It seems a bit harsh to me to call this "incredibly disrespectful". I doubt that "incredible disrespect" was intended, nor is it inherent to the statement.
What I think you mean is that the grandparent comment strikes you personally as not recognising the efforts of other engineers around the world, and you wish it did. I think that would be a less incendiary and aggressive way to get your point across, and, in most places, more likely to get a useful response.
Thank you for the comment but your recommendation is unnecessary - from reading your post it is clear that the major components of my complaint were understood without issue.
Disrespect occurs with or without intent. The original poster's comment can only be construed in one way: the Swiss do things this way, it is better, and therefore everybody else does it wrong. The claim (50% spent on planning) is clearly and demonstrably wrong. As someone who works in the tunneling industry I take personal offense to the implication that we (Americans, British, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, everyone not Swiss) don't "invest the time up-front in planning and thinking" before we "set the machinery in motion" and that we have a work methodology that isn't "oriented towards reaping long term profits with interest".
> The original poster's comment can only be construed in one way: the Swiss do things this way, it is better, and therefore everybody else does it wrong. The claim (50% spent on planning) is clearly and demonstrably wrong.
That is correct, in my experience the Swiss way is the best way, and I have yet to work in another country (and I'm international) where they do it better or with more planning and forethought. The only other mentality which comes close to that is that of Japanese. This is obviously anecdotal, but to me it is perfectly understandable why the Swiss managed to do it within time and budget constraints. Everywhere else I've worked, and what I've seen, it was not as good.
I've put the Swiss saying that planning is 50% of the work to the test, and have had great results with it. Again this is anecdotal, but to me, it confirms that their way of thinking is correct, and I appreciate it.
By the way, the article in German mentions multiple times that certain challenges which were met were expected because they were identified during the planning and preparation stage.
The opinion being raised here is that the overall system the Swiss are using provides better results than those others are using. It's not necessarily that others don't put forth effort (despite the language), but that the Swiss yield the kind of results that others don't.
Most people aren't judged by effort. They're judged by results.
Another way of putting it: the proof of the engineering is in the working.
> the Swiss yield the kind of results that others don't.
Correct.
> Most people aren't judged by effort. They're judged by results.
Again, correct. And they deliver results, consistently.
The only place where they don't is team sports, but again that has a logical reason behind it, which is that they are very private and individual people, everyone for themselves (not that they don't try, it just doesn't work out). But when it comes to planning, they could very well teach others how it's done, because they excel at it. There is something to learn from every nation, planning and organization is one thing that one can learn from the Swiss.
The opinion being raised here is not supported by evidence. The only testable claim that can be evaluated in the original poster's comment is that, in the Swiss system, planning is 50% of the work. I ask specifically for any breakdown of cost or schedule, the two metrics by which all public work is judged, where planning occupies 50% of the work.
Simply looking at an isolated example of a project that was on schedule and under budget (for varying definitions of schedule and budget, but that's how it goes in construction - the Seattle SR 99 replacement tunnel project along with the Seawall replacement is currently "on schedule" if you believe the management of those projects) does not provide the data to back up the poster's statement. Without the data we cannot adequately make the determination if the "Swiss system" described by the poster is better than any other system.
There is a saying in the poker community: don't be results oriented.
I don't want infrastructure engineering to be like poker, and neither should you. The only way in which they are alike is that there is a strong possibility of someone getting killed if you cheat.
I 100% want engineering to be like poker. I say that as a registered professional engineer with many friends on crews currently standing in holes that I have designed.
Understand what I mean when I say "like poker": the poker mindset is a very analytical, statistically oriented approach. The best players never make a bet/call/fold without some form of logical basis for their plays. They have an internal model that tells them "this play will succeed 50% of the time and I stand to win 3x my risked value and so it is profitable". Similarly in engineering, no decision should be made without an internal model where risk can be evaluated - "this structure will fail 5% of the time and kill somebody but it costs $10,000,000 to get more out of it and so it is not profitable".
Engineering - especially tunneling - is a gamble. You cannot design away every risk. All we can do is show up with our belts and suspenders on and hope our pants don't fall down when we're running out of the hole.
If we set aside the 50% part as non-literal, OP described planning, not designing. Planning includes risk analysis and mitigation. And even in designing we include risk mitigation and elimination. We put in safety factors (component must be able to support 3x target weight, and such).
Everything else you described about risk is not unique to poker. In engineering, particularly major projects with real safety concerns, it's risk analysis. This component has a 4% chance of failing in this way, so add redundancy to mitigate it. Put in 10 sensors instead of 4, and require a consensus algorithm to reduce the risks from sensor failure or misreporting.
In engineering we do gamble, on a lot of things. But it's not a pure gamble, we aren't just throwing dice. We plan, prepare, rehearse, and execute.
We agree with each other. The other poster is the one who did not recognize the similarities between a poker mindset and an engineering mindset. I am well aware of how risk mitigation, planning, and safety factors roll themselves into engineering.
And a bit of a nitpick, but we are just throwing dice. The entire idea of a safety factor is an abstraction to get away from statistics which is why it has been almost completely replaced in structural engineering with LRFD which is based on statistical analyses of component/system failures.
> Engineering - especially tunneling - is a gamble.
I'm a civil engineer, and I do structural design work for a living.
If you're not trolling and you do mean what you've been saying, you're being very disingenuous and in the process proving to be true and perfectly valid all comments regarding the virtues of the swiss system in contrast with the typical engineering work around the world, the one you so vocally identify yourself with.
Engineering is not poker. It never was. Only bad engineering is like poker, and it shows in their work. You're confusing basic aspects of reliability analysis (the "this structure will fail 5% of the time" comment) with being poker. European structural design standards dictate that the lower failure probability of an engineering work, for its entire design working life, is around 0,05%. This is not poker.
As you've mentioned, the design process is centered on risk analysis and balances the economic impact of safeguarding against risk scenarios, but this is entirely immaterial for the discussion. The discussion is about planning, and the lack thereof. All projects are planned to an extent, but the point is that planning is often insufficient in the sense that important variables are left unknown until breaking ground for any number of reasons, one of which is this mentality that its unacceptable to spend much on risk assessment ("why spend money on non-destructive tests to infer the geotechnical profile and properties of each stratum in the preliminary design stage if we're boring a hole in there and eventually we'll reach that point ourselves?").
Unknowingly or not, you've supported this observation throughout all this discussion by arguing in favor of the virtues of handling a civil engineer project like "poker", and tolerating and accepting the occurrence of surprises associated with unacceptably high risk probabilities that go way up to 5%. This is precisely the problem everyone is pointing out and you've tried to deny but ended up supporting. This is the sole responsible for the typical cost overruns in civil engineering projects, and you inadvertently demonstrated why sadly this still rings true up to this day.
I completely agree, HN is not a safe space. That is why I feel justified in blatantly calling out a comment I see as disrespectful. I didn't try to "outlaw" his comment - I upvoted the comment, as I upvote any comment I feel encourages or needs discussion.
Focusing on the "50% planning" comment is wrong, and it's likely an exaggeration. What you should be asking is evidence of Swiss public works projects meeting time & budget constraints vs. projects in other countries, which is the key takeaway here.
What I think you mean is that the grandparent comment strikes you personally as not recognising the efforts of other engineers around the world, and you wish it did. I think that would be a less incendiary and aggressive way to get your point across, and, in most places, more likely to get a useful response.