Related Links: A Success Formula for Contractors Managing the Profitable Construction Business, the new book by Thomas Schleifer Too many construction organizations become slaves to their overhead, their general and administrative expenses. Increased overhead usually equates to increased capacity and is common and appropriate during growth periods.Unfortunately, these expenses are much easier to put in place than to get rid of, and in a cyclical market they become a burden and create losses. This is especially true now that we have such a weak and slowly developing business upswing.A common reaction in a declining construction market is to search for
Related Links: From Model to Layout Plan, Autodesk App Seeks To Close Gaps PDF Coalition Making Noise About Standards To take in the many presentations about building information modeling tools at the recent BIMForum conference in Dallas is to see first-hand the velocity of change arriving on construction jobsites, along with the upward move of the BIM adoption curve each year.Chris Heger, a superintendent with Turner Construction, talked through how BIM tools are changing the pace of construction with some keynote examples among many. Modeling tools give his team the ability to create construction patterns and then mine for repeatable
Courtesy of David Goldberg Recent book outlines a new vision of engineering education at the Olin College of Engineering and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Related Links: Big Beacon nonprofit Website Website for A Whole New Engineer In the same way that revolutions in entrepreneurism, quality and information technology in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s brought wrenching changes in the modern engineering and construction workplace, there’s a revolution underway in engineering education—and it’s about time. GoldbergEngineering education as now practiced in the U.S. was a creation of the Cold War, when a 1955 report called for more science and math in
Related Links: Black & Veatch Practices Risk Control in a High-Growth Strategy Keep Your Guard Up Against Green Project Risks Is risk management oversold? We know that some government regulation creates risk and that veering business cycles are a source of uncertainty for any designer or contractor. In construction, too, it's wise to vet contracts in case an untrusting customer slips a risk-shifting clause into Section 7, Subsection (c), Paragraph 4, of your agreement.This isn't news. Entire categories of risk exist thanks to innovations considered vital to the future of construction: integrated project delivery, BIM, sustainable construction and the expanded
Related Links: Private Equity Goes All In For Construction-Sector Growth Viewpoint Returns to Estimating With Platform Upgrades Merriam-Webster defines the term Tipping Point as when "a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change."Software vendors often use the term to refer to the point when they go from being the one placing phone calls to potential partners— to being the one receiving calls from potential partners.As Bruce Kenny, vice president of global product development for Viewpoint Construction Software put it at the firm's recent user conference, "that tipping point has happened."Viewpoint has
LandiWe all have innate strengths and abilities that we use in our jobs and that come naturally to us—the skills necessary to manage a project, write specifications, produce design documents or create good estimates.Yet some of us find ourselves going down rabbit holes every work day—and we don’t know why. I read a book a decade ago that talked about individuals’ special skills or strengths. The premise was that if you can pinpoint your unique abilities and find a job or role that lets you use those, you will not only find success but also work enjoyment and career satisfaction.Instead
Related Links: Picking Up Good Vibrations From Napa Post-Quake Report At 3 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 24, a magnitude-6.0 earthquake centered in the American Canyon, about 9 kilometers south of the city of Napa, awoke much of northern California. The next day, television newscasts focused on damage sustained by a small number of unreinforced masonry buildings in Napa, fire damage to mobile homes in a trailer community, some older wood-frame homes that shifted off their foundations and extensive loss of wine inventory due to failed wine-aging storage tanks and casks.But contrary to the impression conveyed by the television news and
Image Courtesy of DLR Group The skin of the statue at FedExField is made of solar cells in an acrylic shell. The design community must lead the charge to advance the cause of sustainable energy in pursuit of Architecture 2030 benchmarks, which were established to dramatically reduce fossil-fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions by changing buildings and creating a resilient built environment. To do it, designers must visibly and actively promote the viability of renewables. DLR Group has partnered with NRG Energy to design a series of on-site solar power systems for football stadiums for six National Football League teams. Recently,
Related Links: Brazilians Say Government Deserves a Good, Swift Kick for Broken World Cup Promises (ENR 6/16/14) Two Years to World Cup Kickoff for Brazilian Stadiums (ENR 8/22/12) Reports are coming in about abusive practices and possible corruption in the World Cup stadium construction projects in Brazil. With fresh memories of angry protests by Brazilians prior to the start of World Cup and Brazil set to host the 2016 Olympics, we have a unique opportunity now to learn.ELLISFor example, a recent government audit reportedly found that the project costs for the state of Brasília's brand-new taxpayer-funded stadium have tripled, to
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