Are you busy? Informal survey.
Are you busy? Informal survey.
(OP)
I thought I would start a thread to get a feel for how everyone is doing right now. If you don't mind sharing give us your:
1. Location & discipline
2. Level of bidding or proposal activity
3. Level of work currently with commitments / in progress
4. Trending up or down?
I'll begin with:
1. Southwest Florida, Structural
2. 2 in Feb, 3 in March, 0 MTD in April. (2 per week is typical in a healthy market)
3. 2 single family residential, 0 commercial, 0 multifamily
4. On par with 2009 levels (looks like it may get slower though). Approx. 25% of 2008 levels. No advertised employment opportunities locally.
1. Location & discipline
2. Level of bidding or proposal activity
3. Level of work currently with commitments / in progress
4. Trending up or down?
I'll begin with:
1. Southwest Florida, Structural
2. 2 in Feb, 3 in March, 0 MTD in April. (2 per week is typical in a healthy market)
3. 2 single family residential, 0 commercial, 0 multifamily
4. On par with 2009 levels (looks like it may get slower though). Approx. 25% of 2008 levels. No advertised employment opportunities locally.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
lots of marketing and lots of competition
very busy, but partly because we layed off a bunch of people already and nobody left to do the work. Also busy because of ARRA money funding a large government project
looks like I will be employed at least till the end of the year
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. Probably averaging a proposal per week.
3. Very steady work right now.
4. Got some really nice projects on the way. Hiring another employee.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. Proposals by request. No marketing. Mostly referrals.
3. Steady work in specialized area. Keeping 5 engineers gainfully employed.
4. Trend is consistent with expected upward trend.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. Proposals were higher than normal for month of March and Feburary.
3. Work is slow, but some big projects are getting financed finally. Some mansion types of demo the mansion and build crazier mansion. And some large low income housing projects.
4. Trend is way up. Even my partner who is not happy with the situation said today that proposals are way up. I am the one keeping track and know this as truth job #'s and money wise.
Civil Development Group, LLC
Los Angeles Civil Engineering specializing in Hillside Grading
http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com
http://www.civildevelopmentgroup.com/blog
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
Lots of quoting but everything for some time in the near future.
Currently running at about 40% capacity, but everything is a struggle waiting on data, orders etc.
Hard to say I feel it is still very much in the balance, it could tip one way or the other.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. Proposals have increased. Activity is high.
3. Workload is heavy. We're 70% Oil and Gas. A few ARRA projects are sustaining a good bit of overtime.
4. Trending up.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
We have had some slow down, our 2nd major client has cut back in the work allot. I personaly am pretty busy. (But not at this very moment.)
Some improvement is expected.
Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services
www.infotechpr.net
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. 2-3 proposals a week
3. Overwhelming level
4. Continually increasing
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. 3-4 calls a week
4. 40-60 hrs a week
5. Up
I set a record with last week's invoicing, and invoiced out $8k. Normally it's 2-3k. I have 9 open inquiries on my desk right now, and about $10k booked for May (I specialize in small gigs). Recession is over in my area.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. 3 per month, up from 1 for the past 12 months
3. 20-40 hours/week starting next week
4. Starting to go up, slowly
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. 2-3 small proposals /week
3. About 50% chargeable
4. Up slightly
Already had some layoffs. If the 50% doesn't improve very soon, more will be forthcoming.
Alan
"The engineer's first problem in any design situation is to discover what the problem really is." Unk.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. Most of my work is word of mouth, so I rarely do competitive proposals. Maybe 1 out of 10 jobs.
3. 20 to 30 hours per week, enough for me
4. About average. My only slow time was Oct. thru Dec. 09.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
Alan
"The engineer's first problem in any design situation is to discover what the problem really is." Unk.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. I'm not privvy to this info
3. I'm as busy as I've ever been in my four years as an engineer.
4. Only getting more busy!
Just as a side note, I'm feeling extremely overworked for the compensation I'm receiving. I've been at 55-60+ hours/week for a few months now, and I'm just now getting back to the salary I had 2 years ago. That does not make me, my hard work, or all the extra hours I put in feel appreciated. I think I only stay because I love the projects I get to work on.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. 1-4 a week. Varies. We do a lot of small stuff.
