11 minute read
CASE in Point
Since the mid 1990s, owners, contractors, and design professionals have expressed concern about the level of quality of structural construction documents. ey have observed that the quality of these documents has deteriorated, resulting at times in poorly coordinated and incomplete design drawings. Inadequate and/or incomplete design dr awings often result in inaccurate competitive bids; delays in schedule; a multiplicity of requests for information (RFIs), change orders and revision costs; increased project costs; and a general dissatisfaction with the project. In an e ort to address these concerns, the Council of American Structural Engineers (CASE) has prepared a Guideline Addressing Coordination and Completeness of Structural Construction Documents. It discusses the purpose of this guideline, the background behind the issue, the important aspects of design relationships, communication, coordination and completeness, guidance for dimensioning of structural drawings, e ects of various project delivery systems, document revisions, and closes with recommendations for development and application of quality management procedures.
CASE is on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a great virtual resource for networking, education, and now, connecting with CASE. Join the CASE LinkedIn Group today! www.linkedin.com. e key to achieving the desired level of quality throughout the profession is for each structural engineering rm to focus on and develop its own speci c quality management plan, and to implement that plan on each project. is guideline will assist the structural engineering profession in achieving that goal. is is consistent with the vision of CASE to be the recognized leader addressing business practices issues for structural engineering rms and its mission to provide information and business practice products that will increase pro tability, improve quality, reduce liability, and enhance management practices, as well as provide an investment in our future.
You can purchase all CASE products at www.booksforengineers.com.
Get an ACEC Designation
Executives at engineering rms develop a unique skill set that transcends the technical practice of engineering – the skill and adroitness of running an engineering business. Experience managing programs, projects, personnel and budgets will drive a rm’s pro tability. ese vital skills are not learned in technical programs, but are acquired through company programs, from industry groups, such as ACEC, and via direct business practice experience. ACEC, as the industry leader in best business practices, recognizes that business acumen is critical to success, but di cult to quantify for a client. ACEC is proud to o er its designation program – a way for our members to codify their experience and use it to market their services. ACEC’s Professional Designation programs are designed to recognize a singular attainment of relevant experience and education by worthy professionals in the engineering industry. ACEC’s Professional Designation programs set the national standard for business management and leadership excellence in the engineering industry. ACEC o ers three professional designations, and each has a di erent set of criteria for eligibility to capture an individual’s level of experience and education. e Management Engineer – MgtEngSM – is designed for professionals working in project, program, or business management roles within an engineering rm or related to the engineering industry. e Executive Engineer – ExecEngSM – is designed for leaders in the industry. Executive Engineers have attained the highest level of achievement in industry leadership and experience. e Management Professional – MgtProSM – is designed for non-P.E. managers working in non-pro ts or government agencies related to the engineering industry or business managers within engineering rms. Contact Kerri McGovern at kmcgovern@acec.org for more information or visit www.acec.org/education/designations/.
You can follow ACEC Coalitions on Twitter – @ACECCoalitions.
Donate to the CASE Scholarship Fund!
e ACEC Council of American Structural Engineers (CASE) is currently seeking contributions to help make the structural engineering scholarship program a success. e CASE scholarship, administered by the ACEC College of Fellows, is awarded to a student seeking a Bachelor’s degree, at a minimum, in an ABET-accredited engineering program. We have all witnessed the sti competition from other disciplines and professions eager to obtain the best and brightest young talent from a dwindling pool of engineering graduates. One way to enhance the ability of students in pursuing their dreams to become professional engineers is to o er incentives in educational support. In addition, the CASE scholarship o ers an excellent opportunity for your rm to recommend eligible candidates for our scholarship. If your rm already has a scholarship program, remember that potential candidates can also apply for the CASE Scholarship or any other ACEC scholarship currently available. Your monetary support is vital in helping CASE and ACEC increase scholarships to those students who are the future of our industry. All donations toward the program may be eligible for tax deduction and you don’t have to be an ACEC member to donate! Contact Heather Talbert at htalbert@acec.org to donate. e Council of American Structural Engineers (CASE) is a national association of structural engineering rms. CASE provides a forum for action to improve the business of structural engineering through implementation of best practices, reduced professional liability exposure and increased pro tability. Our mission is to improve the practice of structural engineering by providing business practice resources, improving quality, and enhancing management practices to reduce the frequency and severity of claims. Our vision is to be the leading provider of risk management and business practice education and information for use in the structural engineering practice. You membership gets you free access to contracts covering various situations as well as accessing guidance on AIA documents; free national guidelines for the structural engineer of record, designed to help corporate and municipal clients understand the scope of services structural engineers do and do not provide; free access to tools which are designed to keep you up to date on how much risk your rm is taking on and how to reduce that risk; biannual CASE convocations dedicated to Best Practice structural engineering; AND free downloads of all CASE documents 24/7. For more information visit www.acec.org/case or contact Heather Talbert at htalbert@acec.org. You must be an ACEC member to join CASE.
CASE Business Practice Corner
If you would like more information on the items below, please contact Ed Bajer, ebajer@acec.org.
Sustainable Design Issues
Claims mostly result from overly high client expectations. Other reasons include bad contracts and operating violations in contravention of the standard it was supposed to meet. is can sometimes be mitigated by providing a detailed operations and maintenance guide. Some engineer client relationships include naming the engineer as merely an agent, and not responsible for meeting certi cation requirements.
