How many inspectors/Qc guys.

[paulharvey]

I have been an inspector (road, civil, utilities, and now RoW) for going on 6 years now. Wasn't my chosen career path (that was building construction) but I do like it. I'm curious how many other inspector and quality control guys are on here. Buillding, construction, utility, CEI, whatever, heck, even welding inspectors. Mostly just wondering. Also curious about government/what level, private, or contractor.

 

[300UGUY]

I worked for 30 years as a tool and die inspector. That meant that I inspected parts, pre production, for conformance to b/p. Started off working on a surface plate, morphed into using CMM's - usually Zeiss machines. Wasn't really a chosen path, but I stayed employed for 30 years at it, no small feat these days!!

 

[QRTRHRS]

I was in "process control" for semiconductor manufacturing for twenty years. That's kind of high end quality control/low end engineering assistant. Depending on the area I was in, I sparingly used mics and verniers or specialized measuring machines but mostly I worked off the data the regular inspectors recorded and would tweak computer programs or run experiments. Great job, kind of like being on the spaceship Enterprise especially in the clean rooms. Too bad most of the work went overseas and I got laid off.

With so many people laid off in that area, I put my other hat on and went back to driving for five years. Then, I got on doing QA for carbon fiber aircraft brakes for about four years. It was okay, no where near my work with semiconductors though. We had a CMM but it was an old manual pos. Still, I like to be challenged and am pretty detail oriented. My boss once said I could find fly dung in a jar of pepper, lol!

I got DMIR certification from the FAA but that only got me more responsibility and no increase in the paycheck so I took SS at 62.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

I have been a Contractor QC manager on military contracts through the USACE and NAVFAC. They both require the contractor to staff a QC organization to inspect and certify the contractor's work. I now have my own consulting business for construction management technical services to contractors doing federal contracts. These positions pay well but are hard to fill as they are construction jobs and you are hired for the duration of a project with no expectation that contractor will have another contract to move you too when yours is complete. It is a lot of paperwork. Now they are raising the ante to requiring the QCM have a degree in engineering, architecture, or construction management. That has reduced the pool of prospects considerable as degreed persons are looking for career jobs with one employer. A lot of projects less than $10M are still specifying substituting experience for the degree. I started the consulting as I was being denied opportunities on the larger projects I was experienced in. I was making over 3 figures when I stopped working for contractors. The economy down turn has brought that down to $60-80K

Ron

 

[paulharvey]

What made me ask this was my other post about pulling a permit, and I got to thinking how different inspectors even in the same city/county are so different. I worked with two; one would go looking for problems, everything by the book, plus; the other guy, doing exact same job, never went out of his way to find additional problems, and as long as something would work, he let it be.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I spent 45 years in the heavy construction industry. The last 30 or which was as a Quality Manager and last 15 of that working fairly large (more than $5 billion USD) projects. I too see the trend wanting engineering degree for a manager which is pretty funny as much of my time was spent correcting engineering errors that were not designed to Code requirements. Evidently having an engineering degree (I don't have one) does not make one any smarter in making a design that meets Code and can actually be built. I would take an inspector with 10+ years experience as an inspector over a book certified guy with only a couple years in the field anytime.

 

[paulharvey]

I spent 45 years in the heavy construction industry. The last 30 or which was as a Quality Manager and last 15 of that working fairly large (more than $5 billion USD) projects. I too see the trend wanting engineering degree for a manager which is pretty funny as much of my time was spent correcting engineering errors that were not designed to Code requirements. Evidently having an engineering degree (I don't have one) does not make one any smarter in making a design that meets Code and can actually be built. I would take an inspector with 10+ years experience as an inspector over a book certified guy with only a couple years in the field anytime.

I was engineering inspector on a fairly small, $2m, road job. My boss (construction manager) kept saying we had to widen some radii at an intersection. I showed him the plans, which showed a light gray line that he said was proposed Edge of pavement; I said it was existing EP. He got mad at me and said "fine, go ask our design engineer". Needless to say I was dreading it, after all I'm just the field guy.

I walk next door to our design engineer (actual PE, not just a cad tech) who zooms in, turns couple layers on, and color; and he says it's existing EP, no widening needes. Then he calls his cad tech in, and he asks ME if that's reasonable, clear, and doable in the field. I was just about shocked that the engineer wanted to know if they made the plans easy to read and buildable. Even asked if there was a better way to show it.

I've had other cases where a PE got personally offended that we would question there design.

 

[Tractor Seabee]

I have over 50 years in the trades, as a QA/QC, Superintendent, Project Manager, Design Manager and still am not qualified. Hardly a project was done that we did not find design errors or some designer with no field experience not understanding how a project has to go together. I have most engineers thank me for helping them and then a bunch say, build it how I designed it, and won't admit a mistake.

