Use and building of personal engineering toolbox for employees 9

[TidePoolJunkie]

Hi all, I'm curious how consulting business owners here feel about their employees using and building their own personal engineering toolbox.

Everyone has their toolbox to help them do their job more efficiently and to a higher degree of quality, from Excel design spreadsheets to reference/typical details of connections. Many of these have come from projects you have worked on in the past or at previous/current companies of others (or their own).

Specifically, how do you encourage your younger (or older) engineers to build this toolbox, but at the same time, protect your data/tools/drawings/details/etc from being taken from you and used elsewhere when an employee leaves your company?

Looking forward to great discord!

 

[lexpatrie]

You really don't (prevent your details from going on a voyage when an employee leaves). "Your" details will also migrate during any lawsuit, any peer review, etc., and they are at the building department on any project they are used on.

This is a good thing, however, at least potentially, as it serves to mitigate the 40 year cycle of failures we see in bridge engineering.

As an engineer, it doesn't matter where the detail came from because as you seal the drawings you are taking responsibility for the design. You need to be aware of all details used on a drawing you seal, and you're also supposed to be involved in the project start to finish, meaning when a strange detail shows up, that somebody added without your knowledge, you're expected to notice it. When a strange detail shows up it's also a sign you are not providing adequate supervision and control of the work, and are not providing responsible charge.

 

[WesternJeb]

This is definitely an issue in the manufacturing realm.. As far as the structural realm goes, I am not quite sure how I see it is an issue.

Your competitors might get slightly more efficient due to this, but as a whole it will keep the general public much safer as details and calculations are reused and grandfathered down. That is the goal of structural engineering, after all.

If you have a patented product you're talking about, then you just need to be frivolous with law suits in order to prove a point.

 

[271828]

I had a funny thought. Semi-serious: If you're worried about employees taking the programs with them, then adopt an obscure platform like Maple or Mathematica. Those are expensive enough that the defector probably couldn't talk the new employer into purchasing the software. Watch out for free versions, though. Matlab is an option and it's expensive, but GNU Octave is an excellent free version.

 

[phamENG]

I'd say it's a double edged sword.

Much of this will sound like hypocrisy to anyone that knows me simply because it's the opposite of what I did, but it's precisely because I did it that I don't want it done in my company:

1) If you want to build an excel sheet to help you with some repetitive task, that's fine. But keep the company name OFF of it. Do NOT use it for produce calculation submittals. One off spreadsheets created in a vacuum are usually prone to errors. I've gone back and looked at spreadsheets I made in my first couple years that were used for final production and submitted...yikes. So many issues with them. I don't think anything that would make a structure unsafe...but yikes. Those sorts of things need to be planned, developed, and tested.

2) Typical details...I've always disliked them, but I've come to understand their commercial value, especially in residential construction. But again, these should be standardized for the company. Oftentimes a "typical detail" is developed for a project (which is totally fine), but it's based on the particular requirements of that project. It's "typical" for every place that condition occurs in that building, but probably not most others. But somebody drops in the the library, and then it gets copy and pasted forever creating headaches and confusion.

As far as exporting them to another company...yeah, don't do that. At least not the raw files. Not the CAD files or the Revit Templates/families. Not the actual spreadsheets. It's easy to get your hands on a PDF of something...if you want to copy my detail, so be it. But you'd better take the time to actually draw it yourself.

 

[dvd]

You are assuming a one-way door of everything leaking out, what about all of the tools that arrive with an experienced hand, that you haven't paid to develop?

 

[GregLocock]

Yes, when a manager commented that the stuff I developed would be a valuable asset for a future employer, I pointed out that I didn't get employed based on my degree, but on the experience I had in previous companies. That went down like a ton of bricks, but I never heard any more about it. 271828's point is why I write scripts in Octave, where possible.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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

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[milkshakelake]

I'm in total agreement with lexpatrie on this one. If any new calculation tools or details are developed, they are started by management, not as an initiative from an employee. The employee can make a suggestion that something needs to be improved or a certain calculation should be made, but they don't do it on their own. It's just a massive liability. Junior employees in particular don't have a big picture view of how the company is run, how to make an efficient and usable calculation, how to test it, etc.

All that goes out the window if your firm is badly managed. I'm kind of like phamENG. I made tons of calculation tools for my company (on my own time) because the right tools weren't available. I'm still using them to this day, with fixes and quality of life enhancements. Of course I took them with me after I left the company.

About employees stealing stuff, is there any way to prevent that? I haven't figured out a way, short of using some expensive program, which I'm not willing to do (Excel with VBA is a beast). Standard details are in CAD and need to be available at all times, so they're easily stealable. I've resigned myself to having all the sensitive info taken at some point or other. I'm not implying that I've done that myself, but I might have.

 

[271828]

why I write scripts in Octave, where possible.

Good to meet another Octave fan!

I ditched Matlab in about 2017 and switched to Octave. Haven't looked back.

