Peer Review - Small Structural Concrete/Steel Projects 6

[GreatDane2022]

Good evening gang-

I have been in construction most of my 25 year career but over the past few years have found myself designing more. I design very small concrete and/steel projects usually in the areas of retaining walls, pergola, and the occasional swimming pool. Despite a rather strenuous check-list, I still feel a peer review is very important not only from my clients but to further grow my expertise.

Are there any other one-man shops that practice this way and if so, how did you find your peer reviewer, what is your service-level agreement, fee structure, etc.? Any intel in much appreciated.

It is my understanding that it is against the rules of this site to trade contact information but if it is not, please feel free to post and/or contact me.

Thanks!
Texas PE

 

[phamENG]

One could argue that the helicopter is, in fact, simply an evolution of the car.

Actually, I think the car's evolutionary path went a different way...

 

[phamENG]

Once the system adjusts to its new equilibrium, I see no reason to expect that our fees and schedules would not adjust accordingly.

My concern with this viewpoint is that it's essentially using the peer review process as an excuse to do what we should already be doing - standing up for the best fees the market will bear and insisting on sufficient time to do our job correctly and completely. It won't...or shouldn't...solve that problem. If it adds more time, it will almost certainly add only enough time to add the peer review. Our clients are smart...many of them will know or quickly figure out that this step is only adding a day or two of work to a 'typical project', so maybe up to a week to handle submitting, forwarding to the reviewer, getting it scheduled, and knocking it out. In fact, some time limit imposed by the AHJ would be necessary, likely based on the size of the job. Maybe it's a week, maybe it's two. Either way, that clock would start when the project is submitted. So there's not really any extra time to work on it because clients aren't going to give us more time than the AHJ requires.

 

[Eng16080]

Many of our design decisions are leveraged significantly against our hourly rate - likely around 10-20x versus the time spent on developing the solution. When we have to rush through a design and miss considering something you can bet when the contractor finds it during construction it will also be charged at a premium.

I agree 1000% percent.

I would think the building owners could be sold on this in the fact that engineers having more time, more thorough review of their design will likely save them money on change orders.

I've had plenty of projects go very smooth, with few or no change orders or other major issues, but it seems that few clients, whether they're owners, architects, or builders, recognize any correlation between the quality of the structural design and the quality of the final product. A few do, of course, but most simply don't. After a job has gone very well, the same client will often go with a different firm on the next project to save a tiny amount on design fees. Maybe I'm the outlier here with this?

 

[Just Some Nerd]

This conversation has gone down the inevitable path towards the root of the problem...the quality of a structural design isn't always obvious to a client until a poor design falls down, and they'll almost always object to sacrificing the budget to make something more robust. The familiar faces in this thread have talked about it at length before, I imagine the endless cycle of returning to the same issue is part of why Koot is so incensed at the suggestion we can't force a change.

I've born witness to some big project peer reviews in big markets that, mostly, wound up being opportunities for the reviewer to try to convince the owner that they should have went with the reviewer's firm for the design in the first place.

A story from here in Sydney - there was a firm that offered *free* peer reviews for sole purpose of doing this. Coming up with supposed millions of dollars in potential savings on jobs. That firm was also the worst structural engineering firm in the state, bar none. They've phoenixed and had an internal split since.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Why yes, I do in fact have no idea what I'm talking about

 

[EZBuilding]

Several municipalities where I practice required a Structural Peer Review for building's meeting a certain criteria. See below for the City of Miami's criteria - I think it is a pretty good document and the requirements for the peer review and more comprehensive than your typical building department review.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.miami.gov/Services/Building-Permitting2/Structural-Peer-Review-Guidelines[/url]

In practice - the peer reviewer needs to be approved by the AHJ and is directly hired by the building owner. Traditionally, the peer reviewer is hired at or near the Permitting process. This puts the Peer Reviewer "closer to the money" - i.e. during hiring of a design team the owner is typically self funding, during construction the owner typically has a construction loan and costs tend to get lumped in and there is less nickel'ing and dime'ing. These peer reviews tend to be more profitable, you are able to have a clear understanding of scope and level of development of the drawings prior to proposing versus bidding on a building that is still more or less just an architect or owner's napkin sketch. As the EOR - these peer reviews are a great third party check of your design. As the peer reviewer, it is a great opportunity to sharpen your skills. Generally, it's a fantastic opportunity for having a better understanding of the standard of care and typical practice in the region.

KootK - I am all for creating a new system that required Peer Reviews. Like the City of Miami's I would think that it would be beneficial to place them for buildings that meet certain criteria. In general, I think small municipalities hold too much power locally through zoning and their building departments and would think there would be more benefit than harm to see these departments be centralized to at a minimum a county level.

