One of the satisfactions I have had in my years in the industry is participation in many industry organizations, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), IEEE and the American National Standards Institute. I consider this participation my opportunity to give back to the industry by sharing information, wisdom and experience my mentors have given to me over the years.
I will be the first to admit the rigors and bureaucracy ASCE imposes in the initiation, implementation and development of its standards and manuals of practices (MoPs) can be difficult and result in significant time delays from the concept of such a document to final publishing. I have been chastised by others who have said ASCE is slow and never produces a document in a timely manner.
However, it has become readily apparent to me this is all for a good reason.
Balanced Representation
ASCE encourages participation from all facets of our industry. It strives for a balance of membership from users, producers and general interest. ASCE standards require every facet be represented by no less than 20% and no more than 40%. This provides for an equal balance of all interested sides in the development of such documents. Additionally, all members are vetted for their individual expertise and not their corporate affiliation.
After a committee agrees on the contents of the document, an MoP requires a blue ribbon panel (BRP) review in which the ASCE executive committee (ExCom) must approve the membership. Often, people outside our industry are asked by ExCom to participate on the BRP. Standards, being a higher level of “standard,” require an open public ballot in which anyone and everyone can participate. It is not guaranteed every single comment will be agreed to, but the committees must address each comment made.
After all of this, the document goes to ASCE Publications, where every reference is verified. Careful attention is made to ensure there are no conflicts with other standards or plagiarisms. This process alone can take up to nine months.
At the end, an ASCE standard or MoP is produced that is of the highest quality and professionalism. I am proud to be a part of ASCE and have my name on these documents.
All Standards are not Equal
Unfortunately, standards developed by other organizations may not be subjected to the same level of standard. At least one professional organization serving our industry has recently started an “entity process,” whereby companies are required to pay different rates based on their annual revenue to serve on a standards committee and there is no review for the engineering qualifications of the committee members. Only companies that are entity members can participate and vote on these so-called standards. Only entity companies can participate in the peer review process, as well.
There currently are no North American utilities, manufacturers or consultants that are entity members of this organization.
Further, the peer review process of this organization requires no more than two people to review a standard. And those people must be from an entity organization that has paid to play. There is a public review process, but anyone who wants to review the document must purchase it—and it is not cheap. Additionally, there is no assurance comments will be acted on; they will only be taken as suggestions.
Why should I spend $200 to look at a document the organization already has said it will only take my review comments as suggestions? Where is the qualified peer review in this type of process?
A Code of Ethics
Most engineering societies have codes of ethics that specifically reference not practicing outside their area of expertise. ASCE’s Cannon 2a states: “Engineers shall undertake to perform engineering assignments only when qualified by education or experience in the technical field of engineering involved.”
The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Fundamental Canon I.2 states: “Perform services only in areas of their competence.”
Yet, today, we find ourselves seeing new standards being published by some organizations that clearly are not following the professional guidelines our industry expects when developing such standards. On any published standard you may choose to follow, I challenge you to look at the committee membership and see if you recognize their names and contributions to the industry.
Are they all from one company? Do the committee members represent a balance of involved parties? Was the document peer reviewed or publicly balloted? If so, was it by more than two people? Did the reviewers have to pay to perform their review? Is there content within the standard that is well outside the areas of expertise of the publishing organization? Does the standard conflict with other standards written by the same organization?
The answers to these questions for ASCE standards and MoPs are what you would expect. Unfortunately, things are changing with standards now being published by some other organizations in our industry. You may not like the answers you get when examining those!
Otto J. Lynch is president and CEO of Power Line Systems. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), IEEE and National Electrical Safety Code. He is a registered professional engineer.
