Are you busy? Informal survey.

[flgulfcoasteng]

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.

 

[Richard63]

1. Virginia - Mechanical(industrial machinery and products)
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

http://www.led-inc.com

 

[MDE327]

1. Oregon. Structural, mostly residential
2. Low
3. Low but things trickle in
4. Flat

Mike Drinkwater, P.E.

http://www.mdrinkwaterengineering.com

 

[AnotherEllis]

South Florida, Civil, Str & MEP FS Firm

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.

 

[kalens99]

New Hampshire but in process of relocating to San Francisco area. mechanical engineering background with major concentration in both fluids and mechanical design but currently working with entrepreneurs from all disciplines so current work focus unclear. Lots of proposals still in the early stage of my business. Lots of work still waiting for the payoff.

Kalen Smith
Engineer-a-Business

http://www.engineer-a-business.com

 

[hdp321]

1. PA, NJ, NY - Structural
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

 

[someengineer]

1. BC,AB,SK Canada - Multi-disciplinary firm (I'm structural)
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

 

[RocketRed]

1 - WA - Civil/Struct/Construction
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.

 

[EEJaime]

1-Pasadena, Ontario, Anahiem, Encino, San Fran,San Diego,CA
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).

 

[cotelecom]

1 - Southwest, Civil/Telecom
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.....