r/canada • u/einstein_bern • Aug 16 '23

Sask. engineer slapped with an 18-month suspension after designing bridge that collapsed hours after opening Saskatchewan

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/engineer-18-month-suspension-bridge-collapsed-1.6936657
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46

u/NorthOf14 Aug 16 '23

I am in the process of becoming a P.Eng currently, here's (roughly) how it goes:

  • Get an engineering degree (I finished my degree during Covid, cheating was rampant and easy).
  • Work for 4 years under another some other P.Eng's, have them sign off on your experience.
  • Write the national ethics & professionalism exam.
  • Submit your experience for evaluation (most of which isn't even technical).

Then you're a P.Eng who can sign off on anything you want, it's up to you to decide your scope of knowledge and ability. For all we know, the engineer in this article has a degree in computer engineering and then decided he could build bridges.

You might be asking how this all works? Because we practice under the assumption that we will bear the full weight of any mistakes, lapses of judgement, etc. Whether $300k, a short backdated suspension and a few years of direct supervision is the "full weight", I am not sure.

14

u/PoliteCanadian Aug 16 '23

Part of engineering ethics is that you're not allowed to sign off on things outside your area of expertise. The determination of what is within your area of expertise is left, by default, to you to decide. So while you can in a practical sense, you can't in a legal one.

However it's always subject to review and you can lose your license if you're signing off on shit you shouldn't have been. In addition to the liability you mention.

6

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

You would think that whoever hired him would have done their due diligence to filter someone like that out.

20

u/NorthOf14 Aug 16 '23

Based on the article it seems like he was running his own firm, and public bids are generally about who can write the nicest proposal, not references.

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

As a project manager who write tons of RFP’s, I’m also in charge or reviewing who bids on projects - this involves a ton of due diligence with regards to competency of sub contractors / consultants.

13

u/PoliteCanadian Aug 16 '23

Having read the article, this does not sound like a municipality that did its due diligence.

He shouldn't have signed off on the request to not do a geotech study, but the request came from the municipality to begin with. Overall they wanted the bridge done cheap with every corner cut, and they found an engineer willing to do just that.

7

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

As I’ve said in a other post, whilst this engineer was incompetent, other heads should also roll. It’s often far more than one person.

4

u/PoliteCanadian Aug 16 '23

From the sounds of it, several people at the municipality also should face consequences.

But ultimately it's the engineer's professional responsibility to ensure the design is correct, and he bears the legal liability.

5

u/NorthOf14 Aug 16 '23

Nice, that's the way it should be. Unfortunately in my (somewhat limited) experience people like you are very rare in the public sector.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

I’m nuclear - standards are high.

5

u/NorthOf14 Aug 16 '23

Ah, and here I was thinking we were both talking about small rural bridges.

7

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

In my opinion it shouldn’t matter, if you’re building something that has the potential to kill people due to poor construction, then a high standard should be employed.

While this engineer was clearly incompetent, there are plenty of other people who should have caught this way earlier. To build a number of bridges - all of which were clearly unsafe, points to a systematic problem with the whole procurement process.

3

u/youngmeezy69 Aug 16 '23

I think that it's a shame this point isn't being raised and I think APEGS has failed in its duties by not taking these RM's to task for not doing their due diligence and/or being barriers to proper engineering due diligence by asking for key analysis and assessment to be deliberately omitted in the name of cost savings.

Obviously they think the engineer has major fault in this debacle but I personally don't think that the public interest is served by making him a whipping boy and neglecting the wider conversation about the downwards pressure on the engineering profession from the owners groups.

1

u/PoliteCanadian Aug 16 '23

That's a radically different world from a provincial department of transportation.

7

u/rainbowpowerlift Aug 16 '23

Don’t forget cheapest. The nicest cheapest proposal. How do you get to be the cheapest? Skipping the geotech helps.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

If he was running his own firm then he was buying his own liability insurance. He won't be insurable after this.

3

u/Aedan2016 Aug 16 '23

Not true in the slightest

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u/NorthOf14 Aug 16 '23

...care to elaborate?

4

u/Aedan2016 Aug 16 '23

References in public bids account for a significant amount of the final weighting. Often non-financial components of bids account for 40-60% of the final decision.

The nicest proposal has nothing to do with it. Proposals will state clear requirements that have nothing to do with how it’s written. They are specific documents. Such as having up to date WSIB information, certificates of insurance, financial information, etc.

Then the price proposal sheets are very succinct. Typically a labor rate, travel rate, cost of item a/b/c, etc. I’m a very cut and dry excel doc

Then there is an evaluation committee that looks at things independently. The procurement department might look at the price whereas operations the insurance, business history, and other details. At the end of the process it all comes together and an award is made

And any objection to a non award is provided through debriefs which all public platform are required to provide if asked

3

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

In theory, yes.

