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Responsibility
9

Responsibility

Responsibility

(OP)
Who bears the responsibility if a structure collaspes?  Is it the engineer who designed it with no engineering license or is it the engineer who signs the plans?

 

The resisant virtues of the structure that we seek depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable, not  because of an awkward accumulation of material.  There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this: to resist through form.  Eladio Dieste

RE: Responsibility

Yep.

RE: Responsibility

(OP)
Yep, what?  Who bears the responsibility?

The resisant virtues of the structure that we seek depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable, not  because of an awkward accumulation of material.  There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this: to resist through form.  Eladio Dieste

RE: Responsibility

I guess you are in California.

In the States the responsibility is for the engineer who signed and sealed the drawings. He is responsible for any calculation or design work from a non licensed engineer, EIT or similar that makes it into a drawing he or she signs.

That is, of course, if the collapse of the structure is due to a design error. It could also be faulty materials, inadequate construction techniques, abnormal loads, Godzilla attack...

 

RE: Responsibility

The responsibility of a structure collapse is not apportioned by signoff; there are many lines of investigation required before the party (parties) involved are found at fault. It would be very unusual for the engineer to be found to be solely reasonably for the failure of a structure. Then there are two points of conjecture, is this civil law or construction law or something completely different, under the defined policies of many governments, the engineer take reasonability for the design and the apportioned blame is lambed at signing engineer, and some also the design engineer, however, if the case is in civil law and the original engineer is found to be negligent in his duties he can also be found capable. There are a lot more twists and turns than this, thus this is really a question for your local lawyer.

The best advice is not to stuff up in the first place.

 

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

RE: Responsibility

As stated before firstly it has to be determined that it was in fact due to a design error and not other factors. While engineer singing off the drawings bears greater responsibility, everyone involved with the project are responsible and liable and can be sued, this includes the pizza delivery person who may have visited the site.

Final outcome depends on which lawyer is more convincing.

Rafiq Bulsara
http://www.srengineersct.com

RE: Responsibility

8
As others have said, first the cause of failure must be determined through competent and thorough investigation. It might not be either engineer...it could be the contractor or subcontractors or a combination of all.

You are asking for a black or white answer to a very gray question.

RE: Responsibility

(OP)
Even if the engineer has no license and is a young engineer and there is no protocol within the firm to check design?

The resisant virtues of the structure that we seek depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable, not  because of an awkward accumulation of material.  There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this: to resist through form.  Eladio Dieste

RE: Responsibility

(OP)
Oh, I am not in California but on the east coast.  You know, I do not know how it is everywhere else in the USA but engineering practice for small companies seem to just do whatever they want even if their practice is ethical or not.  This is just my opinion and people else where may have had different experience than I have but being in a small firm and I mean somewhere between 10 to 25 people.  They tend try to get the job, at a low budget, at a small time frame, and rely mostly on computer software to handle all the analysis without a paper backup.

The resisant virtues of the structure that we seek depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable, not  because of an awkward accumulation of material.  There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this: to resist through form.  Eladio Dieste

RE: Responsibility

Wikipedia has a slightly different form of your quote from Eladio Dieste

Quote:

The resistant virtues of the structure that we make depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable and not because of an awkward accumulation of materials. There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this; resistance through form.

Note also the spelling.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Responsibility

It appears that the peanut butter has already struck the fan blades.  ... in which case you should be talking to your lawyer, not some anonymous engineers.


 

Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

RE: Responsibility

Calif...you have provided very little true information.  You have alluded to a small firm that apparently allowed a young, inexperienced engineer to design something and some other engineer has signed/sealed the design.

To answer your original question, without the benefit of appropriate background information, the engineer who signed/sealed the design is responsible.  It doesn't matter if the design was done by Santa Claus, if the engineer signed and sealed the design...it's his.

As for small firms or large firms, unethical conduct is not exclusive to either.  I have experience in both.  Ethical conduct is the responsibility of the individual, not the company.  If you choose to be controlled in your ethical conduct by corporate constraints, you  would likely do so without those constraints.  It is not and should not be an excuse, nor should unethical activity be condoned or promoted by any corporation.

RE: Responsibility

Nice one, Ron.

Regards,
Qshake
pipe
Eng-Tips Forums:Real Solutions for Real Problems Really Quick.
 

