Competitive Engineering Fees 8

[Jim508]

Hello,

Can someone tell me what the range is for competitive structural engineering fees and how it is broken down?

Best Regards,

Jim

 

[JLNJ]

It depends.

 

[SLTA]

That's probably the most general question you could ask. There are engineers on here from all over the world, doing all types of projects, with all kinds of materials. Your question is like "how much does a car cost".

More details please?

 

[frv]

$500 - $500,000 per project. Maybe more.

 

[dik]

I estimate the value of the work and use a percentage to determine a fee
I estimate the number and type of drawings required and determine a fee
I estimate the actual work required to prepare the documents and determine a fee

I look at the three values, determine the economy, determine if there are other bidders, and determine if I want the work, and then, take a WAG...

Dik

 

[jmcoope3]

I spend about two days a week creating beautifully worded quotes off of painstakingly detailed plan reviews only to have a salesman throw a random number on or take a random number off... Write a good, defensive, scope and then WAG.

 

[JAE]

We do similar to what dik suggests. Ours could be described:

1. Task takeoff -
Break down individual design tasks, meetings, travel, submittal reviews, etc. into small, manageable items and assign work hours to each item.
Calculate the personnel rates (those expected to do the work) times the hours and total the cost
Add direct expenses such as mileage, printing costs, etc.
Total the amount as the total design fee.

2. Percent of construction
This varies greatly from region to region and in different markets.
Basically there is a generally understood basic rate - such as 0.5% to 1.5% of the anticipated construction cost. In our area it seems to range between 0.5% to 0.75%.

3. By anticipated number of sheets
This takes some experience with your staff but you can slowly add records of how much time you spend on various sheets.
For structural you might keep records of how much time framing plans take, foundation plans, general note sheets, typical detail sheets, section sheets, etc.
For a project, estimate the number of each type of sheet you think will be provided and calculate the hours of each times the personnel rate.
You might even set up a range of values - so a foundation plan may take between X and Y hours depending on complexity.
Then when you estimate your hours you can assign a complexity factor to it to zero in on the best estimate for hours needed.

Once you have all three numbers above, your great, wonderful, imaginative, analytical engineering intuition kicks in and voila! You have your fee.

 

[dik]

JAE... excellent added info...

If I get a star for my paltry 5 lines... you need one, too!

Dik

 

[shobroco]

Okay, Dik & JAE both do what I (& a gazillion others) do, but Dik's obviously the best one at it. He gets the same fee for 5 lines that the rest of us put 5 paragraphs into.

 

[JAE]

shobroco - but, but, but, his overhead is way lower than mine.

 

[focuseng]

Yeah, but he was the first to admit to putting it into context with competitive bidding and how bad he wants the work with the final sum being the WAG. That was the real clincher.

I sometimes do bids where I really think it will be a pain and therefore I mark up accordingly with the "pain and suffering" fees for good measure. Strange how I get these anyway. Maybe my pain and suffering just ain't worth enough yet... Truth is, sometimes you won't get hired unless you make it worth more. Humans are strange creatures, ahem, unlike us engineers.

______________
MAP

 

[dik]

I was impressed with JAE's, "Once you have all three numbers above, your great, wonderful, imaginative, analytical engineering intuition kicks in and voila! You have your fee."

That really sums it up...

Dik

 

[SteelPE]

Some people may not like this but in addition to the above, I also look at the client to see if they are going to want to negotiate the fee. If so, I will add a % to the overall contract so they can take it out later on. Not great business but better than nothing.

I had one client a few weeks ago, an architect, take 5% out of my contract before he submitted it to his client w/o me knowing. Then he complained to me that the owner wanted him to cut his fee by 5%. He didn't seem to mind cutting 5% from my contract, but when it came time for him to take a cut he wasn't happy.

 

[connectegr]

I am lucky that our services do not fall within the the architect's fee. We work on an hourly rate basis only. I am available to our client to estimate the engineering required or to discuss alternatives that may be suggested. But, we are a specialized design service, and all firms are not created equally. I make no effort to be the least expensive, but have every intention of providing the best service. In our experience low bid estimates focus an engineering firms attention on providing the most information possible for the least number of man-hours. What is sacrificed is fabrication, erection, and construction economy. Saving a little on engineering can cost thousands on the larger ticket items. This can be a long debate on economies and actual engineering value. I feel for you guys working on commercial project within the architect's fee.

Ultimately "competitive engineering fees" will depend on your market and degree of service you can provide.

http://www.FerrellEngineering.com

 

[ToadJones]

from my experience working on proposals for the sales geniuses ...
We normally would just take a look a the project, try to come up with what we thought was a reasonable number of drafting hours and engineering hours then threw about $65/hr for drafting and $85-$110 per hr at the engineering.
If the work was drawing heavy, we tried to sell the whole job based on the number of drawings....20 dwgs x $X per dwg = total.
Keep in mind this was only used for smaller projects.

 

[jimodore]

OK, I give up - in the UK a WAG is a 'wife and girlfriend' usually in relation to a footballer.

Somehow I do'nt think we are on the same wavelength - please put me out of my misery.

 

[Hoaokapohaku]

I do think they are referring to that peculiar American expression representing the highly technical method of estimating, the "Wild-A$$ Guess"

 

[dik]

'Wild A$$ Guess' or 'Wife and Girlfriend'... dunno, but, I'd suggest they were pretty much the same...

Dik

 

[Hoaokapohaku]

@dik...not sure if they are the same, but mixing the concepts of the expressions could be more fun and/or interesting than either concept alone.

 

[jimodore]

Hoaokapohaku: thank you - WAG is therefore similar to the UK practice of 'sucking in of breath' or for the more technological advanced the 'placing of a digit in the air'.