Consulting Section 15

[said the noob]

why is it that the consulting sector in Engineering generally is less lucrative than other industries such as Finance Consultants? and compared to other sectors such as oil and gas, EPC, utilities, generally are less lucrative? I feel like as structural engineers there is alot more risk in what we do but get paid less?

tia

 

[canwesteng]

Even if you better protect engineering work (which we should IMO), that won't stop drafting from going overseas one way or the other. Don't see why engineers can't set up barriers but lawyers, accountants, doctors, etc... get to pile them sky high. I do prefer Canadian style licensure for this reason - you need some Canadian experience, references from P. Engs, and then your permission to consult to practice.

 

[KootK]

I should have known better than to get sucked into this one. I find it heartbreaking but I care too intensely to look away I'm afraid.

Hey, I just noticed that KootK doesn't have his usual signature any more. Gave up warning people in advance KootK?

Yeah. As you know, the way that I go about things here tends to get me mired in a lot of conflict. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't actually enjoy that for its own sake. I'm a stereotypical Canuck in that regard. It's just the only way that I know of to get smart people to stick with me to resolution on complex issues. I'd hoped that the signature would tamp the emotionally charged situations down some but that's not been my experience at all. Since the signature didn't seem to be accomplishing anything, I came to see it as just thread clutter that would be better eliminated.

What is going on is destroying our profession.

I don't disagree. To simply add to the pool of shared meaning on this, I submit the following:

1) I can only think of two ways to deal with this. One is protectionism and the other is the peer review scheme that I described above. Otherwise, I think that we in the host marketplaces simply have to accept that our graduate degrees etc were poor financial investments as they do not garner much value in a global marketplace.

2) One of the few ways in which I am "Trump-ist" is that I'm am all in favor of protectionism for host markets like the US. I think that globalism really and truly is a bust for a country like the US that effectively IS the market that it itself wishes to serve. Access to such a market is the golden goose of economics. Why you'd want to share it with a world with whom you can't compete price wise is baffling to me. Locker 'er up and keep everybody out I say, even poor KootK. It's unfair and inefficient in a global sense but, seriously, does anybody in the host marketplaces really want their standard of living averaged with that of the rest of the world? I sure don't.

3) I know of at least two top tier US firms that are outsourcing the majority of their design work and effectively giving away design for free in exchange for procuring the special inspection work that has to be done locally. My dream profession as a loss leader. In a global marketplace, you want to be damn sure that your bread and butter isn't really great two-way slab design for condos using SAFE.

4) Through some recent forensic work, I've come into direct contact with some outsourced structural engineering. The engineering work was bad to the point of being dangerous and criminal. And this was a systemic thing involving many projects, not just a one off. I am not implying that all "foreign engineers" are doing bad work. I myself am a foreign engineer much of the time. That said, we would not be discussing the truth here if we didn't acknowledge that the quality of outsourced engineering work tends to be poorer than locally executed engineering work on average. That, particularly, since quality may be a legitimate basis upon which local engineers can compete if the benefits of that quality can be demonstrated.

5) Through my experiences here on Eng-Tips, my concern for the quality of outsourced work has only grown. Taken as an average not representing the capabilities of any one individual, it is my impression that a lot of very eyebrow raising questions tend to come disproportionately from members in developing markets. Moreover, members from developing markets seem to be suffering massively from a lack of quality mentoring. I can't help but wonder if the guys who should be mentoring such engineers from the cube down the hall are really located Pittsburgh, not doing any effective mentoring at all. In this sense, outsourcing may well be doing some harm to the remote engineering community as well.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

If I had to generalize; I feel we're all thinking the same thing, just for different reasons.

I think that globalism really and truly is a bust for a country like the US that effectively IS the market that it itself wishes to serve.

Interesting line of thought.

a lot of very eyebrow raising questions tend to come disproportionately from members in developing markets

You're not alone in this observation.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

https://americanconcrete.com/

 

[structSU10]

I think mandatory peer review for anything that does not fall under prescriptive codes is a big start. The peer review engineers would need to be vetted properly, and it must be sufficiently rigorous. Calculations for unique situations, the lateral force system, and even just loading diagrams should be reviewed. They should also note anywhere additional detailing is required / would clear up uncertainties.

As mentioned above, having consequences for providing shoddy design/drawings is a must if we want to stop the race to the bottom.