RE: Responsibility

(OP)
Ron, there is so much an engineer can have control in a company whether it is small or large.  I am just giving you my experience working in this field since 2001 and have worked in big and small companies.  There is more likely hood for unethical practice in a very small company compared to a larger one.  You may have seen it in large but maybe the larger company can handle the liability.  I have worked for small and large companies and in my experience, small companies run greater risk for unethical practice.  Why?  Money.  Small firms are trying to make money and I have had it happen to me twice.  Every time I have been to a small company, nobody checks work unless, there is a problem or calculations are requested.  I am not saying you are wrong by your experience but these are mine.   

The resisant virtues of the structure that we seek depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable, not  because of an awkward accumulation of material.  There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this: to resist through form.  Eladio Dieste

RE: Responsibility

Calif...I understand your concerns and I don't disagree.  In my experience with smaller firms doing things in a "less than desired" manner, I've found that it seems to follow one of two themes....first is ignorance and second is ego.

On the ignorance side, I see small firms led by engineers who actually have little truly diverse experience, but who have an entreprenurial spirit to run a business.  They do so, not knowing the steps necessary to develop a quality approach to engineering.

On the ego side, I see small firms led by controlling individuals who have developed a profit picture that has little room for technical competence and quality, but depends on quantity of work.

There is often overlap between the two themes.

In most small firms that I've seen run by individuals who have left larger companies to do their own thing, there is a tendency to carry a technical quality and competence philosophy with them, just getting away from the corporate "machine".

I left a large corporate structure for exactly the reason you noted...there's only so much you can do without being "run over" by the corporate structure.  Most larger engineering firms are now run by accountants, attorneys, and engineers who have abdicated their engineering prowess to become strictly managers of an administrative process. Sad but true.  Technical competence in such corporations is treated as a commodity that can be replaced at will.  It cannot, but they don't understand the long term effect of their decisions on their company or the engineering profession.

It is absurd to think that one can replace 20 years of relevant engineering experience with one or two newbie engineers or even worse, new graduates. Yet to meet the financial model set forth by the accountants, that's exactly what they will do.  I've seen it happen.  If the senior technical guys don't "toe the line" to match the administrative rules, they get replaced. The sad part is their technical competence doesn't get replaced, just the live body.  Who is left to mentor these younger engineers and maintain the continuity of technical competence and process?

There is no answer.  It is a path that has evolved in the engineering profession and we simply seem to have to adapt or go our separate ways.  

I'll get off my soapbox now. shadeshappy

RE: Responsibility

(OP)
Yeah, it is a sticky situation to be stuck in a position like this knowing that you have no power or experience to run a company or change the policy.  I remember when I moved from a larger to a smaller (layoff not by decision), that I was back in the same style engineering firm that I did not want to be in.  I stayed to get my masters and now that I am finish, I have to make a decision on what to do. I do not like doing engineering this way yet, if something happens, I am yelled at for my mistake.  I am not a newbie but I am not a very experience engineer as well.  I do not mind the soapbox

The resisant virtues of the structure that we seek depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable, not  because of an awkward accumulation of material.  There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this: to resist through form.  Eladio Dieste

RE: Responsibility

A lot of what Ron writes is true. However these are "less than desired" manner, you stated unethical happenings in your original post normally unethical behaviour is not an everyday situation.  

Checking is a subjective requirement, how much and how little is subjective to the confidence of the signing engineer, involvement in the design evolution and the capabilities of the original engineer. Procedures in their enforcement is also subjective, if you have to tight control on procedures you will often miss a huge problem because the procedure didn't cover that instance, however if the procedures are too lax, little errors will grow into large.
 
I myself am a small firm man, have worked for 4 different companies in my time. I have only had one unethical event, wasn't the lack of checking or similar, it was a blatant disregard for safety in my opinion.  However, I have also been involved with three cases of ethical conduct reviews, and these have been of engineers from three different levels of firms, small, large and government.

In all these instances, unethical behaviour has been allowed to happen due to people unwillingness to stand up.
Next time you see an unethical situation developing, stand-up and be counted. If someone is knowingly developing design well below accepted standards, then take action.  I wish I had taken more action when I had the chance, nothing came of the situation but I always wonder what if.   

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

RE: Responsibility

(OP)
I here you Rowing but let me say this. No one checks other engineer work and this is on a regular basis. The person who signs it, is not even an engineer who practices it by career.  He just signs off but he does not check it.  I this is a ongoing thing not something that happens sometimes.  It is sometimes that engineering calcs are checked by someone.   This has happen to me twice while working for a small firm.  Now, is the person who designs but does not sign drawings nor have anyone look over their work, nor is license, responsible if a structural failure occurs?

