Document ownership & file sharing

[ANTIETAM]

Wuz-up? Structures are up.
How do other firms handle sharing Intellectual Property Ownership and its implications of liability?

A great thread by Ron, thread507-6173 Electronic Document Transmittals, was presented May of 2001, this is obviously the next great evoultionary step. A few years have passed since the thread and with your consent I wish to beat this horse again. Electronic sharing is only one type of intellectual sharing, besides hand drawings are traceable. The question is two fold, those who do share electronic documents and those who only share printed documents.
A developer’s preliminary proposal drawings are approved for funding. The drawing file may or may not be used by the architectual firm. The architectural file may or may not be used by the structural and MEP firms. Architectural and engineering files may or may not be used to produce shop drawing file. Some engineering firms even provide shop drawings for bid and fabrication. Ultimatly the developer purchases all of the specs & drawing files with its intellectual property for construction use only. The property in time may be sold and the original construction documents used by another design firm for alterations and additions. It all seems like a recipe for disaster. All of the priliminary drawings I receive are incomplete. Occationally construction drawing dimensions do not close and if they do they do not add up. While this is not enough to disrupt the structural analysis and design, I am leery passing this information on, what else may have been given to me in error or omission. I perfer to hit the nail on the head myself, but the nature of the business requires us to hold the nail for eachother while we all take a swing at it. Or, am I just paranoid of the unknown. Please, take a swing.

 

[Ron]

Antietam....where possible, we do not give up ownership of documents in any form or format. This is not always possible, particularly when dealing with a public agency.

If you pass something on and lose control of its intellectual value, then my opinion is that you should warn against its use (abuse) without your specific interpretive input. If you receive something that is passed on to you from other than the original producer, if it is incomplete, or if it is given with qualifications, you should again document what you've been given and the use you will make of it (if any).

As engineers, we have no obligation to accept anyone else's work, though we often do it as a professional courtesy. Keep in mind the legal test....Did you RELY on it? If so, did you make an effort to validate it? Did it seem unreasonable in its conclusion from a cursory check? Did you contact the producer?,,,etc....

 

[connect2]

an aside to the issue of signed seals, what are your office practices with regards to review of 'shop drawings' sent to you in either a .dwg or.pdf format?

 

[ANTIETAM]

Exactly Ron, Thank You.
The thread was brought up after foundation plans for a metal building system were prepared for a contractor based on the manufactures reactions, soil report and civil plans. The building was a slab on grade with metal siding. Sealed foundation drawings were sent out with a transmittal by courier. It was not expected to receive bar placement and cut sheets for review having checked for conformity on previous jobs years back, this courtesy has gone by the way side. Expecting to see only the payment for services rendered, a change order request to the original contract was received to review joist and deck drawings from the steel supplier. The contractor included typical interior and exterior wall sections bearing on block up to the level of the new mezzine. These are a great bunch of guys having trained each other on previous jobs, I recocnized the wall section. The section had already been designed for similar load bearing, drift and deflection. Thus the delema, it had taken time to reach this level of borderline acceptable practice with this contractor through mutual training.

Electronic Formal Document Transmittal is coming if not already here because the market dictates it, there for it requires a governing standard. Connector2, I am not certain of exactly what this standard is.
Only occasionaly what was done in the past was to e-mail the zipped write protected drawings with a transmittal stating the time and dated file is the sourse of drawings of the same time and date shipped by courier of the same day. The use of the electronic document relieves all liability of the design aside from the originally signed and/or sealed drawing. Drawing files are for plot distribution only at contractor’s discretion. Contractor assumes all responsibility of terms upon unzipping of files.

This was the method the contractor had used to access an existing wall section to submit, which could have been just as easily faxed from a photocopy. Its as if were working in the same office and other times we are light years away, but it is definitely taking a direction. As to the method and terminology used to transfer the contract drawings I do not know if it was good, bad, ugly or totally irrelevent.