ve had a concern on the company’s attitude towards ‘quality’. In my previous roles, I’ve seen projects from concept, through to detailed design and construction so have full appreciation on design stages, level of detail and typical stage gates and so on… but noticed here that the staff (and senior project management team) have odd resistance to delivering quality deliverables and simply work towards providing the ‘bare minimum’ with a hint of ambiguity.

When I say quality, I’m referring more towards an attitude which ensures the Engineering firm is delivering comprehensive packages to clients, not only meeting the client expectations but; reassures the client that the solutions proposed are robust and transparent (on time and on budget etc…)
An example of this, say there is a project where we are the ‘clients engineer’ on a operations expansion project, we are responsible for designing and managing the integration into the sites to a existing operation at concept design level (I am lead engineer of my discipline); you can imagine there will be multiple interfaces, now in my eyes these interfaces need to identified with risk mitigation proposed ASAP. I highlight this proposing we at least cover ourselves by identification receiving responses like ‘that is detailed design level’ ‘too much detail’ ‘focus on your role’.

Coordination with other disciplines internally is a challenge on it’s own, where the respective discipline leads just snub against coordination prefer to work in isolation forever butting heads. The clients are typically ‘semi intelligent’ by way that they are of engineering background but not design.

I appreciate, time is money! In fact I’ve provided advice to the management team on budgeting/resources to deliver, in my view, a comprehensive package (which they accepted) but, senior managements preference is to almost design in ambiguity/confusion/cost cutting into the project where is can CLEARLY be avoided!
I’ve also discussed with the management team and understand the companies’ ambition is to avoid explicit detail design and construction level of detail but focus on conceptual levels of design, but sell the packages to clients from the view that they are a hybrid of concept/detail design…

So Engineers and Directors of the world, I ask, do you care about delivering quality and the best value for your clients or do you feel that the fees do not permit such a luxury and as such, the bare minimum to keep clients happy is justified?

 

[jhnblgr]

It is a problem that is a result of the more successful engineers retiring. The leaders now are the engineers that were unsuccessful and hinder the future growth and drive the quality engineers out.
Coordination is key and asking input is key, arrogance has no place in engineering and blinders are a danger to everyone.

 

[RVAmeche]

I'm seeing similar things and one of the bigger factors, at least in my general heavy industry, is client schedules. Almost every project needs to be done in about 8 weeks and they almost always skipped a good preliminary engineering/FEL phase. The trend seems to be for clients to do FEL2/3 as a "box check" exercise since their corporate guidelines require it and then somehow figure everything out in detailed design and hope the scope/schedule doesn't slip much.

 

[IRstuff]

There is indeed a serious gap in experience, but that can also be due to the ebb/flow nature of each industry, or each discipline, particularly with a low head-count one. If you hire a replacement candidate, you have to pay for their head-count, and pay for their lower productivity at the same time as the higher contract rate of the incumbent, which is not always practical to do. Over time, you wind up with a "gray-beard" and no heir apparent.



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[Honzolive]

Thinking about the bigger picture, it does feel like a race to the bottom when bidding for work and client themselves mostly make decisions based on cost and thus the engineers need to accommodate, there is always someone willing to do the same work cheaper and quicker.

But then in another sense I think “Why do Engineers not just push back”, collectively as an industry if engineers had more of a grip (or a backbone) on managing the client would we not be in a better position to drive the project (fees and programme) in a way that not only gives engineers space to deliver quality but also provides the client with an overall better solution. This would also serve to improve job satisfaction, higher salaries and overall, a more ‘exciting’ industry for youngsters.

In financial consultants and lawyers for example, their fees are typically higher than the engineering industry and client rarely have room to negotiate as collectively as an industry the competitors have a similar mindset.

 

[geotechguy1]

Engineering consulting is setup for a meta-level death spiral to the bottom that rewards and promotes useful idiots who blindly sign off on low quality work with less and less calculations and lower and lower quality until someone gets killed.

I frequently come across engineering manuals published by the FHWA in the 1960s-1970s where the authors clearly had a better understanding than current practitioners / code writers etc do 50 years later. The same reasoning given for why 2D or 3D FE is to complicated for standard practice in civil / geotechnical (it's computationally expensive) gets rolled out today.

 

[RVAmeche]

I agree with the "why not push back" type of mindset, but I also get the business side of not wanting to lose out on money. The catch 22 is those projects are awful and tend to make people look for other employers, so was it really worth it?

 

[Eng16080]

I'm a structural engineer (not mechanical), so perhaps my world is a little different, but there are definitely clients who want high quality work and are willing to pay for it.

 

[TigerGuy]

In any discipline, there are those clients that will always claim, "But company X says they can do this project for less."

Even in public works projects, you will encounter project managers that try to bid the design services, despite the requirement of following QBS guidelines. When working for private clients, if we don't educate them, they will drive us down the drain with penny pinching practices.

 

[IRstuff]

"But company X says they can do this project for less."

We're so sorry to see you go, but keep us in mind when you need to fix the errors and mistakes that will crop up.

