If your project is to design a motor vehicle or components that go into a motor vehicle in the United States, you will be dealing with the federal motor vehicle safety standards and regulations. If your project is to design a system for an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, you will be dealing with American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) design standards and regulations and Underwriters Laboratories testing certifications. If your offshore oil platform project is for a European country, you will be dealing with Det Norske Veritas (DNV) design standards and regulations and CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) testing certifications.

In the country your project system is going to end up in, the hazardous area classifications, temperature classifications, explosion protection classifications, ingress protection classifications, etc., can be quite different. You have to know all the regulatory agencies classification and certification requirements for the project by heart. You have to determine which of your subcontractors have to deal with which regulatory agency for design and testing.

For example, in some cases, your subcontractors might not want to deal with a regulatory agency s design and test-certification process. Some subcontractors might not have the expertise or the personnel to go through it. You might have to help them tackle the hurdles with regulatory agencies.

You have to know your contacts and their backups at the regulatory agencies. You have to be very responsive to the agencies requests and inquiries so that their progress in certification is...