[Jim Sims]

"Many everyday problems can be now solved with more concentrated technology that requires fewer actual degreed engineers. There are engineering firms that now have technicians taking the places of what PE's used to do(PE's still sign and stamp the plans after review)."


The problem is too many of these companies now have no degreed engineers. If the work gets much beyond getting the "drawings out of the drawers" and copying past work they produce technical disasters. Numerous times we've had to bail out vendors who's management thought they could do engineering with technicians - if the theoretical and analytical knowledge is lacking, the efforts degrade into "monkey see, monkey do." When we ask where the engineering staff is, we find they were allowed to retire without being replaced or were laid off! The so called concentrated technology merely permits sooner and more in-depth disasters. If PE's are signing off on engineering work done by non-engineers without throughly reviewing it (which means essentially doing it over in these cases) they and their employers are assuming significant legal and professional risk.