The resisant virtues of the structure that we seek depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable, not  because of an awkward accumulation of material.  There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this: to resist through form.  Eladio Dieste

RE: Responsibility

RE...we've all been there.  Don't beat yourself up too much.  In hindsight, we would all have handled certain situations differently at the time...but that's second guessing ourselves.  In reviewing your postings for quite some time, you have a logical thought pattern similar to many of us.  I doubt that you're prone to stupid or illogical mistakes...just the ones we all make!  There are times that I look back on decisions I made 5, 10 or 15 years ago that I wouldn't make today...that's just career progression and experience.

Calif...the person who signs and seals is always responsible...he can't disclaim that and can't deny it.

It sounds like you're in a firm that will likely get sued at some point for mistakes. It is unfortunate that they don't see the liability of their poor practices.  They go along without getting "caught" and assume their practice is adequate.  When a failure of some type occurs, and it will at some point, they will have little or nothing to fall back on.  I do this every day and I see the result of poor quality practices by engineers, architects, and contractors.  

I have no hesitation about providing my opinion of deficient practices.  I'm not perfect and perfect practice is not required as a measure of "standard of care".  You just have to practice to that equivalent level of competence of other engineers providing similar services in the same locale.  That's not that hard, but many engineers fail to do it.

RE: Responsibility

It is very rare that an engineer would check someone else's calcs in my firm, Maybe wind turbine foundations (but I prefer rules of thumb and past project comparisons); our checking process is to concentrate on details and using secondary calcs (most of the time a quick wl^2/(2 to 11) and span on depth, height on depth) to suffice for this purpose.  During my grad days I can't remember my supervisor doing any calcs (was a while ago now so the memory is fading so I would be over stating the facts) he was an old hand I think he had such a feel he could tell something was wrong just by looking at it.
 
Most errors I find in colleges works are not in the sizing of members but in the process of development. I normally find errors when someone uses an overly difficult process to design something (aka finite element for simple slab) or in the details. The details are normally; insufficient information for the design, incorrect understanding of the loading arrangements, inappropriate application of a code for detailing, failing to understand the overall scope (aka design the slab for the vertical loading but forgetting to design the lateral paths)

Given the position you are painting the responsible party should be the engineer signing off on the drawings and all engineering advice is given under his supervision. Given this I would try to ensure you take all possible paths to ensure you work is reviewed by a second party before providing engineering advice to show you have met all requirements of your local ethic scripture.  

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

RE: Responsibility

Ron,
I think we were posting at the same time, but you do make a good point, no matter what you do, mistakes will happen.  

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

RE: Responsibility

The signing and sealing of a design is the engineer's certification that he either did the work or supervised the work and that the work meets all relevant requirements and codes.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Responsibility

Think of , signing and sealing as only a statutory requirement(and it is). When things comes to litigation and assigning blame, it becomes much less relevant. If someone played a role in the design, whether or not licensed, he/she can be and will be held liable.  By having someone else seal and sign does not absolve other designers involved of their accountability.

If nothing happens, no one gets caught and world goes on. So if you are agonizing over a hypothetical scenario or just ethical issues by your standards, either find another job or report to whoever you think is appropriate.

Rafiq Bulsara
http://www.srengineersct.com

RE: Responsibility

RE...we generally do quick checks on the calculations during report review (we produce many more reports than design drawings).  It doesn't catch all potential errors, but you have to trust that the process works and that anything missed wouldn't affect the final.

I have seen experienced engineers make fairly big mistakes when in a hurry (a recent one was miscalculating the dead load in a concrete slab analysis!!).

Oh yeah, RE....

Quote:

A lot of what Ron writes is true.
EVERYTHING I say is true!!rofl

RE: Responsibility

Ron,
Can't argue with that, never seen/heard you tell lie before. We are in agreement the biggest mistakes are always made when someone is in a hurry. I like the secondary calcs, because it means you don't get lost in the story of the original cals and miss the minor but large mistakes, not perfect as you say, but nothing is.
 