 

[bones206]

I once worked on a project being built in China. In accordance with Chinese policy, our company had to partner with and split the design work with a local Chinese engineering firm in order to get the job. I wonder how it would work out if other countries (such as the USA) had similar policies.

For example: I just reviewed a delegated steel connection design calc submittal that was done by a engineers in India and stamped by a random PE in Delaware (side note - the guy didn't even stamp it with the correct state for the project!). The outsourcing firm that did the calcs advertises their structural engineering services online for $7/hr. Calcs were actually done very well but the whole setup just felt shady and kind of made me upset.

Now what if this outsourcing firm was required by US law to share a certain percentage of the design work with a domestic firm, instead of just requiring a PE stamp of approval? I think that might be an effective way to balance the scales a little bit. It's not strict protectionism, plus other countries already have similar policies (e.g. China).

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

If we're actually serious about changing this and not just griping around the water cooler, you'll need to get the owners/contractors/engineering boards/AHJs to agree to this change in the paradigm.

As the anecdotes here show, the market has already begun to shift toward this being the norm. You will effectively be raising the cost of structural engineering and putting those that adopted this at a sudden disadvantage, plus adding another layer of bureaucracy that may or may not be effective in solving the problem. I believe some states would be more favorable to this than others. I would surmise that the engineering boards would be the place to try to get this change through. However, a lot of engineering boards get pressured from NSPE and other interest groups that are staunchly against differentiating structural engineering from the other PE disciplines. Though, NSPE is very protectionist about PE licensing, they might be called to action regarding the outsourcing issue as long as it was framed as affecting all engineering (which it likely does).

I worry without a large collective effort by a national organization like NSPE, ASCE, NCSEA, or similar; this has no chance of coming to be. ASCE seems to be wrapped up with their "raise the bar" idea, which doesn't directly solve the problem. NCSEA is wrapped up trying to get the SE license to become a thing; which tends to meet a lot of resistance but at least is a partial solution to the problem (but may just push things more toward outsourcing).

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

https://americanconcrete.com/

 

[WARose]

ASCE seems to be wrapped up with their "raise the bar" idea, which doesn't directly solve the problem.

Even though ASCE doesn't directly come out and say it (at least anywhere that I have seen)......I think they hope that the "raise the bar" stuff will fix the salary issue by the end result being less of us. To me, the outsourcing issue is doing that by itself.

 

[BridgeSmith]

...all my DOT designs undergo extensive review. Sure, sometimes I get a lazy reviewer who clearly skimmed things, but often I see them coming back with detailed comments. I highly doubt an unqualified engineer could do DOT work in my home state without getting tripped up quickly by the review process.

On the other side of that, I'm one of the DOT engineers that reviews designs by consultants that our department 'subs out to' on occasion. Right now, we have 3 prequalified firms, 2 'big' ones and one smaller one. We get excellent designs and details from one of the big firms and the smaller one. The other big firm, not so much; we've spent typically more time reviewing (ultimately substantially redesigning) the crap they submit than if we'd just designed it ourselves, and yet, they're still on the list, for now anyway.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

Keep fighting the good fight HotRod. Some of my coworkers will mention to me about how much of a pain DOT jobs are and I remind them that because we try to stay on the ball and do everything correctly we have it easier than someone who is not so conscientious. In short, they'll eventually either shape up or decide that DOT work isn't worth it and go back to cutting corners on private jobs.

So, I would think ideally your "big firm" soon shapes up or throws in the towel. You just have to outlast them (or kick them off the list).

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

https://americanconcrete.com/

 

[BridgeSmith]

I've been advocating for dropping them, but the decision is made couple levels above my pay grade.

 

[HuckleberryFinn]

I guess the only question I have is how much review actually went on? Were the senior engineers actually reviewing the work or just quickly reviewing with some amount of plan-stamping? If you can't answer this I understand.

Well, I can't speak for everyone obviously but we generally tried to legitimately review things similar to how you might review an EIT's work. That said, the quality of work received varied wildly depending on what specific team you worked with - some were just as good (if not better) than some US Engineers, but most were probably somewhere between below average to bad. As previously mentioned in this thread, I think mentorship and staying in one place long enough to learn is a big problem over there (lots of jumping ship for small raises). Also some jobs had a lot more time for review than others - I'm not saying we ever sent anything out that we knowingly did not review but if in a time/hours crunch, we'd spend less time reviewing, say a set of t-poles, than we might a new turbine foundation or something like that. Judgement was used where warranted/appropriate I guess is what I'm trying to say; I don't know of any specific instances of plan stamping but I'm sure it went on/continues to go on.

