Image Courtesy The Lego Movie Related Links: Bridginess: More of the Civil Engineering Life, by Brian Brenner, P.E. The Lego Movie The idea of making an entire movie about Lego toy building blocks seemed far-fetched and a bald-faced marketing ploy. It didn't appear to have much of a chance at success. Who would watch it? And after a movie about Legos, what next? Maybe a movie about toothpaste ("The Colgate Movie") or toaster ovens? With the expectation bar set pretty low, the reviews came in.Rotten Tomatoes, a website with aggregated movie ratings, reported the reviews to be 96% positive. For
Related Links: Safety Week Construction Deaths, Fatality Rate Climbed in 2012 Leaders of 31 major construction firms agree that safety should not be proprietary. They are offering their ideas about how to make the industry a safer place to work by launching the first annual "Safety Week" on May 4-10, and they encourage large and small contractors across the country to join them in elevating and celebrating safety.These firms belong to either the Construction Industry Safety Initiative or the Incident and Injury Free Executive Forum. The companies in the groups can be fierce competitors, but they also meet regularly and
Related Links: Sewer Job Battle is a Question of Arithmetic (subcription required) Miami Dade Procurement Webpage Description of the Cone of Silence The Miami-Dade County website makes a big deal about its procurement "cone of silence"—a term popularized by the old TV comedy "Get Smart"—which is meant to describe the county's system for preventing forbidden communications in response to requests for qualifications. When, this past summer, the county sought to hire a construction manager for a $1.5-billion sewer-repair program, a lack of specific language about communication while the so-called cone was in force engendered confusion more appropriate to a comically
Related Links: New Corps Commander Taking Stock Lt. Gen. Bob Flowers, who commanded the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 2000 to 2004 and is now retired, tells a humorous anecdote about a Mississippi landowner in the mid-1990s who was especially impatient about a future flood-protection project. Flowers was commander of the Mississippi Valley Division and agreed to meet with him."We had just received authorization for the project, and I told him I would request an appropriation of $28 million, which would allow the Corps to proceed," he said. "The gentleman then reached in his pocket, pulled out his checkbook
Related Links: Some Insurance Exclusions May Surprise Contractors Hotel Razing and Defects Trial Could Be Best Shows in Vegas For years, some state courts and insurance companies have been telling contractors that the construction defect claims they face aren't covered by their insurance because faulty work is not an "accident" that insurance is intended to guard against. This situation is rapidly changing, however, as more and more courts are concluding that defective construction is an "accident." This has opened the way for these claims to be covered by insurance.There are four questions that must be answered to determine if a
Related Links: Amtrak Chief Declares Highway Trust Fund 'Dead' Barely a month into the new year, several industry trade groups and no less than three widely read construction publications, including ENR, have sent up smoke signals that the battle over one of the most significant threats in decades facing the U.S. transportation design and construction market already is finished.Even more alarming, the white flag is being waved before we have had a serious fight.RUANEI am referring, specifically, to the reauthorization of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) and the crisis facing the federal Highway Trust
Why the Best CPM Schedulers Don't Rely on Software (All That Much) Readers of technology trends in construction are well aware that building information modeling software tools are moving from 3D to 4D in terms of merging project schedule data with a 3D model to create a 4D schedule with animation. These tools are becoming more common on mid-sized and even smaller projects of $25 million or less, experts and BIM providers say.It's also gaining in dispute claims and claims resolution, according to an expert in scheduling and construction litigation."
Related Links: House Bill Would Hike Gas Tax Over Three Years Since the 1950s, America's infrastructure development and maintenance program has depended in great part on an end-user tax on fuel. More efficient auto and heavy-truck fuel consumption, combined with an ever-enlarging and aging infrastructure system, have brought us to the limit of the end-user fuel tax as a sole source of revenue. The public has little appetite for increasing the end-user sales tax to replenish the Highway Trust Fund. Although industry and government have pushed new sources of financing and tried to cut costs, little real progress will be