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Am I *allowed* to change drawing?
2

Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

(OP)
At my office we design/engineer/model products.  For products of greater difficulty we outsource to a mechanical engineering firm.  They created all of our drawings for one of our products at a premium cost.  I found a red-line dimension that needs to be changed.  What I did was update the dimension in the DWG file and updated the revision number.  The drawing and the product are our property, but it still has the ME firm's title block.  If we were to get them to make this small change, the document would look the same as I my version.  Am I wrong in making this change without the services of that firm or since it's our property can we manipulate it as we see fit?

TIA - Bram

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Did you also update the model?

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

(OP)
Yes.  We have both the drawing and the model.  It's not a matter of the capability.  It's whether I'm allowed to change a drawing that has their information (Company name, logo, drawnby etc.) or should I recreate it with our own information (a *much* longer process).

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Sounds like you own the file.  No worries.

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

As long as the drawing doesn't carry an official engineers stamp, there should be no problem.

Are you adding a revision, or note documenting the change?

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

(OP)
No stamp.  Just changing a dimension and indicating it in the change-log box (upper right-hand corner).

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Like Tick says, if you own the package, no worries.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Not so sure myself.

Turning the argument around , I would not be very happy if a drawing I produced and that had my company's title block was modified by another company and re-issued without me being aware of it.

What initials/name are on the originator's box? Yours or the original designer's?

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

(OP)
Originator's initials in the drawnby box.  Our lead engineer's in the revisions field.  Our guys' initials is also in a few revisions back when we did the same thing, but paid them to add the small changes.   

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

If that drawing was created by you with the full knowledge that the drawing and intellectual property was owned by the customer, and no stamps were required, then there is no reason to hold the customer to using only you when the drawing requires revision.  It is no longer your problem or responsibility.  It does not matter that the originators name or initials are present.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

I would be upset if I had created the drawing and the customer made a change without noting the revision or revisor.

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - Robert Hunter
 

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

ewh has a good point.  I've had drawings that were passed along, butchered, and had no attribution for the butchery, leaving it to appear as if it were my own hacksmanship.

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

(OP)
For significant changes I'd completely agree.  But for changing a "4" to a "8," I'm not sure it merits the cost at this time.

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Starting off, I work in the nuclear field, where we tend to get anal about such things.

What I have seen done is the addition of a new box with the company's name, the the intials of the person revising it.  Being nuclear, there would also be a reviewer's and an approver's initials. There also would be a short description of the change.

I realize that for other industries, this might be a bit of an overkill.

Patricia Lougheed

******

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RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

for industrial engines, we'd have insisted that the outside company produce the drawings on our title block in the first place.  All engineering notices, etc., would have been released in our data systems.  

For the revisions, standard revision control would apply, with checking/design reviews/engineering notices and documented reason for change/etc.  No need to call the outside company, unless we wanted them to make the change (and perhaps to back-charge them if it was an error of theirs we were correcting).

I wouldn't have called it anal - the product will be in use longer than I'll be in engineering - someone is going to have to figure out the reasons behind some of this stuff after I retire.

 

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

baazar,

Sounds like it is legally within the rights of you and your company to make this change, provided that you are not relying upon an official PE Stamp from the contracting firm (as others have mentioned).  Somewhere (probably in the change-log box) you should note your name & your company name associated with this specific change.  

Since Revision A is released (and hopefully, archived), you might even be able to put your name in the DrawnBy box for Rev B.  On a side-by-side comparison of the two drawings, this would show the distinction between the originator's work and the revisions you have made.

Does your company have a policy/standard for what to do in this scenario?  Documents like Change Orders (COs) can add clarity to a process like this, but only if this system/process is already in place.

Good luck
Peter

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

(OP)
We're very small.  In fact the entire reason we recently purchased a CAD system was specifically so we wouldn't have to use the outside firm so much.

Another thing:
Lets say there was a PE stamp.  Could I simply re-create the drawing with our own drawing template from the STEP file we were given?

