PEPT cheat sheet

Core ethical canons: hold paramount public safety, health, and welfare; practice only within your competence; issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.

Conflict-of-interest test: disclose any financial or personal interest that could reasonably be seen to impair judgment; recusal is required when disclosure alone cannot remove the bias.

Confidentiality rule: client and employer information stays confidential except where disclosure is required by law, needed to protect public safety, or authorized by the client.

Whistleblower escalation ladder: report internally first, then to the regulator; going public is justified only when internal and regulatory channels fail and harm is imminent.

Bribery versus facilitation payment: any payment to influence a decision is a bribe; small payments to expedite a routine entitlement are still prohibited under most codes and anti-corruption laws.

Signature and seal certify personal review: never seal work you did not prepare or directly supervise; a seal is a personal attestation, not a corporate endorsement.

Gift threshold rule: accept only token hospitality that cannot reasonably influence a decision; declare anything above the employer's stated value in the gift register.

Competence boundary: when a task exceeds your expertise, the ethical duty is to decline or obtain qualified supervision, not to learn at the client's risk.

Standard of care in tort: the degree of care and skill an ordinary, competent engineer would exercise in the same circumstances; breach plus causation plus damage establishes negligence.

Contract versus tort: contract liability arises from promises in the agreement; tort liability arises from a duty of care owed independently of the contract, and both can run in parallel.

Limitation periods: contractual claims typically run from breach or from the date the defect should have been discovered; check the jurisdiction's statute for the exact trigger.

Statutory duties override contract terms: health, safety, and environmental legislation binds regardless of what the parties agreed, and liability caps cannot exclude statutory obligations.

Professional registration is a legal prerequisite: practising or sealing work without a valid licence is an offence, and the employer shares liability for allowing it.

Building and planning approvals are conditions precedent: construction before consent is granted exposes the owner and contractor to stop-work orders, fines, and demolition.

Data protection and record retention: personal and project data must be stored, transferred, and destroyed per the applicable privacy statute and the contractual retention schedule.

Dispute resolution hierarchy: negotiate, then mediate, then adjudicate or arbitrate, then litigate; most construction contracts make adjudication a precondition to arbitration.

Risk treatment options: avoid, reduce, transfer, or retain; a residual risk register must record the owner, the likelihood, the consequence, and the mitigation for each item.

Liability caps must be reasonable to be enforceable: a cap set below the foreseeable loss or hidden in fine print may be struck down as unconscionable.

Professional indemnity insurance covers negligent acts, errors, and omissions in professional services; it does not cover deliberate wrongdoing, warranties, or liquidated damages.

Joint and several liability: where multiple parties contribute to a loss, a claimant may recover the full amount from any one of them, subject to contribution claims between them.

Delegation does not discharge responsibility: the delegating engineer remains accountable for verifying that the delegate is competent and the output is checked.

Consequential loss exclusion: direct losses are recoverable, but lost profit, lost production, and loss of use are excluded unless the contract expressly says otherwise.

Risk allocation principle: assign each risk to the party best able to control, price, and absorb it; misallocated risk returns as a premium or as a claim.

Design review independence: a checker must not be the designer of the same element; independent verification catches errors that self-review structurally misses.

Net present value: NPV equals the sum of cash flows discounted at the required rate minus the initial outlay; accept projects with NPV greater than zero.

Internal rate of return: the discount rate at which NPV equals zero; accept when IRR exceeds the hurdle rate, but prefer NPV when comparing mutually exclusive projects.

Payback period ignores the time value of money and all cash flows after the cut-off; use it as a screening tool, never as the sole decision criterion.

Capital recovery factor converts a present sum into an equal annual payment: A equals P times i(1+i)^n divided by ((1+i)^n minus 1).

Benefit-cost ratio: benefits divided by costs, both discounted; a ratio above one signals viability, but ranking by ratio can mislead when scales differ.

Sensitivity and break-even analysis: vary one input at a time to find the value at which NPV turns zero; identifies which assumptions the decision depends on most.

Whole-life costing includes capital, operation, maintenance, energy, and disposal; the lowest first cost frequently loses on a whole-life basis.

Depreciation methods: straight-line spreads cost evenly; declining balance front-loads it; the choice affects tax timing, not total lifetime cost.

Critical path: the longest duration path through the network; its length sets the minimum project duration, and any delay on it delays completion.

Float or slack equals late start minus early start; total float is shared along a path, free float is available without delaying the next activity.

Earned value: CV equals EV minus AC; SV equals EV minus PV; CPI equals EV divided by AC; SPI equals EV divided by PV.

Forecast at completion: EAC equals BAC divided by CPI when current cost performance is expected to continue; EAC equals AC plus (BAC minus EV) when variances are atypical.

Crashing shortens duration by adding resources at extra cost; fast-tracking overlaps activities that were sequential and raises rework risk.

Milestone versus task: a milestone has zero duration and marks a state or decision; a task consumes time and resources and produces a deliverable.

Scope change control: every change passes through a documented request, impact assessment on cost and schedule, and formal approval before work proceeds.

Resource levelling smooths peaks within available float; resource smoothing may extend duration, so it must be traded against the schedule baseline.

