Question 6:

“He shall not under any circumstances solicit advisory or consultative work, either
directly or by an agent, not shall he pay, by commission or otherwise any person who
may introduce clients to him”. Discuss the ways in which an engineer, especially one that
is a newcomer to the field, can project him/herself as a responsible professional to the
society without being guilty of violating the above.

Answer :

Introduction:
In the saturated market, there is tough competition among consultants to secure for a
single job. As a result, an unhealthy competition occurred in which there are consultants
who will go “marketing”, meeting potential client and contact with agencies to solicit for
work. However, in order to uphold the dignity of the professionalism, the above act
should be immediately stopped.

Point 1:
As a newcomer to the field, it is always advisable to attach to a reputable consultant long
enough to gain sufficient training, experience, reputation and financial support. When one
becomes a senior engineer in the company, he might have a chance to be offered
partnership and continue with the long term project. Some young engineers who come
out too early may struggling in financial problem, in order to survive, they ended up
willing to reduce fee to an unbelievable low level or willing to scarify professionalism to
put up an irregular design to satisfy the contractor’s special request. Many of them are
solely driven by materialistic goal rather than professionalism and ethics.

Point 2:
Engineers should be actively involved in activities organized by professional bodies such
as IEM, PAM and etc. This will provide an opportunity for an engineer to introduce
himself and his experience to other professional who may introduce client to him. This is
because the client will always require different services from different professions. For
example, a potential developer will always approach banker, lawyer or planner when
initiate a project in the early stage. When reach to certain later stage of the project, he
might need the banker, lawyer or planner to introduce an architect and engineer for
building works or infrastructure design. To an engineer by profession, this will definitely
better than go out to hunt for works.

Point 3:
Once an engineer to be appointed by the client, he must maintain his stand to be a
responsible Professional Engineer to undertake jobs. Engineer must practice to undertake
only works that within his knowledge and capacity and specialist in order to produce safe
and sound design and consultancy service. Unfortunately, the reality is that, many
consultants will undertake jobs which are outside their knowledge. They will then pass
the job to part timer to produce design. This has indirectly creates complication during
construction stage. Since the design is not produce by the consultant, they will not be able
to co-op with any dynamic changes in design. And eventually will spoil the image of
engineers’ professionalism.

Point 4:
An engineer should maintain continuing duty as appointed in which appointment as
consultant continues until the end of the project. Termination or change of consultant
engineer in the middle of a project may cause complication and negative perception on
the engineers’ professionalism. An engineer shall be liable and responsible for any jobs
undertaken and shall not discharge or delegate his responsible to others. When something
happened, people tend to have the ‘pointing finger’ behavior. Engineers must practice
and learn to shoulder responsibility as a professional.

Point 5:
An engineer must not undertake any irregular or non-conformance design to the standard
engineering practice when offered by client even if the consultancy fees is higher than the
normal fees. This is to safeguard the engineer especially the newcomer who has less
hands-on experience if anything goes wrong. Engineers should not reduce the factor of
safety close to the limit in order to comply with the client requirement. We must not
forget that, in actual life situation, factor of safety in design not only safeguard us against
uncertainties in loading and material, it actually cater for workmanship at the site too.
How well the workmanship is sometimes out of the engineer control.

Conclusion:
Engineers have to be more apparent to project themselves and maintain as a responsible
professional to the society as other profession such as accountant, lawyer and doctor do.
Engineer shall contribute his knowledge and experience towards the benefit of society.
All judgment and expertise as the well being of the public are always the primary concern
in all engineering works. It is important to create the reputation in the field in order for
the client to look for. Only look for their professionalism and expertise but not for other
reasons. There is no better time than now for us to improve the situation and contribute
towards a better future for our future generation of engineers.