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Ditto to preveous suggestions.

as long as the changes are documented by the the rvising engineer & the initials are documented on the revision block.  

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

If I was the contracting firm, I would insist on any changes made by the client be made on the clients format, not mine. I would also require the client to take design authority. Your changing the drawing without the consent or knowledge of the company who's name is on the drawing is a problem for me. (I agree that the design should have been on your format from the start.) Think about it would you want the contractor changing one of your drawings without your knowledge? At the very least you should inform the contractor that you have made the change and place a block on the drawing stating that your company is taking control of the document.

Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services
www.infotechpr.net

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Peter

since there is no PE Stamp then is it not the product responcibility the OP company ?

if so, there should not be any issues.

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

One solution I am very familiar with is to stick their drawing inside a your own drawing. Therefore you get your own title block and revisions table, and the history is obvious.

 

Cheers

Greg Locock


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RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

@greg:   yep, did that in an automotive job years ago... would get supplier drawings and slap them inside of a larger-format title block, then assign part number and release.

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

I'd say that if the drawings were part of a deliverables package and the client owns them, then the client has the right to modify as they wish.  An unstamped drawing is just that, an unstamped drawing.  Realistically, anyone could take the engineering company's title block and slap their own drawing in it, hence why an unstamped drawing is usually not considered a legal document binding the engineering firm or the engineer to near the level of liability a stamped drawing does. However, ethically, the only drawing that may carry the original engineering firm's title and revision block is that original drawing. The onus is on the customer to make sure that any new drawing has a new title block with their company's information and log and containing new revision information with the first entry indicating that the original drawing is the work of the original engineering company, but revisions are the sole work of the client.

If the original drawing bears a signed seal, that drawing must remain as-is, and modifications can get you into big trouble.

In either case, it's vital to maintain a master change log to keep track of changes.  I guarantee you that the original engineering firm will have records of what they produced and will not hesitate to produce the documentation of what they produced to protect themselves in the event that the drawings end up in court.

So in short, I'd say:

1) If the documents are the property of the client, change away

2) If changed, they must clearly indicate where the original firm's work ended and the revisions of the client began so anyone using the print knows which entity created what.

3) Revised drawings must carry the client's title block, not that of the original engineering firm.

4) Master change logs must be maintained by everyone

5) Never change a stamped drawing.  Period.  No exceptions.  The professional engineer will protect the limits of his liability, and you will find yourself in a world of hurt if the revision is found out, not to mention what will happen if the unstamped revision of the stamped drawing causes financial or physical harm.

Just my thoughts.

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

What does the original contract and/or any disclaimer on the drawing border say?

If the drawing had been stamped then I'd be cautious about changing it without a PE's input but I'm not sure about the specific legal issues.

I've seen the added stamp of ownership & rev block type solution.  The drawing in a drawing sounds horrible but someone brought it up a while ago and apparantly it is done.

I've also heard of cut and paste of the body of the drawing onto new company format, depending on the circumstances I'm not sure how much I like that one.

Posting guidelines FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm? (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: FAQ1088-1484: In layman terms, what is "engineering"?

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

One question is this a currently working drawing, i.e. the contractor is currently working with the drawing or is it an archival set that was supplied on completion of the project. If the former, the contractor needs to be notified immediatly. If the latter, the revision needs to be circled
with rev. number and the rev. box setup with the rev. no., change made, date, and initials of individuals involved with the change in the "by", "checked", "approved" blocks with dates. But all this should be covered by your Management of Change Procedures. If they exist.

As for the P.E. stamp, this simply indicates that the original drawing has been reviewed and approved by someone who is officially liscensed (fundamental legal requirement) in the state to practice engineering and that the design fits minimum engineering & design standards as approved by the State.    

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

(OP)
This is an old drawing from a part we just recently started to make again.  We just happened to see a dimension that required a small alteration and needed to show that alteration to the machine shop.  
What I'm doing now for our own archival process is taking the STEP file and recreating a drawing with our own title block and logo etc.  It's a long process but it seems easier than dealing with all this ethical/legal issues.

