Don’t be just a Desk Engineer

During my 30 years as a Project Manager, I have had the opportunity to work with a number of engineers.  The best engineers I worked with were those that got out from behind their desk and went to where the project they were designing was.  I noticed on to many occasions that some engineers accepted the as-built drawings given to them by the owner as being accurate enough for them to design from.

Unfortunately the engineers didn’t know that those “as-built” drawings were developed by the last construction contractor, who was over budget, behind schedule and the only way for him to get paid was to turn in “as-built” drawings as part of his project close out documentation and they really didn’t make any effort to ensure its accuracy.  The contractor didn’t remember that his carpenter/drywall subcontractor had to move the wall over 6” to miss a structure that was hidden until the demolition was completed.

Now 6” might not seem like a big mistake; unfortunately the engineer that was relying on these “as-built” drawings to be accurate was designing the installation of a new milling machine that has to have 4’ of clear space around it to operate and now one side only has 3’-6”.  This mistake was not found until the contractor installing the new milling machine tried to install it and it would not fit.  Fortunately, the opposite wall could be relocated.  However this delayed the project by several days and it cost the owner additional money for the change order to move the wall.  Ultimately, the design engineer gets blamed and not the previous contractor.

If the engineer had taken the time to go and verify that the space allocated by the owner was adequate for the new milling machine, they would have found this problem, addressed it during the design phase and moved the wall over to regain the additional 6”.

As-built drawings are only as good as the person who created them and should only be used for reference purposes.  Get out from behind your desk and go to the project site.  Raise ceiling tiles and look above the ceilings to confirm that the duck work on the drawing matches what was installed.  Look for areas where the location of a wall is critical and confirm its location.

When dealing with a project where you might have to dig to install underground utilities or foundations, examine the surface to see if there is evidence of trenches that don’t show up on your prints.  This might be an indication of some work that was not properly documented.  Look to see if there are pipes or conduits running down the wall that go into the ground.  Make sure that you know where these utilities run and don’t assume that you know because they are on the print.  Verify with the owner that the prints are accurate or ask the owner if he wants to pay to have ground penetrating radar used to find and map out the location of the utilities.  And even after finding the general location of the utilities, make sure that you call out on your design documents to have the contractor to only use machinery up to a certain point and then to hand dig until the utilities are visually located.  All it takes is one broken gas line, high voltage cable, communication cable or water main to completely ruin an otherwise successful design project.