Even though ASCE doesn't directly come out and say it (at least anywhere that I have seen)......I think they hope that the "raise the bar" stuff will fix the salary issue by the end result being less of us. To me, the outsourcing issue is doing that by itself.

Agreed. As someone with at least two decades of working time left in front of me, I'm actively planning for a transition into an alternate career. I think it's obvious to most of us that Structural Engineering isn't exactly a growing profession in the US at this point and that return on investment on our degrees is likely to continue to worsen in the foreseeable future. I've been considering real-estate or flipping houses - maybe specifically ones with structural or foundation damage (since theoretically I might have a market advantage there)? I don't know...McDonald's is always hiring!

Huck

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

Huck: Goodness, I would hope it's not that bleak. While I've tried to proactively hedge my bets with available alternate careers (only a handful of hours short of my commercial pilots license), I definitely think I can do considerably better in engineering. That said, you're entirely right there are easier ways to make money if money is your only objective.

Ian Riley, PE, SE
Professional Engineer (ME, NH, VT, CT, MA, FL) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

https://americanconcrete.com/

 

[WARose]

Agreed. As someone with at least two decades of working time left in front of me, I'm actively planning for a transition into an alternate career. I think it's obvious to most of us that Structural Engineering isn't exactly a growing profession in the US at this point and that return on investment on our degrees is likely to continue to worsen in the foreseeable future. I've been considering real-estate or flipping houses - maybe specifically ones with structural or foundation damage (since theoretically I might have a market advantage there)?

I've tried to change my role as well. The last time I was between jobs I applied to estimating positions. I got a few interviews but no offers. (And that kind of amazed me because I can estimate circles around the so-called "estimators" I've worked with in this business.) I've done some PM stuff as well.

 

[Lomarandil]

So, I've recently moved to that other side of the world (to provide that mentorship to young engineers).

There are some incredibly bright engineers here.
There are many engineers who are very good at doing something the same way they've been instructed in the past.
And of course, there are some who don't tend to make it through a long career.

A lot like the west, except for maybe a higher proportion of that second category.

Some of that is cultural -- eastern cultures generally have tendencies to value community and consensus rather than taking risks and "creative problem solving". Some of it is a function of the education systems. Where I am, education is often by rote -- solve problem X repeatedly until you know how to do it in your sleep. You get really good at that specific problem, but people are challenged when presented with a variation on the problem. And they may not want to stand out by asking questions, challenging the boss, or looking into doing something differently by themselves.



But, at the end of the day, if the requirements of law are being met (appropriate direct supervision or review as permitted), if the standard of care is adequate (reviewed like it would be from an EIT or another engineer in your company), if the quality of work stands up (e.g. additional regulations to protect the public are not needed), then we all live in a global economy. Blame the internet and deal with it.

Firms who are working entirely from the western world will need to differentiate themselves on the quality of education and experience of their team (which is still typically higher in the west), professional communication in the native language, ease of coordination with the client or other project team members, or local presence for inspections. Those are not insignificant advantages -- especially for the best types of clients.

Of course, we've all seen cases where the requirements of the law are not being met, and shoddy designs are slipping through. (Otherwise, there would be no sterotypes to discuss in this thread). By all means, report those to the state board.


----
The name is a long story -- just call me Lo.

 

[Lomarandil]

Just to address a few of the specific comments here:

Calcs were actually done very well but the whole setup just felt shady and kind of made me upset.

On what grounds? If the result is good, and the law allows it... doesn't feel like there's much of a leg (outside raw protectionism) to stand on there.

Now what if this outsourcing firm was required by US law to share a certain percentage of the design work with a domestic firm, instead of just requiring a PE stamp of approval?

I'm with WARose and TME, I'm not a fan of the states that allow a PE to stamp work without either direct supervision, or some sort of thorough review (and how to define thorough is tricky). But outside those states, doesn't a stamp do exactly that? Require some portion of the work to be done by the EOR? Even if that "work" is the review?

having consequences for providing shoddy design/drawings is a must if we want to stop the race to the bottom

Having consequences for shoddy design (e.g. a physical result that is insufficient), yes. For drawings that have content errors and create those shoddy results, yes. But shoddy drawings? I don't know how to create consequences for that outside letting the market (mechanism = complaining contractors) sort it out.

The peer review engineers would need to be vetted properly, and it must be sufficiently rigorous.