 

[southard2]

Phew wow this thread got long. I haven't read it all. But the part above about leaving mistakes in a design on purpose to check the peer review I found fascinating. My first job was in steel detailing. In fact it was steel bar joist detailing. And it was my job to check all of the detailers drawings and cut sheets. In the joist business the cut sheets basically provide all the information necessary for the input for the program that designs the joist. So garbage in garbage out. If the cut sheet is wrong so is the design.

So it was a high pressure job. I would often have to check a job two sometimes three times before all the mistakes were gone. And you don't want a joist fabricated 1 inch too long. You could end up with 50 of them having to be cut and repaired in the field and literally lose your job.

So I did a few things. At some point I started having some of the detailers check each other's work BEFORE I'd do my final checks. The idea is to simply improve the odds that a job would go out correctly.

One thing I did was that I would purposefully put into the cut sheets a mistake. And I WOULD TELL THEM I HAD PUT IN A MISTAKE. I found that if I didn't tell them they would often miss it. But if I told them they would find it. And often find other mistakes too. The idea is that if you believe there is a mistake you are much more likely to find it. I could only do that job for a few years before I burned out. I have a lot of respect for anyone that does steel detailing. The only way to really be good at it is to believe you make mistakes. And when you are in that mindset it is also very stressful.

But the mindtrick does work. If a person believes there is a mistake they will be much more diligent. On a few rare instances I didn't put in a mistake. And they would on even rarely instances not find one. And then swear up and down they tried. A few times they found mistakes but not the mistake I had inserted and then I'd show them.

None of us are perfect and it is best if we know we aren't perfect.

John Southard, M.S., P.E.

https://www.pdhlibrary.com/

 

[southard2]

Oh and for the real reason I came here. I wanted to tell a joke that made myself chuckle. Figured only structural engineers would appreciate it.

I was thinking wow it won't be long until someone tries to tell me that AI can do my job and do it better than me. And then I started thinking about just how difficult the job really is. And then I started thinking about how every job is so unique and has its own challenges and I have to get pretty creative in order to solve the problem.

And then I realized. We need not be afraid of AI. Because once the AI has worked with an architect for a few weeks the AI will self delete.

lololololol

John Southard, M.S., P.E.

https://www.pdhlibrary.com/

 

[KootK]

The familiar faces in this thread have talked about it at length before, I imagine the endless cycle of returning to the same issue is part of why Koot is so incensed at the suggestion we can't force a change.

Ughh... it's a sure sign that I've not been my best self when an impartial observer describes me as having been "incensed".

This issue is something that I would like to progress out of the "talking about it" phase and into the "doing something about it" phase. And I would be willing to make some sacrifices to, personally, play an active role in doing something about it if necessary.

Unfortunately, I've come to believe that it is not possible to get to the "doing something" phase on an issue like this until a critical mass of people comes to believe that meaningful change is possible. And it needs to be not just "UFO possible" but, rather, possible with hard work and perseverance. My opinion is that we're still not there yet.

So, every couple of years, I pop my head out of my gopher hole and try to move the needle a bit.

 

[JLNJ]

Peer reviews by "qualified" people are starting to happen for tornado shelters. I believe it's mandated by the IBC.

 

[KootK]

My concern with this viewpoint is that it's essentially using the peer review process as an excuse to do what we should already be doing - standing up for the best fees the market will bear and insisting on sufficient time to do our job correctly and completely. It won't...or shouldn't...solve that problem.

I agree with the "shouldn't" but not the "won't". Or, at the least, I feel that we should at least experiment with some systemic improvements before resigning ourselves to "won't". I know that you already know most or all of what I'm about to say. I'm using you as a foil, partly because it's expedient and partly because I know that you can take it.

[highlight #FCE94F]I've done some uncharacteristic, douchy highlighting below because I recognize that I'm drifting deeeeep into TLDR territory.[/highlight]

I believe that the current incentive structure makes it functionally impossible for us to stand up for ourselves and insist upon the fees and schedules that would make it possible for us to do our work well. That, for the reason that JSN expressed well and I'll repeat in a moment. I feel that it is well past time that SE's to stop beating themselves up for being unable exert influence over market forces which are legitimately beyond our control. The answer is to change the market forces.

We often bemoan our perception that other kinds of consultants have it better than we do (doctors, accountants, lawyers). In my opinion, that's not just perception but, rather, the truth of it. Other professions do have it better than we do. The question, of course, is why? We sometimes speculate that lawyers and accountants must just be much better business people than SE's are. I think that's a load of horseshit. SE's kick ass at complex technical and analytical things. And business stuff is mostly just more of that. It's certainly not the case that P&L and time value of money stuff is beyond our reach.

