Main problems you encounter as a structural engineer 63

[Green Structural Engineering]

Top 3 problems you encounter and have to overcome working in structural engineering.... GO!

 

[Lomarandil]

If a client chooses a crappy structural engineer what is the likely consequence? Nuttin'.

If that's true then the idea that we're worth something is just a delusion.

True or not, it's a common perception. Most laypersons can't tell you what makes a good/bad engineer. And if you were to ask a contractor, and architect, and an engineer what makes a good/bad engineer, the answers would vary wildly. I think more would be in the realm of coordination and customer service than technical design prowess.

I think the sentiment has varying degrees of 'truthiness'.... depends on the industry/application and the competence of the contractor.

Then add in the fact that as structural engineers, much of our work is to prevent things that might happen down the line, or in certain combinations of events. Add to that human tendencies to not evaluate future or systemic risks well, optimism bias, etc.



----
just call me Lo.

 

[12345abc6ttyui67]

1) Estimating a scope accurately only for Project Management to slash the hours and duration and still expect the same quantity and quality of work.
2) Project Management being amazed and upset when their slashed hours and duration are not met and the project 'grows' to the estimated hours and duration.
3) Being expected to work with preliminary information and still have the same productivity and not ever up-rev or change anything. Once had Vendor supplied loads grow by more than 600% and was expected to 'just make the existing design work'.

 

[MrHershey]

True or not, it's a common perception. Most laypersons can't tell you what makes a good/bad engineer. And if you were to ask a contractor, and architect, and an engineer what makes a good/bad engineer, the answers would vary wildly. I think more would be in the realm of coordination and customer service than technical design prowess.

Definitely on the coordination and customer service. Knowing the technical stuff is the minimum and expected. Being a 'good engineer' in the eyes of the client is all about making their life easier. Being easy to work with, knowing industry trends, being dependable, lowering risk, lowering costs (not just fees), helping solve their problems (most of which aren't technical in nature). The actual engineering part is a commodity. No one cares if you've got a fancier model or cleaner calcs or clearer drawings unless it leads to significant tangible benefits to the client.

Challenges for me:
1) Unreasonable schedules, both too short and too long. Too short because it's hard to get the work done in time and do a good job. Too long because it's hard to stay in budget as architect makes a million changes. There's a sweet spot for each project that depends on size.
2) Finding people at our level talent-wise and ability-wise. We grow and groom them pretty well from fresh grads. Finding experienced people who can keep up with us is difficult, though. Engineers from big time firms often don't have the breadth of knowledge and experience we want. Engineers from smaller firms often don't have the depth of knowledge and experience we want. Recession being 6-10 years ago makes it difficult. Since no one in the industry was hiring at the time, people with 6-10 years of experience are unicorns right now. I'm not sure they actually exist in the wild.
3) Communication, both internal and external. I feel some individuals do a pretty good job, their projects almost always run smoothly and they correctly identify potential problems and work to mitigate or avoid them. Others don't talk to much of anyone and don't follow up on much of anything, then act surprised when there's a bunch of rework because engineer and client (or PM for internal issues) weren't in sync on scope, desires, and requirements.

 

[CivilEngAus]

I predominantly work in civil consulting although can strongly relate to most of the posts above! Clients seem to not value the input of a good engineer anymore.

 

[Gopher13]

Curious to know if the DOT (department of transportation) bridge people in the states experience the same issues?

 

[KootK]

I was reading through the comments in the link provided by Agent666 and found one that I feel deserves repeating here. I'll not critique is as I might normally since the author is not here to defend himself.

When automotive engineers (for example) do great job, the result of their work is IMMEDIATELY seen through driving dynamics of the car against competitors. Great work of structural engineers is seen and thereby recognized only when building, bridge or any structure survive major earthquake. The bare fact that structure is standing fully functional when there is no earthquake or other disasters is taken FOR GRANTED !!!

