Several days ago I was working late on a proposal. Stuck with writing a section on how a prospective client could benefit from using Web-based technologies, I decided to take a break to grab a hamburger across the street. Although it had been a long time since I had eaten at a McDonald's, the company had been on my mind ever since I had read Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Several sections of the book, but mostly the discussion of the McDonald's empire, had made me think about my own industry—environmental management—and its identity and perception problems. These problems
Until an accident two months ago, 21-year-old Renato Soriano worked on building sites in Manila. He fell from just a few meters, but hit some cement blocks as he landed. In the hospital, he lost an arm and a foot to amputations. Although an invalid now and unable to work, he will not receive a single peso in compensation. Injury and death from construction accidents are so common in Manila that many building sites there are described as "war zones." Similar situations exist in many other developing countries. Worldwide, construction accidents claim an estimated 55,000 lives annually. Most happen in
How will the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history ultimately affect the construction industry? The answer depends on the effects of four key "macrowave" shocks. The first is "Guns for Butter." In the war on terrorism, government will dramatically shift expenditures from "butter"—education, infrastructure and health care. Architectural, engineering and construction firms with clientele weighted to aerospace and defense companies will prosper, as will firms with contracts to build military facilities. But other firms that rely on contracts for "butter" will face reduced demand. The second is capital flight. Risk-averse business executives will divert productive capital for new plant and
When I began working at a construction company in China about 12 years ago, I was surprised to see that many of my colleagues still used abacuses. For the next few years, I could hear the joyful sounds of abacuses coming from their offices. Now, in the U.S., I see a similar situation: today's cutting-edge software applications becoming tomorrow's abacuses. Two years ago in the U.S., I began having discussions with some professors in construction programs at major universities who were teaching courses in computers and information technology (IT). They were teaching everything from how to use spreadsheets for solving
If politicians really want to solve California's current energy crisis, they must undo the artificial shortage created by unions and project labor agreements. More than 10 years ago, many nonunion and some union contractors began complaining about a new tactic that forced power producers to use only union contractors. At that time, Thomas R. Adams, an attorney in San Mateo, Calif., and Thomas J. Hunter, business manager of District Council 51 of the plumbers' and pipefitters' union, pioneered the use of environmental protests against projects as a way to bargain for union-only project labor agreements on them. Previously, PLAs had
Justin D. Bolduc isn't "A-list" material at most ENR Top 400 construction firms. Why? Because most of their recruiters won't hire from two-year schools. But they really should take a look at him and my other students. A panel of constructors watched last month as Bolduc, a 22-year-old construction management major at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, played the role of president of a fictitious company. Pretending to respond to a request for proposals for CM services on a mixed-use project, he seemed as comfortable as a seasoned veteran. And as he and fellow student team members flawlessly handled
CAD-based software has had an almost hostage-like grip on companies. Anyone who uses computer-aided drafting has had a litany of complaints ranging from its lack of user-friendliness to the expense of its required modules. But there have not been many other options. Over the years, civil engineering and surveying firms and their customers have come to accept inferior output from CAD-based design software on the theory that it performed at least some necessary functions. Software manufacturers took advantage of the situation by not adapting CAD's core technology to the needs of civil/survey design. In other words, CAD was a helluva
After the devastation of Sept. 11, I know this might be a difficult time to ask people to consider additional bad news. But this might be a good time for our industry to unite in pursuit of a common goal: Make construction a safer industry. For the past nine years, we have averaged more than 1,000 fatalities per year. First, a personal disclosure: Construction accidents are a big part of how I make a living. I have been accused of profiting from other's misery. But after spending 26 years in the industry and the past 15 as a crisis-management consultant,
Gloria, a black female plumbing apprentice in Cleveland, didn't complain to anyone in command after her supervising journeyman pushed her down concrete stairs. "They didn't care," she explained to me later. That sentiment helps explain the lack of women in the trades. Today, more than two decades after federal affirmative action opened the industry to the fastest-growing segment of the labor force, women hold just 2% of roughly four million construction jobs in the U.S. Amazingly, contractors let this situation fester despite the industry's worsening difficulties in attracting and retaining craftworkers. Too many contractors still reach past more capable women
How can the power sector deliver one new powerplant per week for the next 20 years, when its major contractors are falling like flies? Consider the recent fates of former, once-reputable firms such as Stone & We BSTE, Morrison Knudsen and Raytheon Engineers & Constructors. For industry survivors to meet the Bush administration's ambitious energy goals, powerplant contractors need a robust industry. They need collaborative agreements with project owners instead of today's adversarial, risk-shifting, lump-sum, engineer-procure-construct, EPC contracts. Fortunately, an excellent model of collaboration exists--outside the powerplant sector. ALLIANCES. In the oil-and-gas sector, pre-merger British Petroleum Co. PLC turned around
RSS