Morse Associates provides forensic services for buildings, industrial facilities, and environmental sectors. These services include the determination of the cause and origin of damage to a building or industrial facility, investigation of problems with building systems or industrial processes, analysis of current or historic chemical exposure to a worker or the general public, cost and schedule analysis, literature and other research to determine the state of knowledge on a topic either at the present time or at some period in history, and reconstruction historic literature research for source of exposures to a worker or the general public .
For building and industrial investigations, Morse Associates assembles a multi-disciplinary team typically made up of design and construction professionals, industrial hygienists, scientists, process engineers, other scientists and topic experts, and supported by laboratory analysis.
Most of the time a forensic investigation is launched to determine what has gone wrong with a facility so that it can be fixed. However, as the fix typically involves an expense, it is not unusual for a dispute to arise between the owners of a building or plant that has a problem and those who designed and constructed the facility. In these instances, the plain facts about the situation that are explained by the results of a forensic analysis facilitate a resolution of the dispute either through negotiation or litigation.
Insurance companies are frequently called upon to pay for damages suffered by a building or plant. In these instances, a forensic analysis allows a determination to be made about what parts of the damage are covered by the insurance policy. An example of this is the allocation of repair costs between wind damage during a hurricane, which is typically covered by an insurance policy, and flood damage, which may not be covered.
Frequently, issues arise involving exposures to workers or other damages that occurred in a building or plant that is now abandoned or has been torn down and no longer exists. In these situations, historic research is needed to recreate the building, plant, or process in order to assess the potential exposures or damage. In addition, literature research is needed to determine the state of knowledge at the time. Essentially, the history of an exposure or damage is put in the context of the practices and knowledge base that existed at the time. An example of this would be a retrospective analysis of the exposures to a chemical experienced by a worker during their career, or the use of a particular insulating material for an industrial process that no longer exists.