Fast-moving environmental, political and workplace trends are boosting civil engineering to a critical new role, even if its practitioners and academics aren’t totally ready, according to speakers and attendees at the annual meeting of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The Oct. 29-31 meeting in Kansas City drew nearly 1,000 attendees, including a large contingent of students. Photo: David Hathcox / Asceput From left, CEOs Rodman and Graves and educator Nelson say civils must “stand up.” “The world needs the profession to deal with issues that extend beyond civil engineering,” said Priscilla Nelson, a professor and former provost at
An updated Construction Management Standards of Practice from the Construction Management Association of America includes, for the first time, sections on sustainability, building information modeling and risk management. The document, last revised six years ago, was a two-year association effort. CMAA says the document also is for use by owners to give them an idea of what to expect from construction-management and program-management practitioners.
Unfolding impacts of worldwide infrastructure are putting acute pressure on the engineering profession to steer future development onto a more sustainable path, said global practitioners meeting Sept. 14-16 in London. The warnings came at the annual conference of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, at which the group, which represents close to one million global engineers, released its first “state of the world” report. Hundreds of delegates from all continents were urged to take a leadership role to find ways to curtail future negative effects. Photo: FIDIC In a new report, global engineers group is sounding the alarm for needed
The American Society of Civil Engineers has produced a manual of policies and procedures for organizing and conducting damage assessments after man-made or natural disasters. The Post-Disaster Assessment Manual was developed on the recommendation of an independent task force, led by Sherwood Boehlert, retired congressman and former chair of the House Science Committee. The task force was asked by ASCE in late 2007 to review its damage-inquest and peer-review practices after the credibility of some recent investigations, particularly the peer review of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-funded study of Hurricane Katrina, was challenged by critics. They said issues related
Want to achieve a 50% boost in construction craft productivity? The Construction Industry Institute aims to fulfill this ambitious goal with a six-year craft-productivity research program. The first phase, focused on mechanical trades, was one of CII’s seven research projects wrapping up in 2009, according to CII Chairman John Dalton, who also is COO for Mustang Engineering, Houston. “The study gives us the benchmarking and metrics to check that craft construction productivity is properly planned and implemented.” Image + Source: Construction Industry Institute On a scale of one to 10, the study compared projects with higher and lower implementation of
Officials say the catastrophic 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minnesota that killed 13 people revealed shortcomings in visual bridge-inspection techniques, particularly of gusset plates and other components. Mark Bagnard, lead investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, told attendees at the annual International Bridge Conference, held this year in Pittsburgh on June 14-17, that the state’s load ratings of bridges were inadequately measured and did not include gusset plates. As far back as 2003, photos showed the gusset plates were bowed. “Despite the photos, this bowing was not reported in either of two inspections.…One inspector actually saw
T op bridge contractors and designers have formed a group dedicated to better ways of funding and building bridges. Spearheaded by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), the Bridge Policy and Promotion Council will promote alternative funding methods like private-public partnerships, as well as high-strength materials and high-tech building and inspection tools. “What we have attempted to do is to get key players...together under the banner of ARTBA to enhance the lobbying effort, get our thoughts into the legislation and influence the [six-year federal transportation] reauthorization,” says BPPC Chairman Robert Luffy, president and chief executive officer of Coraopolis,
Officials at the nation’s largest drinking-water association called for a new mechanism to fund water infrastructure that is generating buzz on Capitol Hill: a national infrastructure bank. Meeting for their yearly conference June 14-18 in San Diego, American Water Works Association officials announced they would work with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to push for legislation that would establish a bank to support water infrastructure projects. The current credit crunch has made it “hard for communities to access capital for critical infrastructure projects,” despite the infusion of funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, said Michael Leonard, AWWA’s 2008-2009 president
Some American Institute of Architects’ 2008 model contract documents for integrated project delivery are being challenged by at least one prominent lawyer who also is an architect and general counsel for a major A/E firm. The documents create a limited-liability company called a single-purpose entity (SPE). Do not use these model documents without “competent legal counsel review,” because they are “flawed,” says Bill Quatman, managing director for Burns & McDonnell Engineering Co., Kansas City. The single-purpose-entity agreement sets up a limited-liability company that contracts for design and construction. Under the SPE model, the owner has three managers, controlling the board.
On April 30 at its national convention in San Francisco, the American Institute of Architects released replacement construction manager documents and an updated version of AIA Contracts Documents software. The CM documents cover CM as advisor and CM as constructor. The CM documents replace those released in 2007 and 2008. They include dispute resolution check box that enables parties to select the method of binding dispute resolution. They incorporate the concept of an initial decision maker fill point where the owner and contractor may identify a third neutral party IDM other than the architect. The documents include digital data provisions
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