Before I moved, I was a part of several major bridge jobs where a 3rd party peer review engineer was required by the project specs. I think on all of these jobs, the "vetting" was providing a project portfolio from both the EOR and reviewer of X similar projects. The quality of experience (or at least how well that was marketed) was rated and that was credited to the contractor's bid at bid time. Worked well. Would be hard to pull off on smaller scale projects.

Similar to auditing PDH credits, have a state board audit a random design by a few randomly selected engineers

A logistical nightmare, but I have to admit I would enjoy the idea. (gosh, has it already been long enough since the SE exam that I can say that?)

----
The name is a long story -- just call me Lo.

 

[ukbridge]

A lot of good posts here. To add some point that I think have been missed:

1. Work-life balance can be quite good provided you work for someone competent.
2. In my view it is an interesting job (from someone who mainly does the numbers/prelim design).
3. Excellent travel opportunities - it is very easy to switch around if you put a bit of effort in, hong kong, australia, singapore, dubai etc.

I would argue to OP that these things don't come up as often in better paying careers (in particular point 1).
I would also encourage you to think a bit less bleakly, or at the least to switch to another company with more interesting jobs. Try and look at the positives once in a while.

I also think your enjoyment or how much you get out of your career is down to the quality of mentorship in firms.
I was extremely fortunate to have one guy tell me practically everything I know (note I also did an insane amount of further reading which put me lightyears ahead of most people in my old firm). This is not only limited to the technical side, but also what it means to be a good consultant and a professional. Find an intelligent guy who you can relate to who's been around the block a few times. Their experience will be invaluable.

If the guy who's doling out your work isn't doing it for you, switch. In fact I think this is the most important thing for you to consider in your younger years as a professional and is massively massively underlooked.

Have a look at the "Civil Engineering in 1minute thread" - awful thread title but a lot of good advice in there for younger engineers.

Best of luck OP.

 

[bones206]

On what grounds? If the result is good, and the law allows it... doesn't feel like there's much of a leg (outside raw protectionism) to stand on there.

The first red flag was that he stamped the complete wrong state. How closely could he really be reviewing this stuff? Secondly, the file location stamp in the footer was something like "C:/Documents/To_Be_Stamped"... could he at least call it "To_Be_Reviewed" or something a little less blatant? Lastly, I googled the name of his firm that was on the cover sheet and there was no trace to be found online. So, overall yea it struck me as someone doing something they know is shady and trying to fly under the radar. There are plenty of laws that allow exploitation, but that doesn't mean I have to feel good about it.

I've worked overseas and mentored young engineers in other countries who are still dear friends of mine and I wish them nothing but success and would never hold a grudge against anyone trying to make an honest living. Despite my comments, I'm not a proponent of economic isolationism in any form and would prefer some other less drastic and hopefully more pragmatic solution to the problem. For one thing, I probably will not be delegating as much scope going forward.

But I can't deny that globalism is affecting the value of structural engineers. This is the third year in a row that I'm spending the holiday season on an unpaid furlough due to lack of design work in my office. Our one current project is being designed and built in China and being shipped to the US by sea. We just got the leftover scraps like cooling tower foundations, etc. Also, executives recently traveled to India to look at companies who could rapidly pick up bulk design work in the event that we won a large job. That way they can keep only a small handful of domestic engineers on the payroll and still bid on large projects. It's tough not to see the writing on the wall. In any case, I'll enjoy doing structural engineering as long as I can, but have no issue starting over doing something new if I have to. Change is inevitable and nobody is entitled to guaranteed job security, no matter what you do.

I'm with WARose and TME, I'm not a fan of the states that allow a PE to stamp work without either direct supervision, or some sort of thorough review (and how to define thorough is tricky). But outside those states, doesn't a stamp do exactly that? Require some portion of the work to be done by the EOR? Even if that "work" is the review?]

My idea would be more of enforcing a how the proportions of the contract money be divided up, with some maximum percentage allowed for the foreign engineering entity. The engineering work itself can be divided up however the 2 parties see fit, but . This might be a way to help average out the $120/hr US fee and the $7/hr foreign fee, for example. But again, I'm not really advocating for this, just throwing it out there because that's a policy I've observed in China (a country run by engineers, btw) and it seems to be effective for them. I'm not a money guy by any means, and I'm aware that the issue is much more complex than my simplistic interpretation.

