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untruthful fashion hoping to be able to pull off a switch after winning the bid.

Cycling back to the six canons, it becomes clear that some- “My ? rst alarm bell related thing is rotten in the state of engineering design services.

This is not a new frustration, and undoubtedly honorable en- to the fact that a ferry gineers will be bidding on this project knowing that this is not the ? rst time that a client does not really know what they company is interested in really need and do not take a hint. Once on the job, the engi- neers will probably conduct themselves honorably, but what developing a 2008 design this whole thing ignores is that engineers are asked to provide that was based on 2008 an untruthful proposal to later be able to act truthfully and that is a drag on the system, the Code and the Profession. research. 2008 is a long time

And in this case completely unnecessary if the response to our question had been slightly different. We essentially asked ago by any standard, and in the client if they were sure the tasks in their RFP were re- alistic. The answer to our question was, “We want what we today’s maritime climate, with wrote in the RFP”. Instead, a much smarter response would have been, “This is what we think we want, but if you can technical innovations raging convince us in the proposal that there is a more effective ap- proach we will consider it.” through the system, it is a

There is no guarantee that the client will accept the more very long time ago.” effective approach, but it prevents bidding engineers from having to play around with the truth.

There is nothing pretty about compelling engineers to skirt the profession’s ethics and to inef? ciently act on work paid for by the public. Public entities have to be mindful of that, and need to con? gure their bidding systems such that it se- lects the most suitable engineers, not the engineers who know how to push the premarked buttons.

The Author van Hemmen

For each column I write, MREN has agreed to make a small

Rik van Hemmen is the President of donation to an organization of my choice. For this column I

Martin & Ottaway, a marine consult- nominate the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engi- neers. www.sname.org. The National Code of Engineering ing ? rm.

Ethics resides with NSPE, but SNAME’s code is better.

Fairbanks Morse

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