A Fiduciary Obligation vs. Insurability
It usually means someone is entrusted with the care of someone’s money or property, and is sometimes mentioned in contracts with public entities. It may not be stated as such, but can be listed in terms like “trust and con dence” which engineers are frequently unwilling to challenge. However, something that falls into the category of a duciary obligation may be uninsurable. It is best to check with your insurance company, or delete the language or replace it with something like “good faith”. Also, in being licensed, the primary duty of an engineer is usually stated as being to the public not the client.
When Asked for Your Litigation History
Clients are demanding speci c information on rm’s litigation history. ey can search the internet, as can competitors. You can sometimes get by with listing the state and year and a brief description. Some rms respond that it was totally unrelated to the matter at hand and some rms have con dentiality obligations that prevent them from releasing more information. Firms usually do not provide information on past project terminations, and respond that the dissolution of the relationship was for mutual reasons and confi denti al.
CASE in Point
Part 3: Reform in Education and Training
By Glenn R. Bell, P.E., S.E., SECB
Note: This is the third article of a four-part series on the opportunities and challenges we face in developing the next generation of structural engineers. It is based on the author’s keynote address at the SEI Structures Congress in March 2012. The last article addressed the attributes required of future engineering generations. This article addresses educational and industry reform needed to develop those attributes. (See STRUCTURE magazines September and October 2012 issues for Parts 1 and 2, respectively.)
Development of Future Structural Engineers
The premise that university education beyond a four-year degree is required of structural engineers should be so obvious by now that it is practically self-evident. Every other learned profession from medicine to occupational therapy accepted this long ago.
Undergraduate In the future, the undergraduate degree will be a pre-professional credential, teaching a broader body of knowledge with less urgency for technical specialization. The bachelor of science degree should assure a solid grounding in the foundational requirements for math and sciences, particularly chemistry and physics. A broad curriculum of engineering fundamentals should be stressed to provide the engineer with analytical and technical problemsolving methods that will be needed throughout his or her career. We should also expand our focus on the humanities and social sciences. This will lay the foundation for soft skills such as general problem-solving, leadership, entrepreneurship, innovation and communication. We are learning that soft skills are best taught when experiential learning leverages classroom techniques.
Graduate Similar to other professions like medicine and law, the graduate engineering degree should be considered the accredited professional degree. This should not only be where technical depth is delivered, but also include continued content on professional practice. I believe that 30 credit hours of graduate education are not enough. We need twice this.
Engineer Internship Looking beyond formal university education, we have much opportunity in raising our expectations from the Engineer Intern experience. Here we could model some of the better practices of medical residency, such that engineers-in-training would be exposed to a sufficiently broad set of experiences through a sort of rotation that is coupled with continuing formal education. Similarly, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) defines a comprehensive internship professional development program known as IPD. Engineer Interns would more directly “shadow” their Professional Engineer mentors, rather than merely acting as their assistants. Mentoring during apprenticeship is a critical means for gaining competency in skills like leadership and project management.
Continuous Learning What about education and professional development that is ongoing in the decades of an engineer’s career after licensure? To understand the magnitude of the challenge this represents, consider that the period of time from the onset of an engineer’s education in undergraduate school to retirement is around 50 years. That part of those 50 years which ends at attainment of licensure is ten years or less. What about the other 40 years? To bring more structure to the notion of life-long learning, we need to develop bodies of knowledge for continuing education after registration. However, much of the current effort given to developing a body of knowledge ends at the attainment of licensure. There is little for company leaders to draw upon for post-licensure professional development. In my own firm, we invest significant amounts each year in developing and delivering custom-made professional development for our staff and managers. I know many firms in our industry do the same. This is wasteful and ineffective. We need to define our expectations for this critical period of professional development and share resources.
For structural engineers to meet future challenges, we must radically redefine the relationship between practice, education, and research. The practice, education, and research should be so integrated
Structural Forum is intended to stimulate thoughtful dialogue and debate among structural engineers and other participants in the design and construction process. Any opinions expressed in Structural Forum are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of NCSEA, CASE, SEI, C3Ink, or the STRUCTURE® magazine Editorial Board. as to be incestuous. A highly productive, creative, value-producing structural engineering profession of the future will engage in a continuous chain where research leads to innovation, leading then to teaching and learning, then feeding back to more research, innovation, and teaching. We need to strengthen the connection between academia and practice through a greater number of practitioners teaching in universities and exposing more professors to practice. Again, we can borrow from the medical profession in this regard.
Inertia and Resistance
We should not underestimate the challenges in driving change of this magnitude. To many, these changes will be frightening and threatening. We can expect inertia and resistance from many sources. Disappointingly, we see pushback by some to the seemingly obvious need to require graduate education as a prerequisite to licensure. My friends in academic leadership positions tell me it will be very difficult to change the university paradigm that so often values research at the expense of teaching. And how do we encourage employer firm leaders to invest in the long-term view of an employee’s professional development in a competitive economy that values short-term returns, and in which multiple job changes have become the norm?
Raising the Bar
Development of the next generation of structural engineers is part of a larger vision to raise the stature and practice of structural engineering in general. We need fundamentally to restructure our roles and our position in society to open up the kinds of opportunities for structural engineers to contribute in a more meaningful and impactful way. The advancement of our practice and the advancement of our professionals must go hand-in-hand. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has coined this its Raise the Bar Initiative. The next and final article will review some of the ongoing efforts by ASCE, SEI, and others to move our profession forward, and will close with a call for action by all in the structural engineering community.▪
Glenn R. Bell, P.E., S.E., SECB (GRBell@sgh.com), is the Chief Executive Officer at Simpson Gumpertz &Heger in Waltham, Massachusetts.
