Editor's viewpoint
An Expanding Sphere
C.C. Sullivan, Editorial Director -- Consulting-Specifying Engineer, 11/1/2000
Have you noticed the expanding sphere of influence wielded by today's consulting engineers? Actually, many firms report that they are in a period of great change, as they watch their firms and their professional peers evolve.
What many engineering companies are finding today is that their traditional role as a subcontracted design consultant is increasingly competitive and less profitable than ever. So, many leading engineering and architecture/engineering firms are moving into supplemental services, consulting in areas that are needed by their clients but that were not associated with the M/E engineering firm as recently as a few years ago. Here's a sampling of these new offerings:
- Front-end services. Feasibility studies, financial analyses, real estate consulting and technology integration are now being delivered by consulting engineers. Utility and energy consulting-while hardly a new role for the engineer-is becoming far more common. These service are especially vital for clients in areas and states that are deregulating utility service or that are experiencing seasonal shortages of power and fuel supplies.
Strategic real estate decisions are often based on complex analyses of numerous variables, such as transportation, site costs, utility rates and operational costs. Many engineering firms are finding that they are better at doing this than many of their commercial and industrial clients, because it's the engineer's business. The client may be expert at its specialties, but P.E.s spend their days (and the occasional night) thinking about nothing but buildings and building systems.
- Expanded design and construction services. While engineers generally maintain a review capacity during construction, some firms have stepped into other key services-everything from value engineering and construction management to inspections and owner representation on design-build projects.
- Back-end services. Nobody likes to be associated with the back end, but pulling up the rear may be the most profitable side for engineers. These services include such traditional consulting roles as commissioning and start-up maintenance and operations. But many engineers also offer power-quality analyses, indoor-air-quality assessments and even outsourced facility management.
Where this new menu of offering may end-or should end-is anyone's guess. But in the meantime, this diversification demonstrates how the role of consultants is defined more by clients' needs and their providers' creativity than it is by the traditional spheres inhabited by owners, designers and builders.