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

RE: Responsibility

(OP)
Ron and Rowing, do you not think there should be some standards of redundency in a firm to prevent problems?  For example, I work using a structural software, now anyone who uses software realizes it is a black box meaning you do not know the internal mechanism that the software uses to get its answer. The software is limited in that it does not show you how it arrived at it forces for wind or seismic, but just gives your input data and some output data for you to look at.  Now the program may apply too much or too little forces on the structure but how will not know that.  You may have an error somewhere or need to adjust a value here or there to make sure it account for losses.  Buying any engineering software, the software company does not bear any responsibility for problems the software produce and the engineer is the one who should use there judgement in determining whether what you have is adequate or under design.  So all the responsibility falls on the engineer who may not have seen something?  Who does not know what the software is doing?  Who may not have the experience required to judge if something is wrong.  There is alot of liability for the engineer and we should get paid big money for designing anything like doctors.

The resisant virtues of the structure that we seek depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable, not  because of an awkward accumulation of material.  There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this: to resist through form.  Eladio Dieste

RE: Responsibility

The general rule for software use is that the engineer is responsible for ANY errors, be it from the software or from the operator.  It is the responsbility of the engineer to perform due diligence in verifying any results from any software he may use.

What you describe is precisely why the EOR has the ultimate responsbility under the law.  If he fails to review the results, then he fails in his fiduciary duty as a licensed professional engineer, whose responsibility is to the safety of the public.  The PE is supposed to have the experience or the expertise to determine whether simulation results are plausible.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Responsibility

Calif...almost all states require that if you use software for engineering evaluation, you MUST validate the software by a manual calculation to show that the software works as intended.  I would suggest that you do at least two validations of your software and keep them on file for quality assurance purposes.  Those validations should be, at the least, a corresponding manual calculation of a simple beam and a corresponding manual calculation of a moment frame to see the moment distributions.  You can do others (continuous beam, etc.), but you need to have in your files at least the attempt to validate the results of software.

This applies to any software...whether commercially produced or spreadsheets developed internally.

RE: Responsibility

Ron and IRstuff have the software question covered. However there is also a redundancy built the codes, making it unlikely that an ultimate failure will occur without an extreme event. However serviceability failures occur every day, this is where the greatest liability is present for an engineer.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

RE: Responsibility

Calif:  "There is more likely hood for unethical practice in a very small company compared to a larger one. "


I've found the opposite, but maybe that's because of the small company I chose to go to work for, and the large company I came from.  


 

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com

RE: Responsibility

Ethics is a people thing, so I don't think it has much to do with the size of the company, other than as a purely statistical thing, e.g., Pfailn, where n is the number of people in the organization.

Certainly, large companies have had spectacular ethics failures, e.g., Northrop Grumman's B-52 inertial navigation fiasco, or Boeing's Missile Defense proposal faux pas.

TTFN

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RE: Responsibility

Calif-
I picked up on something that hopefully you can clarify.

In your first post you wrote, "Is it the engineer who designed it with no engineering license or is it the engineer who signs the plans?"
I think with this sentence it can be implied that "the engineer who signs the plans" means this person is a PE.

But your post on 25 Jun 10 at 20:30 states otherwise.

"The person who signs it, is not even an engineer who practices it by career.  He just signs off but he does not check it."

Based on this post, I'm assuming that "signs off" means someone is simply signing their name to the drawing as related to some internal approval.  

Could you clarify what occurs when he signs off or sings the plans?  

This leads to another question.  What types of structures are these?  From your posts, I'm not envisioning structures such as buildings but possibly smaller industrial structures or specialty manufactured structures.

RE: Responsibility

(OP)
Someone signing means that the person is an engineer with a PE but he does not practice in the field of structural engineering.  He owns the company that does structural building design.  The kind of projects are residential projects.

The resisant virtues of the structure that we seek depend on their form; it is through their form that they are stable, not  because of an awkward accumulation of material.  There is nothing more noble and elegant from an intellectual viewpoint than this: to resist through form.  Eladio Dieste

RE: Responsibility

If not structural, then what?  He may already be violating the law if he's signing off on stuff that's outside of his expertise.

BTW, can you please fix your signature line, "resisant" is not a valid word.

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Responsibility

Thanks for clarifying.  That situation is pretty scary but I'm sure there are many others out there that do the same thing.  It's guys like this who really drag the PE credential through the mud and aide in making structural engineering a commodity by lowballing projects and then blindly stamping them.

You stated earlier that you were yelled at for your mistakes and were not a very experienced engineer.  These are two reasons to begin seeking employment elsewhere.  You won't be able to get to the next level of your career if you stay, but I suspect you already know this.

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