Consulting-Specifying Engineer - August 2008 - (Page 25) subcontracting increased from 50% to 57% of Giants 100 firms. These firms could be shrugging off the next big growth market for engineering. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reported in the “Archives of Internal Medicine” (July 28, 2008) that 33% of U.S. adults have some degree of hearing loss, with approximately 29 million of them having trouble discerning speech. With baby boomers aging and the use of personal listening devices increasing among the younger generations, engineering indoor spaces to respond to or prevent hearing loss is likely to influence MEP designs. The software side of Giants Consulting-Specifying Engineer asked participating firms note if they used software in five categories: CAD, BIM, energy analysis, Table 3: Distribution of revenue among Giants across project types Percentage of revenue from types of projects Type of project New construction Renovation/retrofit Maintain/repair/operate (MRO) Commissioning 0 or NA 13 12 67 48 1-10 0 4 24 42 11-30 12 28 7 8 31-50 26 35 2 1 51-75 36 19 0 1 76-100 13 2 0 0 project management, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Twelve firms did not answer the question. Of those that answered, 100% use CAD; 88% use BIM; 85% use energy-analysis software; 74% use software for project management or collaboration; and 48% use software for CFD. Furthermore, approximately 27% of Giants 100 firms responding to the software question use all five classes. Regarding BIM, the software question was not precise enough to link BIM to MEP use. For example, AEC firms may use BIM for architecture, but not for MEP. However, linking their software answers to total revenue reported, firms representing $10.56 billion are using BIM to some degree, and firms representing $2.16 billion are not. These figures do not include the revenue reported by firms that did not answer the software question. Asked to name other software they used, the most frequent entries were for electrical-distribution design/analysis and lighting design. Green giants This is the first year Consulting-Specifying Engineer is reporting the level of activity Giants 100 firms have with green buildings. Editors used the number of U.S. Green Building Council LEED accredited professionals (LEED APs) employed by the firm as an indicator of commitment to garnering green-building contracts. The number of LEED APs is an indicator of a firm’s commitment to the green market because there are costs for preparing for and taking the LEED AP exam. However, the number of LEED APs does not necessarily imply how green the company is or how well it performs on green projects. That said, the total number of LEED APs employed by Giants 100 firms is 4,042, which accounts for almost 8% of the nation’s 51,452 LEED APs at the time Consulting-Specifying Engineer compiled the survey results. The editors noted that many firms had dozens of LEED APs on staff, so they created a histogram showing the distribution of LEED APs employed by Giants 100 firms (Figure 2). Table 4 lists the 11 Giants 100 firms that have 100 or more LEED APs on staff. 35 Table 4: Giants 100 firms with 100 or more LEED AP employees Giants 100 Ranking 10 39 1 22 31 12 18 2 27 32 69 Name of Firm Stantec Inc. SmithGroup AECOM Technology Corp. HDR Cannon Design DLR Group LEO A DALY URS Corporation HGA Architects and Engineers KlingStubbins Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture & Engineering Number LEED APs in firm 325 25 30 216 206 140 135 127 113 103 101 100 Number of firms 253 20 15 10 5 0 0 1-5 6-20 21-50 51-100 100+ Range of LEED APs per firm Figure 2: Distribution of LEED APs among Giants 100 firms. Consulting-Specifying Engineer • AUGUST 2008 25
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