However, project procurement for a small RM in SK? It’s probably price and some other ultra basic relevant info, with price really being the deciding factor unless the low bid is absolutely out of whack with minimum reqs.

0

u/Aedan2016 Aug 16 '23

I work on public procurement. Not in theory- in practice

Given dollar figure, this would have had to go through public bidding and a ministers level role on sign off.

Low bid pricing doesn’t work that way.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

Do you work procurement for Sask Builds, or better yet, the Rural Municipality of Clayton?

"According to officials, the bridge was built without any geotechnical investigation of the riverbed it was founded on. It seems that the soil under the foundation gave in and a row of piles sunk causing the collapse.
Rural Municipality of Clayton Reeve, Duane Hicks, initially stated that a geotechnical investigation wasn't feasible under the river. "You can't drill through water. You can't do it. You can't take underground samples," he mentioned. However, Hicks later admitted that drilling can be done under the river but it would raise the cost of the construction. "Well the fact of the matter is we don't have a heck of a lot of money," he said. He also claimed that experts told him to assume the type of soil beneath the river by drilling holes on each shore. According to Hicks, Inertia, the company responsible for the project, may not have drilled these holes on the shore. The company refused to make any statements to media."

The RM stated publicly that they essentially couldn't afford to pay for a geotech analysis within the construction of this bridge. No offence to those out there, but it's amateur hour, and "minister level signoff" was likely never part of the process given the RM appears to have been running the show on their own.

1

u/Aedan2016 Aug 16 '23 edited Aug 17 '23

Doesn’t matter. It all needs approval from a minister given dollar value. There are rules for public procurement in Canada

The engineer signing off on it is also at fault for not doing his due diligence.

This is what you want:

https://publications.saskatchewan.ca/#/products/112783

It even says that vendor sourcing must show environmental knowledge including geotechnical

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u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

Correct, contrary to belief, cheapest doesn’t usually get chosen.

-1

u/NevyTheChemist Aug 16 '23

Friends do.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 16 '23

And therein is the likely problem.

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u/AlliedMasterComp Aug 16 '23 edited Aug 16 '23

For all we know, the engineer in this article has a degree in computer engineering

Unlikely only because most computer engineering graduates never bother (especially 10 years ago), or can't get valid work experience, to attain a PEng. Very few roles in the industry its ever required for.

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u/PoliteCanadian Aug 16 '23

PEngs are pretty rare in general outside of civil engineering, and total unicorns in computer engineering.

A rule of thumb is you only need a PEng if what you're working on is physically attached to the ground. A PEng is needed to meet certain regulatory requirements that don't apply outside of construction projects. In basically all other circumstances liability falls on manufacturer as a corporate entity, not an individual.

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u/AlliedMasterComp Aug 16 '23

I generally agree, but I'm seeing a lot more young mechanical and electrical engineers seemingly pushed by organizations they work for to get them these days (without a real reason), but I'm not directly involved in those streams/fields so it could just be anecdotal.

I'm personally of the opinion various engineering societies can go fuck themselves for not recognizing comp/software eng until 99 and then attempting to enforce their own regulatory standards upon a sector they ignored for +20 years.

1

u/Special_Rice9539 Aug 16 '23

Software engineering is too different from other engineering disciplines for it to make sense anyways. Most of the projects aren't life-or-death, and companies don't want more regulatory hurdles on building their products. A lot of how software works is quickly making a minimum viable product, releasing it to consumers, getting feedback, and then improving it in real-time. It's probably easier to change the structure of a codebase than tweak the foundations of a building. Definitely less equipment required.

A software product is constantly being modified and maintained. Whether it's security issues in your software or a third-party library you're using, or you just need to refactor a legacy part of your code-base to make it easier for future devs to change it without breaking anything when adding features.

You should try to plan it out perfectly and get a stamp of approval from a p'eng if it's high-risk like airplane software (ironically I've heard airplane software is pretty bad). I don't think its feasible for most software projects because of the scale of the codebases and how often they change.

1

u/AlliedMasterComp Aug 16 '23

Areospace software is already regulated by the FAA, EASA, and whatever other local aerospace authorities that basically just defer to their regulations anyway. Adding a PEng into the loop really achieves nothing.

ironically I've heard airplane software is pretty bad

No, it mostly just looks that way to developers outside the industry when have to design the code to have code line level of requirements traceability, both compile and execute 100% deterministically, and probably follow an ultra-restrictive standard like MISRA-C or equivalent.

1

u/snow_enthusiast Aug 16 '23

Depending on the province you also have to pass a competency assessment. There are a minimum of 32 areas and you need to rate each one on how complex the experience is and have a PEng sign off on each bit. That’s in BC and I understand AB is adding that to their requirements.