[highlight #FCE94F]I believe that the difference is that these other profession have something crucial that we lack: meaningful, measurable consequences that will manifest themselves over a time scale that would matter to someone making a strategic business decision.
[/highlight]

...the root of the problem...the quality of a structural design isn't always obvious to a client until a poor design falls down

Expanding upon that, I see it like this:

1) Because of the diagram below, the consequences of bad structural design:

a) Very rarely come to pass.

b) If they come to pass at all, do not manifest them selves for 50yr - 2500yr.

[highlight #FCE94F]2) The rarity and timescale over which the consequences of bad structural design manifest themselves is incompatible with the timescale over which human beings make business decisions. A such, it is simply not reasonable to expect people making business decisions to factor in the life safety implications of bad structural design.[/highlight]

3) We'll never have good structural design if bad structural design doesn't generate meaning consequences for people making business decisions.

[highlight #FCE94F]4) Since we cannot use life safety as a "business consequence" of bad design, we need to employ another, proxy consequence in its stead. I propose that consequence be schedule and, by extension, money. When people express concern that a rigorous peer review program would negatively impact project schedules, they are missing the point. The impact to project schedules is our stick. It is our "business consequence". Without that, peer review simply has no teeth and we remain stuck, right where we are. Forever apparently.
[/highlight]

Yes, it is wildly unfair other professions get to have "organic" business consequences whereas we're forced to invent faux consequences like this.

 

[KootK]

In fact, some time limit imposed by the AHJ would be necessary, likely based on the size of the job. Maybe it's a week, maybe it's two.

It's as though you read my mind on that. I was going to suggest exactly that as a rather extreme version of what might be possible, if necessary.

Firstly, I see improvements to our design schedules as being only one of many benefits of a robust peer review program, and not the most important one. So if we can garner schedule improvements, great. If not, I contend that a robust peer review program is still very much worth attempting.

Where I attempting to design in schedule improvement for our ilk, an extreme version of that might be:

1) One is only allowed to submit 90% drawings for review that are truly 90% drawings. Where I work, we routinely submit 60% drawings for permit even though they are supposed to be 90%. Somebody would have to be the decider as to whether or not a set of drawings is truly ready for review in this sense. This might be a combination of the judgement of the reviewer and somebody who knows their stuff at AHJ

2) The peer review process is assigned a mandatory schedule allowance based on the construction budget. Maybe $50M begets you a month.

3) Once the peer review is done, a mandatory minimum schedule allowance is made for processing the peer review changes. Again, base this on construction budget. Set it up so that, even if the EOR finishes dealing with review early, nothing else moves forward until the schedule allowance laps.

Yes, this will cost money. But, remember, the whole point of this is to slow things down enough to allow us to do a better job of the work.

How much could it really impact the cost of an entire building project anyhow? 0.001%? 1%? 5%? Even if it's 5%, which seem exorbitant, what would be the outcome of that? Would humans just abandon the shelter game entirely and revert to living outdoors? I doubt it. Life, and construction, will go on.

 

[KootK]

I find it so odd and frustrating that a sole proprietor has to outsource this to a firm, but a peer review within a firm is legit for most cases. The peer review should be a form of getting designs consistent across the board; I don't think this is achieved if the same chain of command reviews the drawings "independently" within their own firm.

Just want to circle back to that before it falls from my radar.

I agree 100%. It is unfair, and imprudent, that firm should be able to do internal peer reviews that count as the real thing. I've worked for plenty of the big dog firms and know just how that plays out:

1) They will, with good intention, develop a kick-ass QC program.

2) When time permits, they will execute their QC program.

3) When time does not permit, they will circumvent their QC program.

I don't mean any of that as judgment. This, again, is simply business people making strategic business decisions within a particular risk landscape.

But you can't have the wolves looking after the sheep and expect good outcomes. That, in part, is why I don't feel that EOR's should even know who their reviews are, yet alone hire them. If the reviewer has any interest in the EOR's business success beyond general good will, then it's a conflict of interest.

 

[jayrod12]

3) When time does not permit, they will circumvent their QC program.

And I'm not sure about in other jurisdictions, but where I am the schedule almost never allows for internal QC until after drawings have been issued for construction. And then we're left scrambling to determine how to address the potential issues raised during the review while not costing the project money. I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

 

[Lomarandil]

Jayrod, I see similar behavior from my peers... And as Koot says, it's ultimately the PM making business decisions, whether consciously or not. But when peer reviews are truly merited, some responsibility also falls somewhat on the EOR. In certain circumstances, I simply refuse to stamp until the QC is completed. The reviewer can review my unstamped drawings, and if the contractor wants to order materials at his risk from unstamped drawings, that's fine too. I'll give him the best information I can, as early as I can.