Rubber stamping vs review work of someone that works remotely in another country? 15

[Fischstabchen]

I have someone that is want to offer me work to review someone else's design or use it as a basis for mine. I suspect the work is being done outside of the U.S. and a PE is needed to approve the design. When is it rubber stamping and when is it taking a company's design and running through it for review? Is there any part of this that is ethical?

 

[drawoh]

I don't know who you think is engineering your American automobiles, but chances are 9 times out 10 they aren't in Kansas any more, Toto.

Industrial exemption. The engineers may not be licensed or even in the country. At least the sales organization is available to be sued if their vanity mirrors explode.

I don't see a way around licensed civil engineers, preferably local.

--
JHG

 

[GregLocock]

You miss my point. While we damforriners are engineering cars and trucks for the USA market we have to absolutely be on top of legislation and market requirements there. So the quote is just ignorant.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[CWB1]

IME non-Americans also tend to have a much better knowledge of both American history and govt.

Stateside the licensing requirement is driven by whether/not the customer is a member of the public, not the engineering discipline. Civil engineering happens every day under the industrial exemption. Not sure what specifically the OP does, but basic code and consumer product law generally precludes sparkies from selling services to the public.

 

[hokie66]

Huh? To me a sparky is an electrician, and they work for members of the public.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I had a situation that was pretty similar. My company was working on a project in Connecticut or such. I was the lead structural guy and I was only licensed in California.

We explained this to the client. I believe we said that we were going to charge them extra because we had to bring on another engineer to take responsible charge. It was too quick of a time frame for me to get reciprocity in their state. The client's project manager said they'd take care of it with a local engineer of their own. Seemed like a silly way to save money. Like how much money were they really going to save?

We did the work to the same degree that would always would. Submitted the same types of calcs and drawings. We gave our drawings and calculations to the client's project manager, who then got them stamped (presumably) by the local engineer and submitted them to the building department.

Honestly, that project manager really screwed things up. He made enemies out of the city's entire building department... all because they told him it would take two to three weeks to review. He ranted and raved to them about how valuable of a company they are to the city and how much investment they bring in. He got the mayor to call in to the building department and pull strings. LOL. Guy came back and the building department guy said, "Oh, you're the guy who called the mayor's office. Typically this will take 2 to 3 weeks to review.".... The same thing went on for about 3 months. All the while new material and equipment is being shipped to the site. In fact, the project manager didn't follow the storage instructions for a number very expensive (and essential) pipe bellows that was shipped there. Most of those had to be replaced. That guy was such an arrogant jack-ass. I can't imagine how many other screw ups happened because of him that we were never told about.

 

[kissymoose]

JoshPlumSE, how were you able to provide engineering services in a state in which you or someone from your company were not licensed?

 

[LWyatt]

Hey folks, thanks for giving me a very interesting read! And also for sparking a minor existential crisis! If you would permit a loosely related question.....

When I was fresh out of university, I worked for a company providing concrete forms, temporary work platforms, and that kind of thing. Nobody in our office was licensed, but this kind of work was typically exempt from needing to be "engineered" so it wasn't a problem. Every once in a while, we would get a project where a PE's seal was required. So we would hire an engineer to review and then stamp our drawings. They always had full control, would review our calcs, and sometimes would do calcs of their own as well. Everyone (themselves, ourselves, the clients, etc) was fully aware of this arrangement.

At the time it felt totally above-board. But after reading this thread, I'm suddenly not so sure. Was this practice unethical? How about illegal?

 

[phamENG]

LWyatt - I see this as a different case than hiring an unlicensed engineer to do the engineering and then hiring a licensed engineer to do it all over again (which they aren't, they're looking to save money in both transactions and come out less than than hiring the licensed engineer to begin with). If somebody is hiring your company to use your specific product, and then you bring in an engineer to certify your product for the use, I don't see an ethics problem.

The legal question would come from your local laws. Some places would let the engineer stamp it if they, as you say, had full control over the design decisions (apart from, perhaps, the list of material they could pick from so you could keep it to in-stock form work parts) and the authority to have anything changed on the drawing he/she wished before approving them. Others wouldn't and would expect the engineer's firm to produce those documents.