Page 52 - Water and wastewater engineering

THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION PROCESSES 1-23

documents (EJCDC, 2002). Not withstanding the engineer’s contract exculpatory provisions,
the courts have insisted that the engineer provide a standard of responsible care (Loulakis and
McLaughlin, 2007).

1-7 HINTS FROM THE FIELD

Experienced engineers have provided the following insights on the design and construction
process:

• The option for a municipal owner to purchase equipment should be considered carefully.
Tax issues should be discussed with appropriate legal counsel. Other issues include poten-
tial late or early delivery of equipment. In these cases what is the impact/responsibility for
contract completion? Who stores equipment delivered early? Who insures it?
• Construction cost estimates should be conservatively high. A low estimate may require
redoing the bond application and authorization including the potential requirement for an
election to approve additional bonding authority.

Operation and maintenance personnel who have to live with the results of the engineer’s
design have offered the following suggestions:
• The engineer’s job is not done when the owner accepts the project. Good engineering prac-
tice, as well as good client relations, requires that the design team keep in contact with the
facility. Immediately after project completion, a monthly phone call for a status check, and
to hear about problems and/or concerns, is a first step. This is to get issues raised early by
the owner, so they do not become major sore points. After a reasonable time of operation,
generally within six months and perhaps again a year or two later, the design team should
visit the facility. The purpose of the visit is to assess the practical operation of the facility as
well remove the impression that “It’s built, I am paid, so I am gone.” Often these visits will
reveal some enhancement that operators have made to make the operation of the facility
easier or more economical.
The visit can also serve as an after-action summary of the communications issues that
occurred and corrections to enhance future work. It is also useful at this time to compare the
economic analysis assumptions with actual operating experience.
• O&M manuals do not give much operational guidance. Their focus is the mechanics of
equipment start-up, shut-down, and maintenance. Frequently, they only include the equip-
ment suppliers’ O&M manuals. In general operators must prepare standard operating pro-
cedures (SOPs) for process control. This means the operators should be hired before project
construction is completed so they have a chance to ask questions and prepare the SOPs.
Because hiring is the owner’s responsibility, the need for operators to be on board before
construction is complete should be brought to their attention by the engineer.

Visit the text website at www.mhprofessional.com/wwe for supplementary materials
and a gallery of photos.