Related Links: Read the Comments on Don Short's The Competitive Advantage Nobody Needs Blog Series I recently overheard a contractor bragging about how he could gain a cost advantage over his competition. It caught my attention, so I listened.It seems that in his bidding practices, the contractor priced materials and equipment that were not approved in the specifications. To avoid giving away the bidding advantage to his competitors, the contractor decided not to request these items to be approved in the bidding period. After he was designated the low bidder, the contractor planned to press for the materials to be
Courtesy Thomas Dunne Books A New York City contractor's memoir In 1956 I arrived at the office for my first day of work at the company then called Kreisler Borg in Westchester County, N.Y. The firm was one year old and had completed its first two jobs with a total contract value under $75,000. I was welcomed with jovial sentiments, then promptly presented with the plans and specifications for the next project to be bid.I remember it well: the repairing of wooden fenders on the Cross Bay Parkway Viaduct in Queens. The work consisted of removing and replacing large creosote
Michael Beitzel A view of the Huey P. Long Bridge Rehabilitation in New Orleans. Related Links: Public Works Financing Newsletter As money and power grow more concentrated in Washington, the line of supplicants stretches all the way to Monticello. That has created a "barbarians at the gate" mentality among conservatives and budget experts who guard the Treasury. Infrastructure advocates claim great benefits from public investments, but so do many others.Peter Ruane, CEO of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, calls Washington a "fact-free zone." The firewall that for 56 years has protected the federal Highway Trust Fund from being
Courtesy of NASA The space shuttle docked with the International Space Station. Courtesy of NASA The Space Shuttle on the ground. Last year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration selected four sites to permanently display a space-shuttle orbiter, and the California Science Center in Los Angeles will house the Endeavour. As an aerospace engineer, architect and believer in the modernist tradition, I have some suggestions for the exhibit.The plans so far call for exhibiting the orbiter both horizontally and, later, vertically, as if it were ready for launch. But I have another concept: Dock the Endeavour to a full-scale mock-up
It's time for the design profession to have the same protection as the medical profession with regard to peer-review privilege. Just what is a "privilege"? In order to encourage full and candid disclosure, the law protects certain communications from being revealed in court. This protection is called a privilege, and it applies to discussions and writingbetween, for example, a lawyer and a client, a physician or psychologist and a patient, or an accountant and a client.New York passed the first such law in 1828 to create a privilege for doctors. However, a question remained about whether a doctor's "peer review"
The construction industry is no stranger to the benefits of design-build delivery. It's well known that design-build can streamline budgets and schedules, provide single-source accountability with minimal change orders and, ultimately, deliver a high-value product for the owner when compared to traditional delivery methods.While it's true that not all projects are a perfect fit for 100% design-build delivery, it's also true that design-build is not an all-or-nothing proposition.Bridging design-build, in which the owner engages design professionals to do some preliminary design, has been the most common compromise between traditional delivery and 100% design-build. While guaranteeing certain design aspects of a
Once upon a time, project scheduling was a core methodology used to develop, monitor, report and, most important, direct project execution strategy. However, financial and contractual stakeholders soon spotted the schedule's wealth of data. Things haven't been the same since. Financial departments started to require the schedule's level of detail, work breakdown structure and reporting processes. These demands weakened the schedule as a temporal tool.But it was the contractual sector that drove the final nail into the schedule's coffin. There must have been some "Reese's Peanut Butter Cup" moment when some consultant accidentally realized a "new use" for the Critical-Path
Slide Show Ray Sepesy, Woodward Building, Ballantyne Corporate Park, Charlotte, N.C. ENR's 2011 Photo Contest Winners Related Links: Judging the ENR Photo Contest: Hows and Whys View Slideshow The 2011 Runners-up All 2011 submissions ENR’s annual photo contest brings attention to inspiring construction photographs and the workers and projects they depict. But the contest is also designed to show appreciation for the people who take their cameras onto jobsites, often under difficult conditions, and capture great images.The construction industry simply wouldn’t have these pictures otherwise.So we thank photographers like Veronica Romitelli, who slogged through the mud of a cold riverbank
The life-cycle costs of the facilities we design and build are under pressure as our clients face more global competition, key resources—such as skilled labor, water, energy and materials—grow scarce and government support dwindles. To address such challenges, engineering and construction participants must step outside our day-to-day frame ofreference and question whether our current paradigm allows us to develop needed solutions. Is our business model broken?Engineering and construction (E&C) is one of the world's largest industry sectors. It accounts for 9% of U.S. gross domestic product and more than 11% globally. Today's projects are larger and more complex than ever,
Recently, a Navy commander overseeing 44 active construction sites for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest removed a site safety officer and a project superintendent from a $100-million jobsite in Southern California after workers struck several underground utility lines. Althoughno one was injured, the strikes constituted serious safety infractions. As the commander saw it, the supervisors were not doing the job, which was unacceptable.This incident is not an anomaly. As T.B. Penick & Sons' safety director, I feel the same way as my boss, Tim Penick: The Navy will not stand for lapses, even when no one is hurt. For
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