The Vendor's Free Software and the Sealed Report
You are a certified technologist preparing a commissioning report for a 6 MW backup generator installation. A vendor whose switchgear you specified offers to send an engineer to run the protection-relay coordination study for you at no cost, using the vendor's licensed software. The vendor's engineer produces the coordination curves, and the curves show that a relay the vendor supplies is comfortably adequate while a competitor's upstream device is marginal. The vendor asks only that you include their logo and a line reading "coordination verified by [Vendor]" on the report cover. Your client will rely on this report to energize the plant. You have not independently checked the relay settings or the software inputs, and you have two days before the energization date.
1. Can you accept the vendor's study and logo on your report?
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Not in the form offered. Accepting a study you did not perform or verify, and branding your report with the vendor's logo, converts your independent report into a vendor-endorsed document. The client is entitled to rely on your professional judgement, not on a supplier's self-interested analysis. The fact that the vendor's own device comes out adequate while a competitor's device comes out marginal is exactly the pattern that independent review exists to catch, whether or not the vendor intended any bias.
You may use vendor software and vendor data as inputs, and you may acknowledge assistance, but the analysis and conclusions must be yours and must be checked. A neutral acknowledgment such as "relay data supplied by the manufacturer; coordination study performed and reviewed by [your firm]" is acceptable. A logo and a "verified by [Vendor]" line on the cover are not, because they misrepresent who is professionally responsible.
2. What must you do before the report can be issued, given the two-day deadline?
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Either verify the study to a standard you can defend or do not issue the report as a basis for energization. Verification means: confirm the software model inputs (device ratings, CT ratios, time-current curves, source impedance, fault levels) against the actual equipment data; re-run or hand-check the critical coordination pairs, especially the upstream competitor device flagged as marginal; and confirm the settings against the protection philosophy and the applicable code requirements. That is realistic in two days for a single installation if you focus on the critical paths, but only if you start now and do not assume the vendor's output is correct.
If you cannot complete a defensible check in time, tell the client in writing that the report will not be issued for energization on that date, explain what remains, and propose a realistic date. A slipped date is recoverable; an energization based on an unverified, conflicted study is not. Do not let the schedule pressure you into signing work you did not perform.
3. How do you handle the conflict-of-interest dimension in your records and communications?
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Disclose the arrangement to your client and to your supervisor, and document it. The client should know that the vendor provided free engineering support and software, and that you are independently reviewing the output. Disclosure protects the client's ability to judge the report and protects you if the coordination is later questioned.
In your file, record: what the vendor supplied, what you independently verified, what you accepted on the vendor's data, and who reviewed and sealed the report. Keep the vendor's role as a data and software provider, not as a co-author. If the marginal competitor device turns out to be genuinely inadequate, that is a legitimate finding and you should report it clearly, with your own calculations; if it turns out to be adequate, you must say so even though it undercuts the vendor's product. The test is whether your conclusion would be the same if the vendor had never been involved.