Thanks Abdul...
Bill Brooks - KG6VVP
PCB Design Engineer , C.I.D.+, C.I.I.
Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510
e-mail:[log in to unmask]
http://www.dtwc.com
http://pcbwizards.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Abd ulRahman Lomax [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 11:44 AM
To: DXP Technical Forum
Subject: Re: [dxp] Question To PCB Designers On Liability
I made some comments on subsequent posts in this thread, but I don't think
they cover all the issues raised by the original question, hence this post.
At 12:29 PM 3/31/2005, Rusty Land wrote:
> This question does not pertain to Protel but I thought it may be of
> interest to all PCB designers, particularly consultants. Do any of you
> sign agreements with your customers limiting your liability in the event
> of errors and omissions on your part?
Not usually. I have written a statement disclaiming liability from time to
time and provided it with a quotation. Elsewhere I gave an example of such
a statement. I also read purchase orders; one can never tell when some
zealous buyer might insert a clause creating liability.
In summary, I clearly advise the design engineer that, while I make a best
effort to do work correctly in the first place, and to check the work with
reasonable diligence, such as creating appropriate rules and running ERC
and DRC, the engineer should *expect* that there is a possibility of
errors. Essentially, good checking practice should involve someone checking
the work who did *not* personally do it, so, rather than me pouring over my
own work looking for errors, with less likelihood of finding them, it is
most efficient if the engineer do this. If questioned, I would say that I'd
be happy to hire someone to do the second check, but, of course, there
would be an extra charge for this, my basic quotation does not include that
extra check. I think I have mentioned this to customers, I don't recall any
negative reaction. And none have requested the extra work.
(But I've done design checking for the work of other designers, some
companies have that job position.)
> Are you aware of any suits being brought against PCB designers due to
> errors and omissions?
No. Until there is one, worry about lawsuits is quite premature and,
indeed, could be counterproductive. Insurance to lawyers is like honey to
ants. I originally wrote, like rotting meat to flies, but I'm not actually
anti-lawyer. Some of my best friends are lawyers. :-)
> I haven't had any problems in the years that I have been consulting
> but a customer recently told me they were skipping the prototype stage on
> a couple of my boards and going straight into production. This has caused
> me to look closely at liability issues. I could also see the case where
> someone was injured or equipment damaged due to a failure of the board.
My advice to clients contemplating skipping prototypes is to make it very
clear that the risk of doing this is entirely the client's. If the client
wants to pay me extra to take on the liability, I'd want to know the
details, how much is being risked, etc., so that I could charge
accordingly. Usually the client wants to skip prototypes to save time. If
there is an error and the production run is useless because of that, not
only is there the extra expense, but time is lost as well.
Sometimes one may be confident enough in the design to go ahead with
production, or at least a limited production run that would get assembly
going immediately. One might think of this limited run as a large prototype
run. There are various risks to be balanced, so it is impossible to say
that one should *always* get prototypes done. What if a board was
prototyped, and there was a very small change? If the confidence level is
high, then it may well be quite reasonable to skip the proto run. But I
wouldn't advise, in that event, ordering a million of the boards. Just
enough to get production going without delay, as I said. And to note the
possibility, there could be situations where one would order a quick proto
*and* a small production run, simultaneously, especially if the timing
would be such as to be able to interrupt the production run if the proto is
bad.
However, the only time that a customer tried to not pay me, it was
connected with a job which I had done with OrCAD, and, for various reasons,
mostly having to do with OrCAD bugs, I told the customer that I was not
confident in the design, he should check it thoroughly. Instead, he said,
fab it. When, in fact, the design had a serious problem, he was not a happy
camper. I think he did pay me for this job, but on another job, shortly
thereafter, he gave me incorrect data for a footprint, and I didn't catch
it, I used his footprint. Which was a mirror image of the actual. And, once
again, contrary to my advice, he went for fab without checking. This time,
he deducted some compensation from what I'd billed, and paid me the
difference.
However, the very same cause of most of his problems, his radical
disorganization and constant battle against deadlines of yesterday, led to
his overpaying me. So I sent him a refund (but not giving him credit for
his deduction.) I never heard from him again. But I'm pretty sure he
continued to have problems....
When I make a mistake, I've always agreed immediately to fix it without
charge, with one exception. When I'm working by the hour. The customer
typically gained a benefit, a lower price, by engaging me by the hour
rather than by quoted price. A quid pro quo for that is I'm paid for best
effort, not for results. But I can't remember the last time this was
actually an issue. Much, much more common is a client error, and a sane
client expects to pay for correcting his error. We do, in fact, try to
catch as many as possible of these errors, it is common for us to question
something that looks off. But we cannot guarantee it, there are far too
many unknowns.
> I'm trying to decide now if I should formulate such an agreement or
> whether it would scare off more customers than it's worth.
>
If the agreement is clear and simple and along the lines I've described, it
should not scare anyone off that you wouldn't want to scare off. It does
not hurt to make the industry practice explicit. But if the agreement gets
very complex, it can do some harm, in that the client may be put off by the
very complexity, i.e., do I have to hire a lawyer just to decide whether or
not to give the designer this job?
So keep it simple, perhaps as simple as : The designer is responsible for
only for best effort to satisfy provided design specifications, and, in the
event of designer error with a job quoted at a fixed price, will correct
the error without further charge. The designer cannot warrant that the work
product is suitable for purpose, responsibility for this rests with the
client or client engineer. The designer cannot be responsible for
consequential damages, and will not be liable under any circumstance in
excess of fees paid for the work.
I'm putting together a Protel support wiki, to run at protel-users.org.
Right now, that URL won't get you anything but a server error, but soon....
One of the things we could develop at that wiki would be a standard design
contract. This is likely to be much better than anything I could personally
come up with, and some of us might even run it by an attorney....
(If you don't know what a wiki is, look at wikipedia.org, which is a public
encyclopedia....)
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