Data expansion:
Consulting engineer is the general name of engineering technicians and other professionals (such as economics and management) engaged in engineering consulting business.
The international understanding of consulting engineers is quite different from China's customary understanding. According to the international understanding, architects, structural engineers, various professional equipment engineers, supervision engineers, cost engineers and professionals engaged in project bidding in China belong to consulting engineers. Even auditors and accountants engaged in engineering consulting business (for example, they may need to review the contractor's financial books and records when handling claims) belong to consulting engineers.
Therefore, don't understand consulting engineers as "engineers engaged in consulting work". Perhaps for the above reasons, 1990 International Federation of Consulting Engineers replaced "consulting engineer" with "consultant" in the terms of the owner/consulting engineer standard service agreement. The word Consultant can be translated into consultant or expert, but the translation of China's "white paper" is still translated into consulting engineer according to the original habit.
In addition, it should be noted that most consulting engineers work in the form of companies, so the term consulting engineer is also used to refer to engineering consulting companies on many occasions. For example, from the name of the "white paper", it is obvious that the owner signed an engineering consulting company, not a consulting engineer; Judging from the specific terms of the engineering consulting contract, there is a similar situation.
Therefore, when reading foreign materials about engineering consulting, we should pay attention to the exact meaning of the term consulting engineer. It should be said that there will be no ambiguity in most cases, but sometimes it may take careful consideration to accurately grasp its meaning.