Same Engineer Checking and Stamping a Calculation 3

[Deflected]

Is it wrong for an engineer to be the designated checker of a calculation and stamp the calculation with his seal?

Scenario:
EIT prepares calculation based on design that was directed by the PE. The PE checks the EIT's calculation. The PE then stamps the calculation.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Ron]

KENAT...I agree with you completely. In my not-so-humble opinion, ISO 9000 and successors is a bunch of hooey. Another marketing tool that has no technical substance. I guess there's a better term for it....bull$hit.

Big in manufacturing. In my area of consulting, it was tried in the labs, but didn't fly because of all the other legitimate criteria.

 

[IRstuff]

Was not endorsing 9001, merely pointing out that what's most important is to have documented procedures, i.e., paperwork. If you think 9001 is bad, try CMMI level 5; just don't get me started on that one.

OK, I will get started. CMMI -- Capability Maturity Model Integration is supposed to rank organizations as to their compliance to the systems engineering tenets of CMMI; things like process improvement, modelling, requirements analysis, etc. As with ISO9001, organizations get audited by a third party for compliance. But, in CMMI, there are specific artifacts and processes that are supposed to in place. Level 5 is the highest ranking, but only a small group within any given organization needs to be audited for CMMI compliance, which means that other groups within a CMMI 5 organization could be real stinkers, as we've experienced with a couple of "evil" empires that had that certification.

At the end of the day, any organization's quality is only as good as the discipline exerted by the members of that organization. If there's no discipline or no support from upper management, then GIGO.

TTFN
faq731-376

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[tbuelna]

...Oh, and this is based on ISO9001 as I saw it in Aerospace/Defense where they tend to care more about such things than in many other industries....

KENAT, I have worked as a design engineer in the US aerospace industry for over 20 years. During this time I have worked for both big OEMs like Boeing, and for small companies with less than a dozen employees. So I have experienced how a QA process like AS9100 works with very large and very small aerospace companies. In my opinion, the implementation of AS9100 throughout the US aerospace business has been a great thing. If you look at the amazing safety record of US commercial aircraft operations over the past few years, it's mostly due to rigid conformance to QA processes like AS9100.

QA processes like AS9100 are not BS. If you've ever looked at the procedures AS9100 requires for controlling and validating every step of design, analysis, documentation, procurement, manufacturing, inspection, etc, what they do is force everyone involved in the process to double-check and document that they have not made any mistakes in their work. And if there is a quality/performance problem with the delivered product, the AS9100 documentation makes it easy to diagnose and correct the problem.