With industry backlogs still strong and overextended fleets always aging, the industry’s triennial equipment trade show blows into town just as some construction professionals are looking to buy some heavy iron.

An 11-story office tower in Dallas, Texas was set to be brought down in a controlled demolition in Feb. 16, which dropped the outer shell of the building but failed to bring down the structure’s concrete core. 

As efforts advance to finally demolish the partially collapsed Hard Rock Hotel in New Orleans, two city building inspectors have been suspended for failing to properly inspect the site last summer.

Martina McIsaac, formerly head of Hilti Canada, takes the reins of Hilti North America at a time when the company is pursuing a broad strategy of expanding its digital products and the connectivity of its tools. 

Citing a growing and increasingly crowded  field of grade-control systems and site layout technology, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers announced on Feb. 18 that it is working with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on a common standard for grade-control data sharing.

It was a busy year at the annual World of Concrete trade show, held in Las Vegas Feb. 4 to 7. An estimated 54,000 attendees came through the show floor over the week, seeing exhibits from 1,310 companies. 

Dueling Swedish-made hydrodemolition robots were at World of Concrete to try and boost the demolition technology's profile in the North American market.

Standing before a crowd of curious onlookers at a corner of the show floor at the World of Concrete trade show in Las Vegas, Advanced Construction Robotics president and cofounder Jeremy Searock made a sales pitch for TyBot, his company’s rebar-tying robot.

Alongside swarms of contractors and others pouring in to the annual World of Concrete trade show in Las Vegas, the Portland Cement Association released a relatively rosy economic forecast for 2020 into 2021.