I am trying to find a consultant to review the designs (specifically electrical safety) of a machine a client is buying. Looking for a CEng that can review the designs, assess versus both standards and good engineering (safe) designs and provide a report. Will be a a fully paid piece of work and needs to be carried out in a professional and independent manner. Timescales are quite tight.
And while of course we can only draw inferences, it looks as if it could be a safety issue which is not exactly covered by the rules, where the supplier considers it to be safe but the end client doesn't - so possibly more "has safety been managed ALARP" than "has it strictly followed the rules".
I am looking for a fully independent technical review of the designs to check a). compliance to standards and b) - more importantly, whether the design is considered safe by a 3rd party.
It's sentence b) that gives that impression.
And that could get very complicated as "sufficiently safe", e.g. ALARP, is a different legal test in different countries.
Were I retired (given that this is exactly the sort of work I get involved in in the day job) I might half consider volunteering, but I'd want to know exactly who my report was going to and what it was going to be used for - if it's likely to end up in expert witness territory I'd want to know this from the off. And that I'd definitely get paid if my report gave the "wrong" answer. It's sad but true that where clients want us to help them argue that systems are unsafe (or safe) just occasionally - fortunately very, very rarely in my industry - they can get very difficult to deal with if we give them a different answer to the one they wanted to hear...we're always very clear that it is "invoice on delivery of report" not "invoice on report giving you the answer that you wanted"! (I'm only saying this for Steven's awareness of the sort of frustrating legalese that he may find himself presented with by any potential consultant, which can beg the question "so what am I paying you all this money for?" - it's not to suggest that we think any potential client will cause problems, just protecting ourselves against the tiny minority who do.)
It is an example of a rather odd UK-only rule - continentals don't have to remove piles of dead bodies each morning from their bathrooms, and neither do I.
Especially when you consider the number of houses where an extension lead is run into the bathroom to run various appliances, including in one case that I have observed, a television on the end of the bath.
Multiply my observations out across the population and there are probably a lot more sockets in 'locations containing a bath or shower' in the UK than one might first imagine!
- Ross
Maybe what is needed is a "half day" scoping exercise that would help in clarifying what could be said and not said in the RFQ (request for quotation), such that a better level of engagement can be reached.
In many senses it feels like a common problem I see when folks apply for professional registration when they feel that can't say what their work is about, yet need to say what it's about. Hence the suggestion of getting some 'limited advice' (could be under an NDA non-disclosure agreement) about what to put in the RFQ that will attract folks to quote without beating around the bush.
Absolutely Philip. But that said, I often have to explain to potential clients that actually to scope the work they generally don't need to give me any IP - it often surprises them that scoping the work usually doesn't require any understanding of the precise technical issue, it is more about the issues I mentioned of what the argument will be used for, whether it can be a desktop analysis or requires a site visit etc.
In fact in some cases I don't want to discuss the technical details at this stage - I don't want the client taking my proposed approach and, particularly, initial views and giving them to another consultant - it works both ways!
But there could still be confidentiality issues there of course in terms of the process - if it is to progress a claim which may turn legal the client may not want that to be known publicly at this stage.
I'd agree. Though 'clients' often want to talk in terms of what they know, rather than what they can release, hence the suggestion of a scoping NDA by someone who might appreciate what they may be talking about (just like professional registration!).
The view from the top of the cliff, and the bottom of the cliff, can be quite different, and it's a long drop ;-)
We're about to take you to the IET registration website. Don't worry though, you'll be sent straight back to the community after completing the registration.
Continue to the IET registration site