Educating people through media of the level of fundamental end applied knowledge that is necessary for conducting structural analysis and design is one (less efficient) way of raising the public seance of appreciation for our profession. Things should be done in reverse.

More practical way is to establish firm rules for engineering fees in relation to long term economic and community benefits associated with given structure.
First, the problem MUST be generally recognized by majority of engineers - that is the starting point.
Next, appropriate engineering committees can be formed with specific tasks for establishing rules for engineering fees. After adoption, these rules will serve like design codes.

By amount of fees for our engineering work, the rest of community will start to form opinion about our value.

 

[trilinga]

As a structural engineer who worked for 36 years in the design engineering of buildings, power plants and process plants, I consider the following as the inherent and unavoidable hurdles for a civil/structural design engineer.

1. The sequence of engineering activities of plants is as follows:
Process engineering
Mechanical engineering/Electrical engineering/ Instrumentation engineering
Architecture
Civil/Structural engineering

But site requires the civil/structural detailed drawings first to start the construction.

There is a pressure from the client, contractor and the project manager to the structural engineer to issue the drawings. It is a common advice/suggestion by all the above parties to 'make suitable assumptions based on previous experience to cover the uncertainties'. People easily forget that each project is unique in itself due to the different layouts, soil conditions, wind and seismic zones etc. and pose unique challenges to the structural designer.

As a result, the poor structural engineer is forced to proceed with the design with many assumptions, which invariably change by the time the drawings are made. Revisions, rework and delay in the schedule follow, for which he is made responsible.

2. while performing structural design, there is another inherent hurdle. The sequence of issue of drawings required at site is foundation first and then the superstructure, but the calculations have to start from the roof.

3. It is widely talked that the automation and the availability of software has made structural design faster. But, the fact is that the benefit of the time gained by using the software for lengthy calculations and iterations is not available to the structural designer but is being passed on to the client who unreasonably squeezes the schedule. The result is that the designer has the same struggle for time to carry out his activities.

However, I learnt the following hard truth by going through many projects.

If there is a delay in the engineering schedule due to ensuring the quality of the deliverables, the designer will be blamed during the period of the project execution and will be forgotten afterwards.

But, if the quality of the deliverable is compromised for adhering to the schedule causing rework at site, the blame will haunt the designer throughout his career.

Trilinga

 

[Agent666]

I believe that the real problem with our industry is that shoddy structural engineering has few tangible consequences for clients

Unfortunately true.

Even after our recent Earthquakes here in NZ, where one consulting company had a structure they designed in the 1980's collapse and kill something like 115 people of the 165 total that died. They as a company then seemed to get so much new work out of the rebuild form existing clients (even getting paid to fix/strengthen their own structures that performed poorly) because they are known for creating cheap to build structures. The company was still lead by the same person who had overall design responsibility for the structure that collapsed.

Royal commission into the two modern buildings that fully collapsed leading to the majority of the loss of life found a lot of things lacking in the original designs that contributed to the collapse, bad design, bullying the authorities into accepting their design despite oppositions being raised by diligent parties. Often cheap and robust don't go together. If one or two collapse it's still good odds for the uninformed client types to roll the dice on in the long term if they got a good deal on the design, and thats all some seem to appreciate at the time? A buildings a building to them, a well designed building is invariably going to be more expensive.

So basically you can kill 115 people and get away with it, no consequences to the company or the individuals, in fact their business was booming following the earthquakes. This disgusts me to some degree and highlights how broken parts of the industry really are, what message does this send regarding practicing good engineering? The public eventually lose in the next big one, but the moneys already in someones pocket.

 

[Tomfh]

Agent,

Yes I was a bit surprised to hear he'd gone on thriving after that event. Odd too that he managed to dodge any real blame for it, and successfully transferred 99% of the blame to his underling. I've seen it a few times where superiors throw the subordinates under the bus when things go bad, even though they were just following the bosses design direction. All of a sudden the bosses design becomes the junior's design...

