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!

 

[MIStructE_IRE]

Small contractors doing something they’ve never seen before.. “we’re not trying to hold up the empire state building...” yawn...

 

[klaus.]

1) everything is too big and to heavy and to expensive.....
2) structural engineers just cause problems in the team
3) always too late

 

[jayrod12]

1) No one wants to think for themselves. Not that many years ago, a contractor would think through an issue and have a solution ready before they submit an RFI, today, they just say there's a problem, fix it. It's much easier to have an idea of what they want to do. The good contractors still do this, but they're becoming fewer and further between.

2) Timelines for completing drawings has shrunk to the point that almost zero coordination is done prior to issuance by the Prime Consultant. This leads to many more inconsistencies in the drawings, and therefore more RFIs, and you can then refer to my number 1 for my frustrations there.

3) Proper give and take on contract changes. Also in the not to distant past, if there was a minor change to something that would cost less than say $1000, no one requested a change to the contract amount. And in return, when pricing for larger changes was submitted we wouldn't be overly particular and let them get their money back there. More and more often I am getting proposed change notice pricing for less than $500. When a project goes that route, we review all of their costs with a fine toothed comb and bring them down at every chance possible.

 

[Rabbit12]

Jayrod12, per your #1, don't you just love it when a contractor issues an RFI, you answer it and then they come back with, "Well can't we just do it this way instead?". That kills me. Tell me you have a preference and I'll do my best to make that work!

 

[Rabbit12]

Green SE, the biggest issue you'll face is people questioning what you did and why you did it. Many times these people have no clue why we do what we do.

 

[jayrod12]

Tell me you have a preference and I'll do my best to make that work!

I have resorted to having this conversation with the GC on all my projects at the kickoff meeting. Even then, we rarely get a proposed solution, or when we do it's absolutely ludicrous. I've given an outright no a couple of times to a proposal on to get the response "Yeah we knew you weren't going to go for that". Then why FFS would you propose it.

 

[DrZoidberWoop]

From the perspective of a connection engineer working for a heavy structural steel fabricator in the United States:

1) Coordinating with teams of detailers on the other side of the world, and then reviewing their god-awful shop drawing submittals.

2) The damn sales department bidding jobs with unreasonable time constraints.

3) COMMUNICATION with Engineers of Record. The industry is filled with engineers who have trouble with basic communication skills. This increasingly applies to the large firms we work with who can offer H1b Visas to engineers with foreign credentials.

 

[kmart30]

1. Hey can you stamp these plans....smh
2. I want to knock down all these walls and put windows everywhere.... but I dont want any steel or new concrete.
3. I need plans by Friday....Wait how much?

 

[bones206]

1. Gravity
2. Extreme feast and famine workload cycles
3. Scope creep

 

[cliff234]

1. Lack of communication
2. Engineers living in "model world" (having blind faith in the model and not paying attention to how structures go together - the details)
3. Problems working with clients (lack of information, changes after design, unrealistic schedules, expectation that redesign (due cost estimates being over budget) should be done for free.

 

[phamENG]

This thread is depressing. I thought I was the only one going through this and there must be hope somewhere, sometime...guess not...

 

[WinelandV]

Sorry, phamENG. Welcome to the world of being legally a profession, but priced as a commodity.

When friends tell me their kids want to be engineers and ask me about my job, I always have a hard time not overemphasizing the negatives.

As for the OP:

1) Schedule
2) Schedule
3) Schedule

All of the other items everyone else mentioned apply, but the brutal schedules on most of my projects are what drive the frustration. It's usually a cycle of no info, no info, no info, no info, "oh, here's that info you need (that was promised 2 weeks ago), can I get check sets today?"

 

[cliff234]

Jayrod12, per your #1, some contractors today use RFI's as a weapon. They scour the drawings at the beginning of the project ask every imaginable question to set the tone that, 1. the drawings are incomplete or unclear, 2. we need answers immediately or else you are holding up the job, 3. any answer you give will result in a change order. I call these "assault RFI's". In fairness to contractors, sometimes the drawings they see are incomplete and ambiguous. At the firm where I work we strive to issue complete, correct and buildable designs and contract documents. It's a challenge.

 

[mbullism]

D) All of the above

You can have it fast, right or cheap... pick two



Analog spoken here...

 

[phamENG]

Kidding aside, I had often wondered if these were symptoms of the market segment we were operating in. The firm where I used to work full time (I recently went to work directly for a former client to get away from most of these issues!) serviced mostly small to medium clients. Everything from sagging floor joists to mid-rise buildings, light industrial, commercial, etc. But none of it was what I would consider "high end" work (you know - runner up for maybe being considered for the being listed on the last page of an obscure trade publication). Most of the bigger jobs were with clients who shopped the engineers for the lowest possible fee and then negotiated the lowest bidder even lower, and the owners always seemed to pay more for "value engineering" after the fact than they were willing to pay for the original design.

The result always seemed to be a shoe-string budget and an unattainable timeline. If you pushed back on the timeline, somebody else was waiting to steal your shoe string.

As you move up the chain in size and complexity of the projects, does the quality of the client improve or get worse? Or is it all just relative?

 

[DrZoidberWoop]

phamENG. Short answer: No. It doesn't improve with the size and complexity of the projects. If anything, you run into the corporate scenario where some people you deal with have been promoted to their level of incompetence. I think it's called the Peter Principle. And god forbid you work on a nuclear construction site in the US. Never again.

 

[skeletron]

1) Aggressive schedule driven projects
2) "Screen blindness"
3) Construction standards

The Eureka moment is that you (a structural engineer) never actually work for structural engineers. You work for people that attempt to know structural engineering by proxy: architects, managers, drafters, sellers, financiers, and builders.

 

[msquared48]

Architects
Architects, and
Architects

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA, HI)

 

[WARose]

Budget, schedule, decent drafting help, etc ,etc