ENR Art Dept. In CPM scheduling, sharing dominates but it hasn't proven to be the perfect solution yet. ENR Art Dept. Is Owning Float an Absurdity? Options and Motives Cited by Contractors and Construction Managers in Project Scheduling Decisions. William A Manginelli and his colleagues at Trauner Consulting Services say that manipulating or gaming the amount of float in a critical-path method schedule is difficult and perilous for contractors. But contractors and construction managers suggest that many of the decisions about how float is treated in contracts and the strategies used in preventing disputes over delays are based on worries
Related Links: Lotte, Koreas First Supertower, is an All-in-the-Family Affair U.Life. It sounds like a New Age movement. For developer Stanley C. Gale, the driving force behind the $35-billion Songdo International Business District, U.Life actually is a "new age movement" of sorts, except the "new age" is the digital age and the "movement" is variously called smart cities, intelligent urbanization or, in Gale's lexicon, ubiquitous life, or U.Life. If Gale has his way, everyone living and working in the 1,500-acre Songdo IBD will be linked through a common backbone of information and communications technology.The master-planned new town in Incheon, Republic
A hurricane is rising in the farmland of northwestern South Carolina, and it is going to stay there for the foreseeable future, ripping off roofs, driving rain through walls, shattering windows and shredding buildings. That’s the purpose of a $40-million building materials and assemblies test facility nearing completion in Chester County, S.C. It is designed to attack full- scale test structures with the swirling winds and rains of hurricanes, the pounding hail of severe thunderstorms, or the wind-driven embers of wildfires. The owner is the Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS), a Tampa, Fla.-based insurance industry group whose member
The signs were all there. The project manager’s attention level was down. Tasks that he would typically complete in one day took a week. Mistakes cut the value of the plans he prepared. He no longer followed up with key people on the team. In the end, he lost interest in both the project management and technical aspects of his job, so his managers called him in for a talk that led to a parting of ways. “He told us he was glad to be fired, because the pressures of the job had become too much,” says a former manager.
Foul-smelling and discoloring Chinese-made drywall, apparently imported after Hurricane Katrina, has been the subject of more than 50 complaints in Florida, say state officials. “We don’t know whether this is strictly a material issue or if climate also is involved,” says Vincent M. Daliessio, industrial hygiene project manager for EMSL Analytical, Inc., Westmont, N.J., a materials consultant that is examining the problem after getting calls from building inspectors and builders. “We don’t know why it is appearing just in Florida. It could be just the tip of the iceberg or the distribution model for the vendor.” Drywall woes have plagued
M.A. Mortenson Co Mort Mortenson and his 1987 Volvo are both icons at the Minneapolis firm M.A. “Mort” Mortenson Jr. says his favorite project in 48 years at the family construction firm was dismantling 300-plus Minuteman missile sites in South Dakota. But it’s probably a good thing the firm could not win more demolition jobs: Building things up has worked out much better for the 72-year-old entrepreneur and his Minneapolis-based M.A. Mortenson Co., which he has led for almost four decades as chairman. One of construction’s most technically savvy and prolific design-builders, Mortenson faces the future—even an economically uncertain one—with
As a sweeper playing defense on North Carolina State University’s soccer team, Lewis E. “Ed” Link Jr. had a knack for pattern recognition and teamwork. “I could anticipate. I could see the pattern, the big picture, and go to where the ball was going to be,” he says. The National Soccer Coaches Association of America thought he had a special talent, too: It named him an All-American in 1967, his senior year. His success on the field, Link says, came from playing with the strengths he had, rather than from trying to shape his style after an inappropriate model—like some
Multimedia come to work every day is something that you can't begin to imagine." — Donna Bonghi, Human Resources Manager The story they told was one of pride of accomplishment, commitment, frustration, depression, patriotism and loss. “We don’t like to talk about this a lot because we don’t want it to become a statistic, and we know those that we lost and we’re pretty emotional about it,” said Mumm. “In total there were 101 casualties associated with our work, and of those, 52 died,” he said. Casualties included security people, subcontractors and Iraqi employees. “We had a large number kidnapped,”
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