 

[MR_E30]

Lots of good input in this thread. I'll throw in my two cents based on my experiences.

My challenges:
1 - Architects. Especially architects who give their clients new ideas/visions at every meeting. And especially architects who think they are structural engineers. This creates a long and painful process of design and redesign. Discussions about change orders due to the constantly moving target never go quite as smoothly as one hopes.
2 - Questions that directly target my integrity. KootK hit this one of the head for me. This paired with the seemingly endless variety of questions targeted towards member sizes, reinforcing layouts, etc. can do one in in a hurry.
3 - Timeline crunches. We all know this one. $X,000 in X days for a $X,000,000 project. This has to be my biggest complaint, even over the architect.

I have the privilege of being able to step away from the computer and work with my wife's business partner on small construction projects. He is a retired GC who does remodels and repairs. He has the ability to selectively choose who he works for and what he does. First question is always "Are you bidding this out to multiple people?" If they say yes we politely tell them we aren't interested and we walk away. Second question, if the first answer is a no, is "You can have things done, and you can have things done right. I only do things right and as a result we work by the hour without the ability to give you an overall cost, though it is likely to be in the low XX,000 dollar range." If we get a thumbs up to that then we get started. May sound like a fairy tale but we are booked out through 2020 just by word of mouth alone.

I cannot describe the joy associated with installing tile base trim, or creating a fireplace mantle out of a massive chunk of DF, when you know you have time on your side to make things ever so perfect. Because when you are done you really take a deep sense of pride in your work knowing that it is as best as it can be.

Unfortunately, my company and my work as an engineer rarely, if ever, has that same flexibility, so low-cost projects in tight timelines are more the norm.

 

[EngiBeering]

Well this thread has been a real eye opener.

I think that senior folks in our industry semi-consciously hide the truth of the nature our industry from junior engineers in order to keep junior engineers motivated and contributing to the economic pyramid that is most structural engineering firms.

If this didn't strike true

As a grad I was deeply proud/honoured/excited when I was given a large project (relative to our usual work in my firm) that I would be doing majority of the design for with minimal help from a senior engineer and told by my boss he thinks I'm ready to start working more independently and this would be great experience for me. Given it was my first job operating independently I struggled immensely to meet the same deadlines expected of a senior engineer. I wasn't given any concessions or leeway for being a grad and I thought my boss was pushing me for my own development and learning - which wasn't the case as I had to sacrifice time spent understanding a lot of the design concepts to get the job out quicker.
Once the job was all said and done I found out my boss quoted lower on the job as the client had recently given a job to another engineer and he wanted to ensure we kept getting work from him. Since the deadline on the job was unchanged and the fee was lower the only way to stay profitable on this was to take advantage of my lower hourly rate. Sure I got great experience, but definitely felt used rather than valued by the end of it.

Seems like the industry is on a crash course to the bottom line.
I guess, to my benefit, being a greeny means I can still consider a career change... Any advice??

 

[ARKeng]

Quote (Kootk)
If a client chooses a crappy structural engineer what is the likely consequence? Nuttin'. If a client chooses a crappy real estate agent what is the likely consequence? The loss of sacks and sacks of gold doubloons.

If that's true then the idea that we're worth something is just a delusion.


I don't believe it myself. I think poor structural engineering is more costly than poor real estate agents. Property sells itself at whatever the market if offering. Agents come along for the ride, selling themselves to vendors by promising a bigger sack of gold than the next agent

