Published by Alaska Automation | Electrical, Mechanical & SCADA Engineering

Selecting an engineering firm for a capital project is one of the most consequential decisions a facility manager, utility director, or operations team will make. The right partner reduces risk, keeps projects on schedule, and delivers systems that work reliably for years after the final invoice is paid. The wrong one produces designs that look correct on paper but fail in the field — often in ways that are expensive and difficult to unwind.

In Alaska, the stakes are higher than in most places. The logistics of remote project work, the severity of the operating environment, and the limited options for on-site emergency response mean that engineering errors and poor planning have consequences that would be manageable elsewhere but are operationally serious here. This article is a practical guide to evaluating engineering firms for infrastructure projects in Alaska and understanding what separates a strong partner from one who will struggle with the realities of northern project work.

Why the Evaluation Process Matters More Than the Proposal

Most engineering procurement processes focus heavily on the proposal document: the scope response, the qualifications section, the schedule, and the fee. These are all important inputs. But a well-produced proposal does not guarantee that the engineers who show up to do the work will understand your facility, your regulatory environment, or the operational constraints that matter to your team.

The evaluation process should be designed to surface what the proposal cannot: how the firm actually thinks about Alaska-specific problems, how their principals and project engineers communicate, and whether their past experience is genuinely relevant to your project — or packaged to look that way.

Key Criteria for Evaluating Engineering Firms for Alaska Projects

1. Demonstrated Alaska Experience, Not Just Generic Credentials

General professional engineering credentials — PE licensure, years in business, project count — tell you something, but not enough. What you need to know is whether the firm has done work specifically in Alaska, in your industry sector, and at a comparable scale and complexity to your project.

Ask specifically:

• What projects have you completed in Alaska in the last five years, in this industry?

• Were those projects in accessible locations or at remote sites with logistical constraints similar to mine?

• Who were the lead engineers on those projects, and will those same people be assigned to my project?

The last question matters more than most owners realize. Engineering firms often use senior project experience to win work, then staff the actual project with less experienced personnel. Ask for the CVs of the specific individuals who would be assigned to your project — not a general firm qualifications package.

2. Multi-Discipline Integration Capability

Infrastructure projects in Alaska rarely involve just one engineering discipline. A water treatment facility upgrade might involve instrumentation and controls, electrical distribution, mechanical process piping, and structural work on the building. A hydro project adds civil, hydraulic, and generation protection engineering to that list.

Firms that provide only one discipline — controls only, or electrical only — create coordination burden for you as the project owner. You become responsible for managing the interfaces between multiple engineering scopes: making sure the electrical design matches what the controls engineer needs, ensuring the mechanical design accounts for the instrumentation locations, and resolving the disputes that arise when scope gaps appear between separate firms.

A multi-discipline engineering partner who can own the full scope reduces that coordination burden significantly. More importantly, they can catch integration issues during design, where changes are cheap, rather than during construction, where they are expensive.

3. Regulatory Fluency in Your Industry

Every infrastructure sector in Alaska has a distinct regulatory framework, and the engineers working in that sector need to know it. Water and wastewater engineers need to be familiar with EPA regulations, DEC permitting requirements, and AWWOA standards. Electric utility engineers need to understand NERC reliability standards and RCA tariff implications. Oil and gas engineers need to work within PHMSA, API, and OSHA requirements.

Regulatory knowledge is not a research exercise that any engineering firm can perform on demand. It is built through years of working on projects where those regulations were real constraints, where permit applications were reviewed by agency staff, and where designs were built and operated under actual regulatory oversight.

Ask prospective firms directly: who on your team has prepared permit applications for projects in this sector in Alaska? What regulatory findings have you received, and how did you address them?

4. SCADA and Controls Depth

Most infrastructure projects in Alaska today have a significant SCADA or automation component — whether it is a new installation, a migration from a legacy platform, or an integration with new generation equipment. Electrical engineering firms that treat controls as a secondary capability, or that subcontract controls work to a separate integrator, often produce disconnected designs where the electrical and controls scopes do not integrate smoothly.

Look for firms where SCADA and controls engineering is a first-class discipline, not an afterthought. Specific questions:

• What SCADA platforms does your team have direct programming experience with?

• Can your engineers develop the control logic, or do you subcontract that work?

• Do you perform commissioning and startup support, or does your scope end at the design deliverable?

5. Understanding of Alaska Logistics and Cost Realities

A design that ignores Alaska's supply chain, mobilization costs, and construction season constraints will produce a project budget and schedule that bears no resemblance to reality. Engineers who have not worked in Alaska often specify equipment that is unavailable through local distributors, design installations that require multiple mobilizations, and underestimate the time required for permitting and agency review.

Ask prospective firms to walk you through how they would approach the logistics for your specific project: where would materials ship from, what is the construction window, how many site visits would the design require, and how are design contingencies handled when field conditions differ from what was assumed? Their answer will tell you a great deal about how much real Alaska project experience sits behind their qualifications statement.

Red Flags in the Selection Process

A few warning signs that are worth taking seriously when evaluating engineering firms for Alaska projects:

The principals are not the project team. If the firm's senior engineers present during the interview but are not named as the project lead and key personnel in the contract, ask why. Bait-and-switch staffing is common in professional services and is one of the most reliable predictors of a difficult project experience.

Alaska experience is claimed but thin. A firm that has done one project in Anchorage on a commercial building is not the same as a firm with sustained experience in remote rural Alaska. Be skeptical of broad claims and ask for specific project examples, reference contacts, and the names of the engineers who did the work.

Price is dramatically lower than competitors. Professional engineering services in Alaska command premium rates relative to the lower 48, for good reasons: travel costs, logistics complexity, higher insurance requirements, and the difficulty of attracting and retaining experienced engineers who are willing to work in the far north. A proposal that is significantly below market rate may indicate that the firm has underestimated the scope, is planning to staff the project with inexperienced personnel, or does not understand what the work actually involves.

No construction administration or commissioning in scope. Design documents that are never verified in the field are a recipe for problems. A firm that offers design services without commissioning support is transferring construction-phase risk to you. Good engineering includes being on-site when the system starts up for the first time.

What a Strong Engineering Partnership Looks Like

The best engineering relationships in Alaska are built on a foundation of direct communication, shared understanding of the operational context, and mutual commitment to getting the project right. The engineers on your project should know your facility, know your team's capabilities and constraints, and be accessible when you have a question — not routed through a project coordinator who has never visited your site.

This kind of relationship does not happen by accident. It is the product of choosing a firm whose principals are genuinely engaged in project work, whose engineers understand Alaska, and whose business is built around the kinds of projects you are running.

Alaska Automation was built specifically for this kind of work: integrated electrical, mechanical, and SCADA engineering for critical infrastructure in Alaska, Canada, and the Pacific Northwest, delivered by engineers who are directly accountable to every project we take on. If you have an upcoming project and want to evaluate whether we are the right fit, we would welcome a direct conversation with no pressure and no sales process. Contact Alaska Automation to start that conversation.