Home / Consultancy / Independent verification
Independent verification and design review
A review carried out by someone qualified to assess the competence of the people who did the original work.
NAFEMS appoints a small number of Professional Simulation Engineer Assessors to judge whether other engineers' simulation competence meets an international standard. Our technical director is one of them.
What a verification actually examines
A design review that only re-runs the original calculation adds very little. The useful review interrogates the things that are easy to get wrong and hard to spot:
- Is the load case right? More designs fail on a missed or misjudged load case than on arithmetic.
- Are the boundary conditions physically honest? A restraint that does not exist in reality will hide the real stress.
- Is the material data defensible? Source, temperature dependence, and whether the grade is the one actually being fabricated.
- Is the acceptance criterion the correct one? The right code clause, applied to the right category of stress.
- Does the model resolve what it claims to? Mesh convergence at the location that governs, not in general.
Common triggers
Certification and regulatory
A certifying authority or regulator requires design substantiation from an independent party before approval.
Lender and insurer requirements
Project finance or insurance conditional on independent technical review of critical equipment or structures.
Pre-fabrication freeze
The last point at which a design error is cheap. A review before release to fabrication is the highest-return check on any project.
Dispute and second opinion
Two parties disagree about whether a design is adequate, and an independent technical position is needed.
Post-failure
Something has failed and the original analysis needs examining to establish whether it was wrong, or simply given the wrong inputs.
Acquiring a design
Technical due diligence on a design package being bought, licensed or inherited from another party.
How we report
Findings are graded so you can act on them proportionately. A observation that the report is unclear is not the same as a finding that the design is unsafe, and conflating the two wastes everyone's time.
Each finding states what we found, why it matters, and what would close it. Where we disagree with the original engineer on a matter of judgement rather than fact, we say that explicitly — reasonable engineers do differ, and the client is entitled to see where the difference lies.
Finding categories
Every finding is graded:
- Critical — the design does not meet the stated requirement and must change
- Major — the substantiation is inadequate; the design may be acceptable but has not been shown to be
- Minor — the conclusion stands but the supporting work has a defect
- Observation — no impact on the conclusion; noted for good practice
Something that needs an independent eye?
Tell us what was produced, by whom, and what decision depends on it.