Hi John, this is Sarah from XYZ Construction. We need you to come out to the job site as soon as possible. We have multiple floor beams that appear to be deflecting significantly and we are very concerned. Can you come right away?”

Immediately you grab the plans and see that the drawings show a W12x16 spanning 27 feet. You become nervous thinking about the design without even needing to look up the loading as the beam doesn’t meet your “rule of thumb” guideline that the beam depth (in inches) be approximately one half the span. In looking at the calculations you ask, “Why does the dead load on this beam seem so light?” Upon further review, you learn that the beam was designed without considering the slab weight because of a new option in the software program that the staff design engineers in your office didn’t fully understand.

Have you ever received a call like this where there is a problem with one of your projects? While this exact situation may not have happened to you, many engineers have experienced at least a few unintended consequences when using structural engineering software. So, how do you prevent problems such as this from happening and reduce your risk of errors being made in using software? By developing a software error-reduction plan (SERP), you can help significantly reduce the chance of errors being made and increase the chance of catching any problem areas. The four steps for a SERP include the following:

• Select a “champion” for each program.
• Educate your engineers, create a training plan.
• Research and create written processes and procedures in your office for software usage.
• Perform internal reviews of software models.

All of these items used together can be a very effective method to not only minimize your chance of errors, but also increase your effectiveness in using software.

Select a champion
With the current availability of sophisticated software, it may be too expensive and impractical to think every engineer using a program could be an expert. Part of the reason for this is that unlike CAD tools — where drafters may be using the same program every day — most structural engineers use a variety of engineering software and most don’t spend a majority of their time using any one specific program.

We suggest you select at least one engineer for each of the major structural analysis programs you own, and ask them to become the champion for that program. This engineer would be responsible for becoming the office expert for that program, and should be used as a resource by other engineers who have questions. He or she would also be responsible for the rest of your company’s SERP.

The champion should keep up with any changes made to his or her particular program. With constant updates to every program, it is hard for all engineers to know what items have changed, how this will impact projects, and what new tools might be available. By having one person assigned to be the expert in a particular program, he or she can take on the responsibility of keeping up to date with all the changes and communicating the changes to the rest of the engineers at your firm.

Also, the software champion should have an in-depth understanding of the program defaults. Most software programs have a set of defaults that need to be set, and the default criteria are vitally important to the results obtained. Not fully understanding the criteria often results in unexpected outcomes. Our suggestion would be to have the champion conduct several “lunch-and-learn” sessions to describe to all staff engineers in detail each criteria item and what outcomes are affected by it. Additionally, your company should purposefully select the defaults for each program and all engineers should understand why.

In summary, selecting a champion for each software program is an important aspect of the SERP process for reducing your risk in using structural software. As software programs increase in complexity, having a designated engineer who is responsible for keeping current on a program will help your company avoid making costly errors. An additional benefit to selecting a champion is that he or she will likely get excited about his or her additional responsibilities and become a more valuable employee.

In our next article, we will explain the second aspect to your SERP — educating your engineers by creating a training plan.

Brian Quinn, P.E., and Lisa Willard, P.E., are with SE Solutions, LLC — a firm dedicated to helping match top-notch structural engineers with great companies and unique opportunities. They formerly worked for a combined 21 years at RAM International/Bentley Systems and can be reached at lisa.willard@findyour engineer.com or 805-482-8436 and brian.quinn@findyourengineer.com or 616-546-9420, respectively.