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Bazzar,

There is no doubt that your company owns the drawing and that your company may make changes as it sees fit.  

However, if the contracting firm was providing an engineered design to company as a deliverable...in the event where some sort of failure occurs and it can be attributed to the dimension modified by your company ... then your company would own 100% of the liability and would have no recourse against the contracted engineering firm.



 

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

I know that the OP indicated that the drawing was his firms property but this is often an area of controversy so I thought I'd throw out some comments on Copyright law. With the limited information provided, I'm not sure I'm in 100% agreement that the OP's firm owns the drawing.

Copyright law dictates that the author of a work owns that work, regardless of who paid for the work to be done, unless the work is a "work for hire".  Something is generally only (from a legal standpoint) a work for hire if it meets one of the following two conditions:

1. It was prepared by an employee in which case the employer holds the copyright, or

2. If it was prepared by an "independent contractor" and the contract between the parties specifically provided that this was a "work for hire" and the purchaser would hold the copyright.

I know this doesn't sound intuitive but that is what the copyright law states.  A quick google search will bring up a myriad of articles on this and I've copied a link to one ... http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

I've had a number of situations over the years where clients have been under the belief that they held copyright on products I've produced (because they paid for the work) when in fact, they don't legally hold any copyright because I haven't assigned it to them in the contract.

If a drawing is P.Eng. stamped then any change would require confirmation by the original P.Eng. or the stamping would be invalidated. I believe that redrawing would also invalidate the P.Eng. stamp since that is not physically what the P.Eng. reviewed, checked and stamped and errors or omissions could have been introduced.

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

if a contractor makes you a drawing, you can freely redistribute this drawing unless its in contradiction with the contract terms
the tittle block being his logo is merely advertisement,
however going back to the original drawer makes sence in this way:
if any error on the final drawing, the original contractor kan be no longer held responsible.It would be fuzzy to state the original contractor is responsible for the drawing except for changes/corrections made as visible on last revision.

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

rneill, You may hold the copyright to the drawing, but I hold the Patent. Ahh... the joys of Intellectual Property Law. ;)

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

rneill, if you are claiming ownership of the copyright over products you create for your customers, and the customers are claiming ownership of those same works, I would suggest in your case that you did not have a meeting of the minds which is required for a contract to be legally binding.  Without explicit statements either way in the contract, I can't see how either party can claim absolute ownership.

Matt Lorono
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources & SolidWorks Legion

&

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

fcsuper,

The law is quite clear that in an absence of a specific agreement in writing that designates the work is a "work for hire" and that copyright will reside with the purchaser, the author holds copyright. Consequently, with no explicit statements in the contract, the author holds copyright. I know this is not intuitive but that is the way copyright law is spelled out.

Check the link I provided in my original reply (which comes from the United States Copyright Office) or if this is an issue in any of your work, it would be still to consult an intellectual property lawyer.

 

RE: Am I *allowed* to change drawing?

Copyright law isn't the end all and be all when it comes to IP and contracts. Copyright Law has some hard and fast rules, but much of it is not as well defined as many think.  If one is designing a product (physical item) based on specifications received from their customer under a contract, and they did not sign over the rights to their IP, then the vendor's work for them could be considered derivative and even a de facto work for hire (whether it is explicitly stated or not), particularly if the contract doesn't say anything at all.  It's not as simple as someone who ghost writes a book based on another person's outline (which is the closest equivalent to this scenario, as far as I can tell).  The line about who owns what can be very blurry when creating a design for someone else's specifications (particularly if those specifications are particular to the customer's needs).  This is what I mean about meeting of the minds.  It wouldn't take a good lawyer could give the vendor a really bad headache if they rely on a narrow understanding of Copyright Law without taking other areas of law into account.  To further compound the issue, Copyright Law does not cover the design itself (neither concept nor physical component).

Advice is to just say it explicitly in a contract and no worries. :)   

Matt Lorono
Lorono's SolidWorks Resources & SolidWorks Legion

&

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