Related Links: Reducing Engineering Project Complexity Sometimes the images from ENR's annual photo contest take you to completely different worlds in construction. You only need to reflect on a single week of work in any corner of the industry to appreciate that construction people come from many walks of life and carry out vastly different activities—and one activity can influence or affect another, even though there is apparently no direct connection between them. Similarly, there are fewstraight lines any more in getting a project or a program or a company or a career from one place to another. We must
One of the hot topics in the industry right now is predictive analytics. Clients are asking: “Is this a trend? Is this a paradigm? Should I be concerned about this or doing something?” The answer is: The practice of Predictive Analytics is here to stay and is important for the engineering and construction industry. Predictive analytics is the next generation of analytics. Data makes up the building blocks for analytics. But instead of using data analytics to make sense of the past — to understand what we’ve done and what trends we can pick out from our past behavior —
Photo By Steve Hill Current and former Cornell University students accept the award for Schoolhouse South Africa from Editor Scott Blair (right) at ENR's inaugural Global Best Projects awards. Related Links: Click Here to Enter ENR's Global Best Projects View Last Year's Global Best Projects Winners As the end the year approaches, it's a good time to reflect on the achievements made throughout the construction industry in 2013. In this spirit, ENR is launching its second annual Global Best Projects awards program this month. The contest expands upon ENR's successful U.S. competition by inviting world-wide participation.Entries are being accepted now
Related Links: Editorial: Don't Allow Lawsuits Far From Projects Narcotic Painkiller Costs' Weigh Heavily on Workers' Compensation A palpable confidence has returned to the domestic U.S. construction market. Robust financial markets, rising home values and less-constrained spending by tightfisted American consumers all injected energy into what had been a languorous pace of recovery. Infrastructure megaprojects rolled forward in Denver and New York City. Budget pacts steadied a wobbly federal government. More construction workers walked through project gates than any of the past five years.Yes, there was trouble. The federal government sputtered as if it were an old gasoline lawn mower,
Raise the Bar, just-published by the American Society of Civil Engineers, documents and advocates why we must redefine how civil engineers are educated and prepared for professional practice in the 21 st century—and beyond.This compilation of 10 professional papers chronicles the 15-year history of the group’s Raise the Bar initiative—that will enable civil engineering professionals to meet the technological, environmental, economic, social, and political challenges of the future.A common thread within the book, and what binds the papers together, is the continued need for civil engineers to support the Raise the Bar Initiative. RussellAs the civil engineering profession evolves in
Related Links: New York Commuter Derailment Highlights Lack of Positive Train Control Investment L.A. Commuter Rail Line to Roll Out First Positive Control System Following the derailment that killed four commuters in New York City on Dec. 1, there are good reasons for reviewing the delays to the deployment of positive train control to our national rail system. There are also good reasons to refuse any rail operator further time extensions in implementing these safety upgrades. And then let's start discussing other safety weak points of therail system, such as grade crossings. They are an important part of the safety
Related Links: Website of Ames & Gough Most design and construction professionals are familiar with contractual wording that could broaden their exposures, especially references to standard of care and indemnification.Today, however, you must inspect the contract more closely. Owners and other clients—and their lawyers—now use new and less easy-to-recognize language that avoids hot-button words and phrases yet still sets higher standards of care and overly broad risk transfer.HUGHESOn any given project, a design team can complete its work only when it has received some form of information and documents from the owner, such as geotechnical reports or as-builts of existent
VFA Inc., a provider of integrated software and services for facilities asset management, capital planning and capital spend management, read with interest the article on the U.S. Dept. of Defense's recent decision to standardize on SMS BUILDER.
Related Links: New Forged Bonds Discovered, with Mounting Losses How Tennessee Contractors Caught Forged Surety Bonds The forged Chubb bonds discovered this year provide evidence that the laws allowing individual sureties help criminals steal from the very companies individual surety is supposed to benefit: small and minority-owned contractors. More than 20 contractors have been defrauded of about $3 million by these bonds over an 18-month period, according to a new report on ENR.com.The alleged forgers didn't bother to show up in federal court in Florida, where Chubb Group has won a civil judgment against them. The two defendants represented themselves
The latest article, “Hardening Energy Assets” is particularly interesting.However, I’d respectfully point out that an especially important subject that has been omitted.