Utilization / Billability rate? 1

[proletariat]

The ratio of billable hours to worked hours required by your company?

Also include your title and industry.

Me:
81%, Civil Engineer Project Manager, Consulting Engineering Company

 

[PeterStock]

For the practitioners (those who do the actual work) the “required” UR is 90%, for the Discipline Chiefs the ratio is running about 40%, with 50% the goal soon. For me as a checker of drawings and CAD models the ratio is about 50%. I usually make it but there have been some slack weeks.



Peter Stockhausen
Senior Design Analyst (Checker)
Infotech Aerospace Services

http://www.infotechpr.net

 

[SNORGY]

The expectation here for Discipline Chiefs is still "90% billable".

That is why we don't have updated specifications, standards, procedures, or properly trained and mentored junior / intermediate engineers.

It's good for business, though - at least, so I have been told. We may be incompetent, but at least we're profitable.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[MisterDonut]

85%, Lead Engineer (Mechanical), consulting engineering company.
Our utilization is defined as billable hours divided by 40, so I'm expected to have 34 or more billable hours per week, on average. Vacations and holidays count as non-billable.

 

[SomptingGuy]

Almost always 0%, the system used by the rest of the company I work for doesn't work for our department. We make then sell rather than sell then make.

- Steve

 

[zdas04]

I set up my rate schedule to be profitable at 50% of a 50 hour week. Over the years, costs have crept up and my hourly rate is the same so now I need 56%. Before the slowdown in March I've tended toward 75 hour (150%) weeks, since March it has been closer to 10 billable hours/week. Goal is still 28 hours/week.

David

 

[Mr168]

100%. We don't even have an overhead number.

 

[KENAT]

0% CAD Engineer Hi Tech/Metrology/Machine Design

There is no required figure that I know of. Although, even though last I heard they don't track it we do fill in a time card against projects.

However, unless theres some kinds of all hands meetings or office move or similar all my time gets booked to a project number of some kind.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[MechEng2005]

It really depends on how accurate the estimated hours for a project are. The company doesn't have any goal for billable hours ratio (that I know of). They track the hours estimated when quoting a project versus the actual hours used much more. So, it is often the case that billable hours are 100% until the project is done or the actual total has reached the estimate. Then it magically drops to zero, while those working on the project have much more "miscellaneous, training, and supervision" listed on the time cards.

I've argued my case for actually tracking hours. It's even more absurd since we typically look up billed hours for previous similar projects when creating an estimate. So marking down 80% of the hours means next similar project you will still only have 80% of what's actually needed. However, it's been done this way for so long that our rates reflect it to some degree in increased overhead. So to change it now would require reducing rates and increasing estimated hours. You could still make them balance, but reducing rates is frowned upon by management and accountants. So we work with it, and just try to be consistant.

-- MechEng2005

 

[RoyTyrell]

In this market - if your very highly paid "Discipline Chief" isn't at least 80% billable (and very highly credentialed) you will soon be out of business. I work for a company where we have "Discipline Chiefs" who are not even registered PE's. How do you put on a proposal you are going to charge a client $250/hr for a guy who is 35 yrs old, head of a department, doesn't have any advanced degrees or remarkable experice/skill set and doesn't have a Professional License? Needless to say work is thin.

Folks are still partying like it's 2006 - or at least trying to.

 

[SNORGY]

RoyTyrell:

True, except for the part about lack of credentials or remarkable experience / skill sets meaning you will soon be out of business. This market is more like:

"As long as you manage to stay billable, you will always be in business, even if you are a complete idiot."

In other words, what's good for business isn't always good for engineering, and what's bad for engineering isn't always bad for business.

I suppose at some point it will catch up to you...until then, those who mange the "business" are too preoccupied with the "cost" of engineering.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[Gumpmaster]

98%, Associate Engineer (E-3), Building Structural. I'm running 99% on the year so far.

Even our group leader (lots of administrative work) has an 80% goal.

 

[Guest0527211403]

If I was actually tracking hours (which I don't as it becomes rather depressing), it would probably be around 50% of a ~60 hour week.

It is "expected" that we work at 100%, but when we work on large proposals, hours put towards other projects will slip, whether the boss likes it or not.

Mechanical Engineer, Robotics

 

[Ron]

My goal is similar to that of zdas04...25 to 30 hours per week. I usually average at least that.

When I was in a corporate environment, 75 to 80 percent utilization was required of all engineers except department managers and Chief Engineers (50 to 60% for those). Corporate level in-house consultants (my last job there) were expected to be in the 65 to 80 percent range. I understand all have gone up since I left.

 

[tys90]

Most engineers range between 80-90% here. Team/Disciple leaders between 40-60%.

Mechanical Engineer, Consulting Engineering

 

[RoyTyrell]

SNORGY,

There-in lies the rub. The whole group of which I speak is less than 30% billable. And - surprise surprise, no new contracts coming in.

Oddly enough - there is increasing work out there, it's just going to the competition. go figure?

you think personnel has anything to do with it?

 

[SNORGY]

In my mind, it's a product of allowing ourselves (consultants in upstream O&G) to be bullied for too long by unsophisticated clients who neither appreciate nor want engineering, but they begrudgingly need it in order to shift the liability externally. Over the course of time, this gives rise to erosion of engineering competence for the sake of staying alive in a cut-throat business. You end up with clients who know more about engineering than the consultants they hire. Then, to fix that issue, you fire the engineers and hire more MBAs and accountants to manage the company more effectively.

So, in a sense, it's a personnel issue to some degree. However, it starts with allowing the "engineering" to take a back-seat to "making money", and it really starts coming off the rails when you task the engineering managers with having to stay 90%+ billable so that they can no longer mentor or train their junior / intermediate staff, plus task them with doing most of the management of the "business" instead of the "engineering".

You can't fix "engineering" with MBA's and accountants until everyone buys into the fact that engineering does, to some minimum critical level, require some "cost", and we are too far on the wrong side of the line.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[Ron]

Well said, SNORGY.

 

[SomptingGuy]

I actually divide my hours between two tasks:

- Adding value to our product(s)
- Assisting existing and future customers

It's currently about 50/50 - neither is directly billable in the usual sense. I hide the time spent training/assisting colleagues.

- Steve

 

[cvg]

this will vary to a large degree according to your discipline, companies business plan. Consulting vs industry vs government all have totally different business plans... and company size does matter also.

my goal is 78%, Civil Engineer Project Manager, large consulting Engineering Company.

Our drafters should be 95%.
I think my boss is about 25%.
The accountants are 0%