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[CWB1]

Unless you're ethically challenged, engineering quality isnt arbitrary or negotiable. Its a logical process, no judgement needed. You design to the customer spec, no more or less without approval, and FMEA drives everything from design details and safety factors to testing. You prove when the design will work, document when it will fail, and the customer/employer accepts any low-medium risks. For a given project, every company should have very similar concerns and designs so the tasks/SOW doesnt change. You're competing primarily based on profit margin, labor rates, access to proprietary info/tools, and negotiated costs with suppliers. I've hired many embedded engineering-labor contractors and outside design, regulatory-compliance, and other firms, and seen the gamut of big-small, ethical-illegal, highly profitable-struggling. Engineering is like any other business, efficiency is key but the upfront savings of forgoing resources/tools/staff is often counterproductive. Many succeed, and those that dont usually do so bc they either lack business knowledge/experience or get themselves into trouble practicing outside their competence.

To answer the question directly - yes, I care deeply bc the work I do for my employer affects my reputation. An early mentor told me to always protect my reputation bc niches are incestuously small - reputations follow you bc colleagues follow you. My reputation is the reason employers compete for me, the reason I carry open job offers, and the reason my income has always been among the top for engineers. I've left employers over ethical issues that many here would laugh-off as "normal business" - engineers designing outside their competence, working on competing projects for competing customers, etc. I've also worked closely with regulators and never want legal issues, nvm having someone's injury/death on my conscience. There are far too many good employers in this world to accept working for a crappy one.

 

[IRstuff]

I've not yet been squeamish about pushing quality work and results; I once went so far as to prepare a "Pearl Harbor" memo in anticipation of getting fired for telling the customer that we had a test anomaly that severely affected the speed rating of our component.

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[Honzolive]

I like this, in my experience, working with senior management and project managers in general, some can A* manipulators/bullies so have seen first hand engineer who pushed through against thier will, thankfully to no detriment; I like this, in my experience, working with senior management and project managers in general, some can A* manipulators/bullies, so have seen firsthand senior engineers who pushed through against their will, thankfully to no detriment; I do recall one situation where an individual was pressured on timescales (due to an unrealist programme), raised concerns various time, still being pressed to just ‘deliver’, they would speak of losing sleep and guilt ridden with issuing deliverables they are not happy with.


This is a good point, has anyone ever witnessed a situation of being ‘threatened’ through disagreement with leadership teams (on a technical/quality front)?

 

[geotechguy1]

>This is a good point, has anyone ever witnessed a situation of being ‘threatened’ through disagreement with leadership teams (on a technical/quality front)?

Very frequently.

 

[SWComposites]

This is a good point, has anyone ever witnessed a situation of being ‘threatened’ through disagreement with leadership teams (on a technical/quality front)? Yep.

 

[RVAmeche]

Never overtly threatened, but definitely had conversations about what my issue was if we "covered everything with enough notes". My general position of we shouldn't need to add a ton of CYA notes to protect ourselves fell on deaf ears. Construction schedules are tight, the client didn't do all the testing or whatever we wanted, etc etc...

 

[IRstuff]

People are people, they follow a more or less bell-shaped curve with anything, including ethics. You'd therefore expect about 1/6th of the people to be less than desirable; unfortunately, a high percentage of them are in management positions, since that's the place you wind up if you are unethical and get away with it.

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[geotechguy1]

More than one contractor has threatened to put a hit out on me...we all have to live in the real world, where contractors and managers in most regions are usually up to their neck in gang activity or some other form of criminality. Such is life. Shit in Quebec you still might get cast into a pile if you cross the wrong gang.

 

[CWB1]

I do recall one situation where an individual was pressured on timescales (due to an unrealist programme), raised concerns various time, still being pressed to just ‘deliver’, they would speak of losing sleep and guilt ridden with issuing deliverables they are not happy with.

What's considered a "threat?"
Is it a threat for management to hold staff to the highest standards and regularly layoff for flawed, late, or over-budget work?
If someone cant provide data and logic as to why a project plan is unrealistic, is it a threat for the boss to tell them to shut-up and get it done or find a new job?
If someone commits to a project plan and falls behind, is it a threat for the boss to tell them to work faster or find a new job?
If the project deliverables are met, is it a threat for the boss to tell them to put their pencil down or find a new job?

Personally, I always preferred working for very direct management who arent afraid of layoffs or candor. I find it embarrassing and lousy for my bank account to work for companies that never layoff and constantly make/accept excuses for flawed/late/over-budget work.

 

[ShataCastings]

Quality control during desinging is very important, its not cost waste nor time consuming; on the contrary, good quality control can avoid bad design, save cost and money.

We used to involved in a project collaborated with an innovation company, its a snow plow. This project was started at 2019, the 1st version design is terrible, prototype was weakness, easy to fall apart. I'm sure that they had not done any strength analysis, and used thicker material than theoretical value to save cost.

Finally their neglect of engineering quality leads to a big loss of money and time. We made prototyeps at lease 12 versions over the next four years , and 1st order all 100 units produced and sent to final customers last year were recalled.

Keep your mind!