Lao K says every week – talking about things in the petrochemical design industry. Post 60: Those things that leave design firms at a loss

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This post was last edited by henglinkou on 2022-2-21 at 10:06. Old K’s weekly series – Talks about things in the petrochemical design industry, Post 60: Those situations that leave design firms helpless. As society develops, many things become increasingly complex; driven by interests, there are also many unreasonable and illogical elements, which is quite frustrating. Some things may seem to have noble intentions on the surface, but in practice they often turn out to be unsatisfactory, and may even become tools for power-seeking and **. In the field of petrochemical engineering construction and design, there are also many such challenges; here are a few examples: 1. Qualifications of entities: In developed countries, qualification management is limited to individual registration credentials, which represent an individual’s professional level and serve as a threshold for working in this industry. At the same time, individuals who sign off on certain documents bear significant responsibility. Our country has adopted the Western practices regarding individual registration and qualification management, while still maintaining the system of unit-based qualification management. Having only individual qualifications is not sufficient; one must also work for an organization that possesses the necessary qualifications. In bidding for domestic projects, the qualification level of the company is an important requirement, while for foreign projects, more emphasis is placed on your track record. The reality is that it forces many small and medium-sized design firms without Class A qualifications to spend money to borrow the seals of other Class A design firms (in most cases, it’s just borrowing the seals; few actually participate in the review process). There are also some people with favorable conditions who think about obtaining a Class A qualification for a company, so as to sell it and achieve financial freedom. 2. Professional title evaluation and registration examinations are carried out simultaneously: Before 2000, there were no registration examinations; only professional title evaluations existed. To align with international standards, registration examinations were introduced later, with the intention of gradually replacing evaluations with examinations. More than 20 years have passed since then, yet the dual system still persists. This wastes a great deal of time and social resources on technical professionals. Conflicts arising from unfair professional title evaluations also occur from time to time, and it is not uncommon for people to spend money to secure professional titles through connections. 3. Some issues existing in the pre-project management for construction: In China, construction projects are subject to pre-project management, that is, a cumbersome approval process; the problem is that some of the requirements go beyond the basic procedures for project construction. For the documents submitted for approval in the initial stage, the more content they contain and the thicker the documents are, the better. This puts a heavy burden on the agencies responsible for conducting the evaluations; moreover, it’s doubtful as to what real impact these evaluations have, aside from increasing the workload of the project owners. For example, environmental impact assessments, safety assessments, occupational health assessments (for the design of facilities related to occupational diseases), and energy assessments are prepared after the feasibility study of a project but before the actual engineering design begins. These assessments are based on the findings of the feasibility study; at that stage only the general technical solutions have been determined, and the suppliers for the process packages have not yet been selected. Many detailed technical solutions and specifics remain undetermined. Given the increasingly stringent requirements for such assessments, the feasibility study report alone is simply not sufficient as a basis. The reality today is that many projects are built first and approved later; in the past, this approach wasn’t well understood, but it seems that in many cases it is necessary. Also, in the various sections of the basic design, there must be a chapter stating how much money is invested in certain facilities and what proportion that represents of the total investment. This forces the designers to go through extra effort to gather these figures; it’s unclear what relevance this has to the quality of the design for those specific facilities 4. Bosses of construction companies like to set unrealistic deadlines: These days, whether in state-owned or private enterprises, subordinates remain silent even when what the bosses say is wrong or inappropriate. When it comes to the progress of a project, managers tend to be impulsive and decide on an unrealistic schedule on a whim; sometimes this is even included directly in the tender documents. Those who actually carry out the work don’t dare to say anything and can only make things up at random. Haste makes waste; not only will it fail to achieve the desired results, but it will also inevitably lead to financial losses. Project construction should be carried out in accordance with objective laws. 5. There are too many regulations, and some of the provisions are worded ambiguously. At present, the design in the petrochemical industry is governed by both GB standards and HG serta SH standards; many of the provisions are simply copied from one another, and standardization is desired. Some standards are updated frequently, and some of their provisions are not clearly worded; as a result, designers often need to make phone calls or send emails to clarify their understanding of certain provisions. Tip: You can enter “Lao K’s Weekly Updates – Talks on Matters in the Petrochemical Design Industry” into the website’s search engine to view previous posts