If you don't know other geotechnical staff in other firms will ing to share general figures I suggest that you look at RSMeans for general costs for various geotechnical work.
You can start by envisioning a typical geotechnical site investigation collect all the component costs from Means and then apply the necessary overhead and profit for your area.
That should get you in the ballpark. Don't forget that part of the revenue coming in is winning the work.
Regards,
Qshake
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There is no doubt that a successful civil engineering company needs a geotechnical consultant. Many use outside consulting firms. When a civil engineering firm brings in geotechnical engineering services, they somewhat limit the market for the geotechnical department as the geotechnical department is unable to market to competing civil engineering firms. As such, the only captive market for the geotechnical group is the in-house civil engineers. Beyond that the geotechnical firm can market to structural engineers that have relationships with the civil department.
Another dimension to this is the extent to which the civil engineering firm wants to add construction and materials testing to the mix of work. The potential profitability of this service area is largely related to the type of civil engineering that's being done by the company. If it's mostly residential subdivisions, there may not be a huge geotechnical market for earthwork testing (I'm not saying non-existant, just not huge) compared to a company taht does civil engineering for industrial development.
I manage a small geotechnical department within a multi-dicipline engineering firm. These are some of my struggles. For me, my geology and environmental background is a plus as I also manage ESA, UST and wetland projects.
Fattdad wrote, "If it's mostly residential subdivisions, there may not be a huge geotechnical market for earthwork testing (I'm not saying non-existant, just not huge) compared to a company taht does civil engineering for industrial development."
Uhh, not here in SoCal. The revenue for the geotech firm on a single large residential subdivision project, complete with large cut and fills, retaining wall backfill, utility trench backfills, etc., commonly runs into the millions! This is the bread and butter work for several of the larger geotech firms in the area.
Yeah, I guess it's market dependant. In central Virginia that's not the case, but I see your point. Again, to the original post, there are factors at play that are hard to forecast without knowing the market for the hypothetical "civil engineering" firm.
Thanks for the comments. The major point we are trying to get at, with some data on revenue to back it up, is that having a larger geotechnical group will benefit the company as a whole.
I know exactly what you are saying with the in-house work though - it seems like a lot, if not most of our projects come from our own offices.
The major point we are trying to get at, with some data on revenue to back it up, is that having a larger geotechnical group will benefit the company as a whole.
If the people running your company do not see growth of the non-geotech part of the company as being good for revenue, then you will get this point accross. If they do, it should be obvious even without showing numbers.
The fact is, if you want to increase revenue, grow to as large as the market will allow. This lets you do more work, and thus, more revenue. Of course to be proffitable, keep the growth rate in check, as well as the size vs. work load.
If you are a civil firm that has a geotechnical group and you would like to grow, you may have some issues that can get in your way from how I see it.
Being a civil and doing geotechnical engineering means that you would have to market your competitors to get the geotechnical work. I'm sure they will limit what you get.
Being a civil and doing material testing, maybe. But again your competitor will not like to give you access to their clients.
We provide geotechnical only. We don't try compete with our clients. We work to give aid to our clients to help them win work. We provide intel and will go in the field and collect preliminary field data at no cost to help our civil get the best chance to win the work. Help build the client and he will help you. This works for us.
We have more than 8+ Mil in projects on our books. I've seen totals of more than 75K feet of drilling waiting to be started. As far as breakdown - of the 8 Mil, 60% of that is field work and drilling. The 40% is lab and engineering. The margins that I've seen 30 to 40%.
that is very interesting question. please geotech is the first step towards most civil engineering projects that deal with the ground. think about bridges, roads, buildings, tunnels, etc. investigating into the foundation of these works is great deal of money hence returns are great if fieldwork are managed very well.
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