A recipe for contract disputes?
7 Feb 2013
Engineers need a proper understanding and experience of project requirements
London – There are typically less than 10 significant disputes around industrial construction and engineering projects in the UK each year - according to engineers speaking after the launch of the IChemE’s revised Forms of Contract in London this week (see story).
Given the number and scale of the projects, this is a surprisingly low figure, and testimony to the value of the standardised approach provided by the Forms of Contracts since their launch about 45 years ago.
It is also testimony to the skills of the engineers involved in specifying, delivering and commissioning these projects, which often require an understanding of many highly complex technical aspects.
A concern expressed by one IChemE member, though, was that the new breed of engineers coming through are highly computer-literate, but are not gaining an in-depth understanding of what it means to be an engineer.
This “spreadsheeting” trend, he said, is leading to difficulties, for example, when it comes to the costing and specification stages of projects.
These comments tally with concerns - previously reported in PE - that people are still coming into the engineering professions without understanding core subjects, particularly mathematics, and are instead employing a “recipe approach” to dealing with problems.
The $64,000 (or should it be million?) question is, will these shortcomings lead to an increase in the project disputes, and all the legal and insurance problems that go with them?
