Projects done by state agencies and finished by consultants

[Crown192br]

A government agency partially completes the design of a project. Partially means many of the design decisions are made, some of the computations of quantities are completed, and you could characterize the project as 60% complete.

The governmnet agency then decides to contract with a consultant to complete the work on the project. The governmnet agency does not want the consultant engineer to go back and check any of the completed work, but just move forward with completing the construction documents.

The government agency then expects the engineer to sign and seal the competed work. The public agency is not required, and generally does not, sign and seal construction documents for these projects.

Considering only engineering ethics considerations (NSPE) (not considering state registration laws and rules), what should the position of the consultant be with regard to signing and sealing the final project that includes work and decisions made proir to his/her taking over supervision of the project?

 

[MikeHalloran]

Said consultant has no idea who actually did the initial work, and has no basis other than the provided work product itself for evaluating their skill level or verifying the state's assertion that the work is X percent complete, and done correctly.

IMHO:
NSPE or no, you'd be certifiably insane to put your name on a project without checking a _lot_ of the supplied input, maybe all of it.

[ I'm not licensed and don't seal drawings, but pretty much every time I've accepted a stranger's word that something was done correctly, or to the degree of completion asserted, or at all, I've regretted it. ]



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[PSE]

I agree with MikeHalloran (I am not licensed either for what that makes my comments worth), in that position I would not consider the work completed unless prior efforts were reviewed and deemed satisfactory. Since the public agency does not want previous work to be reviewed, I would walk away.

I routinely review drawings in the course of my work and at times have been distressingly amazed at how some arrive to me with others signatures already on them but in some cases with errors that are readily apparent.

Regards,

 

[JAE]

The governmnet agency does not want the consultant engineer to go back and check any of the completed work, but just move forward with completing the construction documents

This is in direct violation of every USA state's engineering laws. In this case, the engineer should immediately state in writing that their obligation to protect the public safety trumps any request by the gov't agency to omit this verification and insist that they be compensated in order to do the required back-checking.

In addition, as a consulting engineer, you should also be aware that you are always under pressure to control your company's risk. This means that whether they pay you or not, you should back-check the 60% design to cover yourselves against any future litigation should something be wrong in the design.

You would be judged against a "standard of care" whereby your behavior on this project would be compared to what another "reasonable" engineer would do in your circumstance...and I would think most reasonable engineers would back-check.

 

[stevenal]

I find this idea of separating ethics from law to be interesting. It may be unethical to follow unjust laws as Martin Luther King Jr. taught us. But do any of the engineering laws fall into this category? In general, I would consider it unethical to knowingly break the engineering laws of your locale. It is also unethical for anyone, particularly a government agency, to ask you to do so.

 

[zcp]

Sometimes you have to go with the information given to you. Some examples: You don't go and do your own tensile test on the material you are considering to "check" the properties listed on

http://www.matweb.

You don't go back and redo the research it took to fill out a design table in an engineering textbook (and these have some errors in them every once in a while).

I AM licensed, and the most important aspect of that is understanding that you can not always account for everything and you can not always check everything. But you have to get to the point that what you are designing/checking is reasonable and you are comfortable with what you have done. My test I use when I am about to stamp something is "would I be willing to let my children stand under/use/be around this everyday from now on?”. If the answer is no, then I have some more calcs/tests/etc. to do.

When I am faced with the situation originally posed, I will state that “based on the information provided by XYZ……, then…….”. It’s not perfect and I still have to do a reality check to make sure everything is safe, but it sometimes is the best I can do.


ZCP

http://www.phoenix-engineer.com

 

[IRstuff]

There is, and should be, a difference between an assertion by a manufacturer, who essentially certifies performance and having you, as an licensed engineer signing off on a design, to certify that:

a> you did all the work or supervised all the work when you didn't
b> the performance of the design is as predicted when you have no insight into the calculations or the assumptions/groundrules of the original design calculations.

The "based on the information provided by XYZ" defense does not hold up, since you are liable if a program like NASTRAN gives you the wrong answer for a design that later fails. By claiming "based on the information provided by XYZ" you can be liable for failure to do due diligence.

Even in the case where you could somehow get the 60% design signed off by the original designer, there is still a technical risk due to the fact that you have no insight into the assumptions and groundrules used by the original designer.

While your design addition may be sound and optimum, in of itself, and may appear to dovetail into the existing design; without thorough understanding of any potential negative interactions, you run the risk of design failure. Two optimal components, when coupled together can, and often does, result in a suboptimal system performance.

TTFN

 

[TheTick]

Trustworthy people never give you that "trust me" smile. If the project were to have problems later, the law certainly wouldn't be on the side of a consultant who didn't double-check the existing work.