3. work level: Low
4. Trending: Down
We do most our work in the state with the highest unemployment rate, so that is probably the crux of the problem. Had a fairly busy March-May, but June and onward isn't looking good. Backlog has dried up.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
Alan
"The engineer's first problem in any design situation is to discover what the problem really is." Unk.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. 2 proposals in this month
3. 1 major contract, 1 minor contract, 1 pending award
4. 2010 is trending about 20% higher (in volume) than 2009
Greg Lamberson, BS, MBA
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website: www.oil-gas-consulting.com
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
1. NJ, PA, DE
2. 3-4 calls a week
4. 40-60 hrs a week
5. Still Up
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. Bit of fossil, multiple large nuclear.
3. 50 hours typical, 1 pending fossil award, 2 nuclear, 1 pending nuclear.
4. Fossil as a whole down, Nuclear up, FGD's and natural gas up.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. Low bidding and proposal activity; doing lots of marketing and looking for new opportunities
3. Low workload, 1 small machine project
4. Flat trend this quarter
Richard
www.led-inc.com
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. Low
3. Low but things trickle in
4. Flat
Mike Drinkwater, P.E.
http://www.mdrinkwaterengineering.com
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
1. South Florida - Civil, Str & MEP FS building industry Firm
2. high proposal activity
3. high workload, MEP dept. ave. $12,000/employee/mo last quarter
4. My dept. (MEP) is slammed- I'm averaging 95-100 hrs per 2 week pay cycle. Most of our work is in FLorida but I am also doing clean rooms in oth MA and CO.
Structure is dead, lots of retrofit/renovation but no new buildings. Trend is upwards otherwise. I gave notice last week to form my own new firm.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
Kalen Smith
Engineer-a-Business
http://www.engineer-a-business.com
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. Not privy - seems to be about 1-2/week
3. Extremely high work load 40-50 hrs/Week for the 4 yrs I've been working. Actually overwhelming No slowdown
4. Steady - To Up.. don't see it slowing down anytime soon
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2. About 3 per week on average, a lot of repeat clients. Busier during the summer as usual.
3. Low productivity for the first half of the year ~50%, now working at 95-100% billable. Should be consistent until the end of the year. Heavy involvment in oil & gas and pulp & paper (Green Transfer funding probably about 50% of the office workload)
4. Trending up - office currently expanding
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2 - 2/week (Not consistent, some weeks 4, some weeks 0)
3- Winter and Spring were pretty good. Solid profits for 7 straight months. July and August will be our first negative months this year. Although our construction division made profits both months.
4- Short term trend appears to be up as the work planned for fall/winter is more than we have staffing for. I will hire one more probably about end of Q3.
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2-Proposals Slow, Ongoing large contracts saving some offices, overall continued slow proposals, minimal level design, have most people working slightly shortened weeks, a few institional projects going out for bidding.
3-Spring was slow, picked up in June & July, slowing again.
4-Flat, we've been slow in most offices for several months, we have the ability to share work between offices when one is especially slow. Major projects not moving. Most of our work is for healthcare, schools, government buildings. I have been going between offices to pick up work where help is needed. (Electrical).
RE: Are you busy? Informal survey.
2 - Approx. 2 deliverables per week. Very inconsistent though. Some weeks 4, some weeks 0.
3. 2008 & 2009 were exceptionally busy years. My company had never been busier and we were lucky to bypass most of the bad economy. Q1 of 2010 was quite busy as well.
4. Trending down, at an extremely unsettling rate. It looks like the recession has finally caught up with our business. I partly blame the managing director and owner though (small company) since neither of them were prospecting for new business last year - they were too busy just trying to manage the workload (probably a good case study of how 'not' to run a successful engineering firm). However, their big projects have finally wound down, and now there isn't much on the horizon. And they made the mistake of hiring too many people at the height of our busy period (I knew it wouldn't last, but for some odd reason they thought it would). Layoffs are on the way, without question.....