Hierarchy of controls, most to least effective: eliminate, substitute, engineer controls, administrative controls, then personal protective equipment.

Risk score equals likelihood multiplied by severity; apply the ALARP principle, reducing risk so far as is reasonably practicable rather than chasing zero.

Permit-to-work systems govern hot work, confined-space entry, excavation, and energised work; no permit, no work.

Incident causation: most accidents trace to latent organisational factors, not a single unsafe act; investigate the system, not just the individual.

Environmental impact assessment sequence: screen, scope, predict impacts, propose mitigation, consult, decide, then monitor and audit.

Waste hierarchy: prevent, reuse, recycle, recover energy, then dispose; disposal is the last resort and carries the highest regulatory burden.

Emergency preparedness requires documented plans, trained wardens, tested alarms, and drills with recorded lessons learned.

Occupational exposure limits: compare measured exposure to the time-weighted average limit, and control the source before relying on respiratory protection.

Plan-do-check-act underpins quality management systems: plan the process, do it, check results against criteria, act on the gap.

Quality assurance is process-focused and preventive; quality control is product-focused and detective; inspection alone cannot assure quality.

Non-conformance handling: identify, segregate, record, disposition (rework, repair, accept by concession, or reject), then verify the fix and analyse root cause.

Calibration traceability: measuring instruments must be calibrated against standards traceable to a national metrology institute, with certificates retained.

Standards compliance is demonstrated by test evidence and certificates, not by assertion; a declaration of conformity must reference the exact standard and edition.

Root cause tools: the 5-Whys drills to cause, the fishbone diagram organises cause categories, and Pareto analysis ranks which causes matter most.

Hold points and witness points in an inspection and test plan: a hold point stops work until inspection is released; a witness point does not.

Document control requires version numbers, approval status, distribution lists, and withdrawal of superseded copies to prevent use of obsolete documents.

Contract notices must be given within the stated time and in the stated form; a late or informal notice can extinguish a valid entitlement.

Contemporaneous records win disputes: dated site diaries, photographs, and correspondence carry far more weight than reconstructed narrative.

Instruction versus variation: a variation changes scope, quality, or time and adjusts the price; an instruction directs how existing scope is executed.

Payment certification follows the contract's valuation and timing rules; withholding payment requires a stated ground served within the notice period.

Standard forms allocate risk predictably: lump sum shifts quantity risk to the contractor; remeasurement keeps quantity risk with the employer.

Meeting minutes become the record of decisions; circulate promptly and require corrections within a set period, after which they stand as agreed.

Written confirmation of verbal instructions should follow within 24 to 48 hours, referencing time, date, and the person who gave them.

Claims require causation evidence: event, notice, records, delay or cost calculation, and mitigation steps, assembled as a single narrative.

Triple bottom line: evaluate every option on environmental, social, and economic performance; a win on one axis does not excuse losses on another.

Carbon accounting distinguishes scope 1 (direct), scope 2 (purchased energy), and scope 3 (supply chain and use); scope 3 usually dominates for construction.

Embodied carbon is fixed at design and construction; operational carbon accrues over life, so early design choices lock in most lifetime emissions.

Circular design principles: design for disassembly, material reuse, and recovery; specify recycled content and track it with verified declarations.

Environmental management follows the plan-do-check-act cycle: identify aspects and impacts, set objectives, monitor, and review at management level.

Social licence to operate depends on stakeholder engagement, transparent impact disclosure, and demonstrable local benefit, not on permits alone.

Climate adaptation: design for projected future extremes, not historical records, and document the return periods and scenarios used.

Sustainability claims must be substantiated and specific; vague green claims invite regulatory action and erode trust.

Tuckman stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, then adjourning; conflict during storming is normal and should be managed, not suppressed.

Situational leadership matches style to follower readiness: directing for low competence, coaching, supporting, then delegating for high readiness.

Continuous professional development requires a documented record of hours, learning outcomes, and reflection, verified against the regulator's annual requirement.

Constructive feedback uses observed behaviour, its impact, and a specific request; avoid personality judgements that trigger defensiveness.

Psychological safety, where members can raise errors without punishment, correlates with fewer undetected errors and faster learning.

Delegation checklist: clear outcome, authority, resources, deadline, and checkpoints; delegation without authority is abdication.

Mentoring differs from coaching: mentoring shares experience and long-term career guidance; coaching builds specific skills through structured questioning.

Diversity of technical perspective improves design review; homogeneous teams tend to converge early and miss failure modes.

Building information modelling maturity runs from lone 3D models to federated, information-rich models shared across disciplines with defined data exchange standards.

Digital twin: a live model fed by sensor data; its value depends on data governance, calibration, and a defined decision use, not on the model alone.

Automation and AI outputs require human verification; the responsible engineer remains accountable for the checked result regardless of the tool used.

Algorithmic bias enters through training data; test models against representative cases and document limitations before relying on outputs.

Cybersecurity for operational technology: segment control systems from business networks, patch on a controlled schedule, and maintain offline backups.

Additive manufacturing changes design freedom but requires qualification of material properties and non-destructive testing for critical parts.

Innovation adoption curve: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards; standards and proven references drive the majority.

Technology risk assessment asks: what happens if it fails, how would we detect failure, and can we revert to the previous method?