Ron

 

[Blade Breaker]

Hi,

I am the design/engineering manager for a company that designs food processing conveyors and equipment. Started out as a welder, then welding instructor, then running jobs through then cad designer and now manager. Part of my job is design and fabrication qc. I could not do it if I did not have the background I have. I have worked with plenty of engineers that have never built anything and they are clueless. But who am I to tell them that. I'm just a welder right.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I was engineering inspector on a fairly small, $2m, road job. My boss (construction manager) kept saying we had to widen some radii at an intersection. I showed him the plans, which showed a light gray line that he said was proposed Edge of pavement; I said it was existing EP. He got mad at me and said "fine, go ask our design engineer". Needless to say I was dreading it, after all I'm just the field guy.

I walk next door to our design engineer (actual PE, not just a cad tech) who zooms in, turns couple layers on, and color; and he says it's existing EP, no widening needes. Then he calls his cad tech in, and he asks ME if that's reasonable, clear, and doable in the field. I was just about shocked that the engineer wanted to know if they made the plans easy to read and buildable. Even asked if there was a better way to show it.

I've had other cases where a PE got personally offended that we would question there design.

Yeah, I had many arguments with a Dutchman engineering manager about design issues not meeting Code. After he and his staff were made fools of a few times, the engineers would just ask me how I wanted it to be. I never went in to argue a case without first doing all the research and using my staff of 35 inspectors if needed, it didn't take long to search everything and have the Code books with me all page marked. Needless to say, the eng. mgr. and I got along but there was no love lost between us. Part of my job in the design phase was to QC all the drawings for clarity and Code requirement. I never saw any animosity with the design engineers when I pointed out a deficiency.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I have to tell this one. We had a PE soils engineer that would not approve the road base "because the moisture content was too high". WE (construction QC) and his own tech tried to tell him that the nuclear density gauge was reading hydrated moisture in the limed dirt that we had put down. We had put down several truck loads of liquid lime, chopping it in with a soil mixed (BA tiller) then grading it and compacting it with a roller. We used this road as a construction road for over a year and it held up fine. You could walk a 200T crane down it or across it and leave no depression, just black marks from the steel tracks rubbing the hard soil. The geotechnical inspector would have to have a 14# sledge hammer to drive in his spike to make a Nuke test, then we would need a 20 T cherry picker to pull it out but the PE said too soft. Had to drag his Arse out of the office to witness first hand how the road bed was before he would accept that he was wrong and we were right. It didn't hurt that we made him drive in one of the spikes to test, he was sweating pretty good when he finished.

Lots of over-educated folks hate to admit that an old construction person can out do them in common knowledge.

 

[oosik]

I was an Environmental quality supervisor for the government for a little over twenty years. What I used to hear from my new inspectors, and it made me grind my teeth, "I do not care what you say, the code says this---". Being in Alaska, and being I started in the early '60's - - its VERY lucky I didn't get some of my inspectors shot dead on the spot. The '60's, in Alaska, was not a time for the meek & mild.

 

[kenmac]

I'm my own QC /inspector. Then, the city or county inspector inspects behind me and signs off on any permits

 

[QRTRHRS]

Having worked with many an engineer, reading the threads makes me chuckle. When I worked semi I was union so I could just of well have said "yeah well" and let it pass. Being I like a challenge, I like to push issues.

I was one of five QA people per shift covering certain areas in a class ten clean room. We had this annealing furnace that processed one wafer at a time. Mostly, one other person and myself were asked to look into the more difficult situations and we happened to be working the same time. The operators called us on the annealing furnace saying that they did not like the end results they were seeing in a microscope. We did not either but could not say positively what the issue was.

So I call the engineer who proceeds to blow me off. Seems he and another engineer had fine tuned the machine that day which we had not been made aware of. Numbers multiply fast in the semi world so perhaps three days later and many costly steps, perhaps a hundred grand worth of product had failed. Mr. engineer got the machine right but never apologized to my co-worker and myself. I don't need no atta-boy but thanks for the effort is appreciated.

Just so happened, same engineer made the paper for solicitation a couple of days later. What with several hundred people covering 24/7 in this clean room, they had this newsletter that came out once a month just to try to make it a more family atmosphere. I clipped a copy of the police blotter and imposed it under some blue ribbon fillers on the latest paper. Then, I put a copy of the hijacked paper on every engineeer and management desk covering the department. LOL!

Like I said, a simple thanks would have sufficed.

Lastly, some of the most dedicated and helpful engineers I have ever had the privilege and good fortune to work with were orientals or east indians. They were savy enough to recognize that I did not want to one up their thunder but only to learn and earn.