 

[driftLimiter]

Ill jump on the Octave train too Love it. Also use python w/ spyder ide. Lets see my competitors steal that lol.

 

[phamENG]

So this is really timely for me. I'm looking to hire a 1099 drafter or two, and eventually an engineer the same way to break up the big step of hiring my first full time employee. Handing over my revit template with all my typicals pre loaded doesn't give me warm fuzzies. Neither does giving or my tools for calcs.

My thought is to require a web based authentication for the calcs with an access log so I can see if they're used when not working on my project. No clue what I could do with Revit.

If LOTE is around, how did you tackle this issue? (Relates to a thread on the business forum where we were discussing the 1099/upwork model today. )

 

[GregLocock]

"If any new calculation tools or details are developed, they are started by management, not as an initiative from an employee." Not necessarily in large companies, a fair amount is done under the radar by (typically) senior engineers chatting to each other. Of course things can get a bit political when it turns into a science project (my favorite projects) and absorbs significant hours.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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

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

 

[milkshakelake]

@GregLocock I used to work at a large firm and the standards were tightly controlled. I guess every company is different.

 

[human909]

Unless your are a company with advanced R&D, whatever "tool box" you have are likely present in most other similar and competing companies. Your "tool box" probably isn't that special. It is a win for everybody to have free flow of tool boxes in the mostly public domain, aka sharing of information. Of course user beware.

If your toolbox is so good and so unique. Then sure either keep it locked up tightly, or alternatively sell it as software.

So this is really timely for me. I'm looking to hire a 1099 drafter or two, and eventually an engineer the same way to break up the big step of hiring my first full time employee. Handing over my revit template with all my typicals pre loaded doesn't give me warm fuzzies. Neither does giving or my tools for calcs.

phamENG. A query, not a challenge. Why doesn't it give you warm fuzzies?

Is it because you feel they could be a genuine competition threat to you? Or is it the "sunk cost fallacy"? AKA you have spent countless hours of hard work on them and you don't want to let others have them for 'free'?


(Usually the most valuable things are our tool boxes, it is our knowledge. And anybody who is mentoring others or posting online here is giving that away for free!)

 

[phamENG]

Is it because you feel they could be a genuine competition threat to you? Or is it the "sunk cost fallacy"? AKA you have spent countless hours of hard work on them and you don't want to let others have them for 'free'?

I've come to the conclusion that true success in this industry requires a combination of several things: efficiency, quality, punctuality, and a willingness to fight for reasonable fees. The first three are the most important, the fees thing is just a matter of getting comfortable negotiating. Of those three, it's easy to to have one, not hard to have two. I can be efficient and punctual, but maybe I have to sacrifice quality to get it out the the door on time. Or I can be efficient in producing quality, but don't deliver on time. Or I have quality designs and drawings that are delivered on time, but to do it slowly and inefficiently so I can't turn a profit.

The real trick is combining all three. I've never seen a firm consistently deliver on all three. I'm sure they're out there...but I haven't seen it. (Granted, my experience is the firm where I worked for several years, the firm I started, complaints about other firms from clients, and all of the mistakes from other local firms that I've been asked to review/fix. So perhaps the two or three that I haven't had dealings with are doing this? Could be.)

That's where our 'tool boxes' come in. Sure, my details are based on the general knowledge I've inherited and the body of identical details floating around all of the firms in the area (I think most of the founders of the major regional players worked at the same firm at one point). But I'm working to tailor them to my workflow and system I'm developing. That does take time and money to do. That's an investment in my company's competitive edge.

I'm all for the free flow of information and knowledge. It's why I participate here, and it's why I still have ideas about getting into academics and teaching eventually. But the processes and associated tools I develop for my business to edge out the competition in this crazy, cut throat, commodotized industry...yeah, I'm going to hold those as close to the chest as I can. That's not sunk cost fallacy, that's protecting my business and profit margins.

 

[human909]

I've come to the conclusion that true success in this industry requires a combination of several things: efficiency, quality, punctuality, and a willingness to fight for reasonable fees.

That concurs with the feedback I've had from other sole practitioner structural engineers.

But the processes and associated tools I develop for my business to edge out the competition in this crazy, cut throat, commodotized industry...yeah, I'm going to hold those as close to the chest as I can. That's not sunk cost fallacy, that's protecting my business and profit margins.

Fair enough! Thanks for answering.

I'm still beating my path to "true success in this industry". Though the path is looking ok. My success so far is being able to provide high quality in-house structural design. So I have been lucky and have not had deal with the commoditized cut throat industry you describe.

Though I am dipping my toe in the water with a side hustle and some of that will be work that is of a commoditised nature. So I'll soon have to learn "efficiency, quality, punctuality, and a willingness to fight for reasonable fees". I have an older mentor who is assisting me along the path and he excels in those aspects and has been suitably successful. Personally I want to try to stay specialised and stay away from commodity tasks, but I'm hedging my bets.

