How Busy Are You These Days?

Question

How Busy Are You These Days?

JAE (Structural)

(OP)

13 Apr 05 00:01

It seems that our office is getting a huge influx of work this month - lots of clients trying to get building projects going as fast as possible...perhaps trying to beat presumed higher costs of money if interest rates go up.

How's everyone else's workload? Headed up, steady, or down? Just curious and thought that Eng-Tips might provide some interesting insight as to the state of the economy (world economy that is...we are after all on the world-wide-web).

M1Can (Mechanical) · Answer 1 · 2005-04-13 09:43:02

I am in Ontario Canada and we are slow and have been slow since the New Year. Many of my customers are slow but there do seem to be some areas that are booming.

M1 Engineering
m1engineering.ca

rday (Structural) · Answer 2 · 2005-04-13 12:46:57

JAE,

Ditto here. We do a mix of civil and structural and are very busy.

Rik

rhodie (Industrial) · Answer 3 · 2005-04-13 15:12:48

I'm in Southcentral USA:
I work for a paint manufacturer, and my father is an engineer for a plumbing fixture company. Both type products are used in new contruction. Both companies are very busy, to the point of adding capacities.

zdas04 (Mechanical) · Answer 4 · 2005-04-13 15:13:42

Folks in Oil & Gas are thinking about turning away work (I don't know of anyone who has actually refused a reasonable job, but they're thinking about it).

David

GregLocock (Automotive) · Answer 5 · 2005-04-13 22:58:48

Automotive. Flat chat. We ARE turning down projects.

Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

CanuckMiner (Mechanical) · Answer 6 · 2005-04-14 13:03:58

I'm in Ontario. Serving the international mining industry is our thing. Been very busy for two/three years. Outlook is still good (as most metal prices are still high). The bust will come, but so far it's been a good boom.

Cheers,
CanuckMiner

SacreBleu (Structural) · Answer 7 · 2005-04-15 00:04:29

Structural. We are being swamped with multifamily-residential. Investors must figure mortgage rates going up, less people buying homes. Interestingly, I found that many investor groups are lawyers. If they convert these mutifamilies to condos, and the construction defects lawsuits begin, is that conspiracy?

rrmiv (Structural) · Answer 8 · 2005-05-16 13:05:23

We are in the Southeast U.S. and our workload has been heavy for the last 6 months. Just recently though, it has been increasing more. Lots of retail, office, mostly all privately funded. We are presently overworked, but I'm not complaining. It beats the alternative.

Theophilus (Mechanical) · Answer 9 · 2005-05-16 21:39:25

I've got a little more than I can handle right now (but not turning anything down). Seemed to pick up rapidly toward the end of March, but was somewhat flat from November to March.

Phoenix area.

Jeff Mowry
www.industrialdesignhaus.com
Reality is no respecter of good intentions.

Maui (Materials) · Answer 10 · 2005-05-20 11:36:29

I'm in the specialty steel industry in the northeast area of the United States. We have been extremely busy for the past year, and are currently turning away some business.

Maui

TravisMack (Mechanical) · Answer 11 · 2005-05-25 20:46:25

I am in the fire sprinkler business and swamped. Business is finally expanding to the point that I may have to seriously consider hiring help...something I have been reluctant to do in the past...you know..that control freak thing..

RCEJD (Geotechnical) · Answer 12 · 2005-06-09 00:01:52

Civil and Geotech in So Cal .. we are swamped (18 people). We have been selective and turning away work for a while ...

adognamedgromet (Automotive) · Answer 13 · 2005-06-10 17:58:20

Right now we are doing pretty good. Industry has not been good since 2001. The last two years have been going up steadily.

I get my Tooling and Automotive industry stats at these two addresses:
http://www.amba.org/busForcast.php
http://www.tmanet.com/industry/business.asp

They Poll people in there societies and post the result.
These indicators point up right now.

Regards
Rick Marmei

Rick Marmei - Tool Designer
http://axis-design.org

TrafficDesigner (Civil/Environmental) · Answer 14 · 2005-06-20 22:03:35

We have more than we can handle right now. Traffic Engineering in the Phoenix valley area. It has been crazy like this for over two years. It wasn't always like this so we are enjoying the ride while it lasts.

astructurale (Structural) · Answer 15 · 2005-07-06 16:04:53

Speciality Structural in Southeast US. We are booked and may have to turn down jobs soon. There is no end in sight to the work coming in.

Executnr (Mechanical) · Answer 16 · 2005-07-08 17:47:54

We are in mining equipment and we out sold our best YEAR ever by April 1st. And we are till selling like crazy.

Wayne

davidinindy (Industrial) · Answer 17 · 2005-08-30 17:00:17

Wow. It's amazing how many of you are busy.
This company was busy when I started here a few months ago, but business has fallen off. We've got some stuff in the pipeline, but are having trouble getting the PO's. We do Mechanical Engineerinf and Design for mainly aircraft industry, but have recently branched into tractors and off-highway vehicles.
Do you guys have fulltime salespeople working for you? Our CEO does pretty much all of the sales work, but I don't think he can cover enough ground himself.

David

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How Busy Are You These Days?