 

[SAIL3]

I still believe the root cause of the obstacles facing the practicing engr lies in the mentality of engrs themselves which leaves them vulnerable and easy prey for other competing interests in society....the short end of the stick, in other words....the post below kinda sums it up...



SAIL3 (Structural)24 Feb 11 10:55
How did we get into this mess, anyway?
I believe that the root cause lies in the mentality of the engineering community themselves as a whole(me included).
We are who we are and every organization that makes a good living
piggybacking on the work of an engineer knows this.
So how did we end up this way?
The following is a plausible explanation.
Wheather you believe in creation(which I do) or the evolutionary theory, both hold a clue to our curious behavior.

Creation: God blessed the engineer with this awesome gift of being able to bring to bear on a technical problem such logic, talent,insight, perseverance and quest for the truth. In His wisdom, He knows that if this gift was ever let loose in other areas of the profession or society as a whole, total chaos and mayhem would shortly follow.The glue that holds society together, this grey area, this social lubricant that enables man to live with fellow man rests on tolerance, halftruths, nuances, a wink and a nod and taken to it's extreme may be called diplomacy.
Not so with the engineer with his relentess quest for truth and
distain for ambiguity.So God has limited the awesome talent to a very narrow area in society in order to achieve the greatest good for the most people(Pareto principle).
So instead of whinning about the limits of our profession,let us be grateful that God has chosen us to render this great good to
our fellow man.
Result.....acceptance, peace, serenity.

Evolution Theory: Ever since man discovered the first tool, there was an immediate advantage and payback to the inventor/engineer.
This encouraged more of the same behavior. Through many cycles of this discovery/reward down through millenium, nature honed a very powerful and effective tool until you find in the 21st century a class of the human race that is devoted soley to the solving of
technical problems.So far so good, until recently, when machines began to replace man and his function in society. Make no mistake about it, this model holds some dark and cruel truths as many species became extinct when they were of no more use to nature or lacked the ability to change and adjust.So will the computers eventually replace engineers?.As we sense the computer relentlessly closing the gap, those of us who have any experience or expertise in engineering wave these attributes wildly about in the air , looking for some recognition and sense of value and a seat at the table when the dust settles and all of this plays out.Next time you excitedly bring home a brand new computer from
ComputersR'Us with more ram, faster , bigger hd etc.,you may well be,unwittingly, bringing home the seeds of your own demise as an engineer.
Result.....looming change, uncertianty, vulnerability, anxiety, worry, doom and gloom.

The first thing I am going to do when I get off this forum is unplug the computer and ponder long and hard on what I have just stumbled upon.
Now, where the heck did I put that sliderule!!

 

[SocklessJ]

What this really comes down to is whether we are a profession or not.

WE as a Engineers are tasked with protecting the health and safety of the public, and only WE are qualified to do so. Not owners, not contractors. They are not qualified to judge the safety of a structural design, nor should they have to do so.

If we let this race to the bottom continue, we will fail our mission to protect the public. We can keep striving to add “value” to our clients, or think up some new clever time savings, but there is no escaping the cost pressure. It affects everyone.

I was reading my board’s newsletter yesterday and saw an enforcement action related to a fatal pedestrian bridge collapse. Violations included:

“... submitting plans for permitting before computing adequate calculations himself or before verifying that another had computed adequate calculations…”

“... failing to have another employee perform a QA/QC review process before construction.”

This guy worked for one of the most prestigious firms in the state. I couldn’t even get an interview over there. I’m sure the Engineer could have figured out how to design the structure safely, but I bet he simply didn’t have the hours.

I really like KootK’s focus on anonymous peer-review, because this forces owners to buy “good” engineering, as judged by the Profession. If the owner hires a substandard engineer, the design will get torn apart in the peer review and the project will get delayed. If they think the comments are unreasonable, let them appeal to the Board.

It sounds to me like we fear being labelled as protectionist more than we fear the proliferation of dangerously deficient engineering. We need to remember what our mission is, and take pride in our profession rather than our ability to undercut the engineer across the street. Or is more than 1% of construction costs for a safe structure just too much for the world to bear?

 

[WARose]

I was reading my board’s newsletter yesterday and saw an enforcement action related to a fatal pedestrian bridge collapse. Violations included:

“... submitting plans for permitting before computing adequate calculations himself or before verifying that another had computed adequate calculations…”

“... failing to have another employee perform a QA/QC review process before construction.”

Was that the Wake Forest bridge collapse? Looks like the guy got his license suspended for 2 years. (One way to save money on CEU hours .)