Sadly, it's often perceived as even the opposite. From a developer's perspective, I can hire hire "Firm A+" that does an amazing job and has the best reputation in town, or "Firm D-", who is often a one-man show with no overhead and starving for work (sorry, I know it's unfair to classify all one-man shows as the "D-" here, but it's a common issue for us).
[ol 1]
[li]Firm A+ will probably take a little longer to do it, Firm D- tells me they can get it done quicker, which may or may not turn out to be true.[/li]
[li]Firm A+ will also actually design things to code or check their details, so I'm going to pay even more for the correct hardware, connections, reinforcing in construction... Plus my buddy contractor who has "been doing it this way for 25 years" tell me all that crap's not really necessary and he must be right because even when Firm D- does my stuff, it still sails through plancheck in 99% of jurisdictions. If it was really dangerous, they'd catch it, right?[/li]
[li]My architect loves Firm D- because he never tells them they can't do anything. He'll bend over backwards, ignorant of whatever code provisions Firm A+ is always throwing in my face and telling me we can't do the glass palaces my architect wants to create.[/li]
[li]Firm A+ has been around the block a few times and has a tighter contract so if I want to change scope along the way, they'll charge me more. But Firm D- has a swiss-cheese contract that's basically a glorified handshake with a wink, so I can strong-arm him into bending over backwards to make me happy.[/li]
[li]Firm D- is easy when it comes to construction... no matter what idiotic thing my contractor screws up, their fixes are easy/whatever the contractor recommends. Firm A+ tells me it's because they don't know what they're doing and didn't check the <insert engineering jargon I don't understand here> but nothing ever falls down so what do I care? [/li]
[/ol]
As a developer, I'm mostly in this to try to sell this building for a profit in a few years anyway so what more could I want? Firm D- is giving me a huge discount for a product that meets my needs more economically. I like the guys at Firm A+, they're top-notch professionals who really do seem like they know what they're doing... but why should I hire them?

 

[Tomfh]

From a developers point of view you’re probably right. Quality issues often don’t appear until further down the line, so doing it better to save other people money in the distant future doesn’t make much economic sense.

 

[phamENG]

On the topic of following the money, the source of funds for various parts of the construction process plays a role as well.

Most banks won't release a red cent until you have a design for your building. That means for many instances, our design fees are coming out of the owner's ready money. The cost of the actual building, on the other hand, is being financed. So when option A is to hire the top notch engineer that will cost 180% of the competition for a building that will cost 70% of the competition with better communication, smoother coordination, and responsive construction period services, they'll go with the lower design cost and higher construction cost because they feel it less up front and, in the case of developers, they can pass on the additional cost to the new owner when they sell the building after paying nothing but interest on it for a year.

 

[msquared48]

I have also encountered plan reviewers who have read “The Territorial Imperative” way too many times. I never have liked political solutions to engineering problems.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA, HI)

 

[octagie]

1. Lack of a structural base from architects. Specialization has brought too many problems. I think it would be better if we all where architects with an specialization (structural, mep, etc.)
2. Communication and coordination.
3. Lack of intuition, too much reliance on software, lack of knowledge on vernacular construction. This slows workflow.

 

[dhase]

I am a new engineer starting out in the industry and I am already on my 2nd job, the main problem that I am running into is that the amount of structural projects can have "lull" periods or periods of only project proposals, which means little to no work for the new engineer.

How hard is it to switch to a different CE/SE discipline, like transpo. or water resources?

 

[jayrod12]

As easy as finding an entry level position. That's the stage you're at, and don't be surprised if things are the same at the new place. At least for a while, your employer still needs to figure out your capabilities. You don't magically get handed entire projects to run with fully day one.

 

[dhase]

I understand, but giving me starter tasks or operations to test my abilities would give me something to do, instead of just sitting at the desk staring at a code book.

 

[12345abc6ttyui67]

Sounds like you have a good idea for what to do that would be more productive than what you're currently doing. Have you asked your boss / colleagues if they can provide something like that instead? Maybe even ask if he remembers any tricky problems he had and get you to look at it and see if you get the same solution. Even if not, it should prompt so good problem solving practice and discussion on the possible resolutions.

I'd be pretty happy to support one of my graduates if they came to me bored and looking for something challenging to develop their experience.