 

[milkshakelake]

The thing about toolboxes is that they are special if a company puts time into them. I know mine is better than at least some other companies' toolboxes, so it has real and significant market value. I can't give it away for free. I also can't sell it as software (thought about it before) because it's not that good. But in the end, I have no good way to lock it down, so I understand that it'll be spread around at some point. I make employees sign a non-disclosure thing, but I have a good idea about how well it'll actually work or be enforceable.

I'm also conflicted about it in another way, which completely contradicts the point above. The open source movement for software is a wonderful thing, and I think it can apply to engineering. The free flow of information is awesome, bruh. I guess in the end, I have to weigh how much free information I want to give up versus protecting my competitive edge. Maybe when I retire in 10 years, I'll just give away everything, because it won't affect me anymore.

 

[phamENG]

To the point about retiring...most of our firms are worthless. When the name on the door leaves, the company is effectively done and the new owners are starting over with, hopefully, a nice head start.

Unless, of course, your company is running on a set of systems and processes that transcend the name on the door. If I can show a potential buyer that it's the process and toolsets I've built that are actually driving profits, then those tool sets suddenly have huge value that needs to be protected.

 

[driftLimiter]

I'm all for keeping the competitive advantage, but if my employer had me sign in just to use a spreadsheet I would be resistant to even bother with it, just another layer of time and perhaps a barrier to actually being efficient. Also since these employees are so hard to obtain, I want to show them I trust and value them so that they stay for the long term.

This is an interesting topic though and I think very prevalent in our industry. In my experience spreadsheets, details etc have flowed around a lot, and in my opinion there isn't much advantage changing hands here. I'm not a huge fan of trying to make typical details work on a every project, I don't really believe it works, it can take more time to find a similar detail then specialize it to the actual project than to just make a new one.

That being said I have invested a lot into revit templates and families over the years, but I think if someone else just picked it up they wouldn't even know where to start with it to gain actual efficiency. Same with a lot of spreadsheets I have made.

 

[TidePoolJunkie]

Loving the conversation. Thank you all for sharing our opinions, insights, and experiences. One clarification I want to make is that I was asking about 'toolboxes' of individual employees--not the companies 'toolbox'. Regardless, I think the conversation has touched on both.

I will add to this that all 3 companies I've worked at over the last 7 years, I've had co-workers who had hard-drives worth of pdfs and excel design files from their previous companies. Those same companies ALSO had design excel files AND typical details from the companies that the owners previously worked at! This is consistent with many experiences noted below

One further question---has anyone employed a file audit/tracking software to track file copying, etc of employees? or vice versa--worked somewhere that did this.

1) If you want to build an excel sheet to help you with some repetitive task, that's fine. But keep the company name OFF of it. Do NOT use it for produce calculation submittals.

If any new calculation tools or details are developed, they are started by management, not as an initiative from an employee. The employee can make a suggestion that something needs to be improved or a certain calculation should be made, but they don't do it on their own. It's just a massive liability. Junior employees in particular don't have a big picture view of how the company is run, how to make an efficient and usable calculation, how to test it, etc.

Response to both above:
Yes and no. Spreadsheets that do a simple/single calculation are more akin and just as prone to errors as hand calcs. I make a spreadsheet of varying sizes for many of my projects--given, I think I've had much less projects that have not had unique aspects than projects that have had unique aspects (probably due to the companies I've worked at, and my <10 yrs in structural eng), and required new calcs that made sense to put into a spreadsheet (for design iteration or a future design tool). In agreement with you, I would say that large/complex spreadsheets that try to do a lot are significantly harder to vet. @milkshakelake, companies should have a stringent vetting process for standardized spreadsheets that they tell all employees "this spreadsheet is correct and is open for use!"..which should really mean the user needs not check as many parts of it as they would if they received a design spreadsheet from a coworker that wasn't fully vetted, but they generally trusted that co-worker.

Related, I agree with greglocock below:

If any new calculation tools or details are developed, they are started by management, not as an initiative from an employee." Not necessarily in large companies, a fair amount is done under the radar by (typically) senior engineers chatting to each other. Of course things can get a bit political when it turns into a science project (my favorite projects) and absorbs significant hours.

Continuing..

As far as exporting them to another company...yeah, don't do that. At least not the raw files. Not the CAD files or the Revit Templates/families. Not the actual spreadsheets. It's easy to get your hands on a PDF of something...if you want to copy my detail, so be it. But you'd better take the time to actually draw it yourself.

This seems like a reasonable piece of advice for an engineer tyring to build their toolbox (which also have design tools/spreadsheets, rules of thumbs, design tables, etc)

You are assuming a one-way door of everything leaking out, what about all of the tools that arrive with an experienced hand, that you haven't paid to develop?

This is a good point, but I wonder if that "hypocritical" mindset has an impact on the owner's decision or sense of ethics? They still may want to do their best to keep a close hold on their design tools.

Sure, my details are based on the general knowledge I've inherited and the body of identical details floating around all of the firms in the area (I think most of the founders of the major regional players worked at the same firm at one point).

Same goes for the region I was working in for the past 6 years (until recently)