President Bush's energy plan is a shortsighted one. Audacious in its sweep, it calls for constructing a new powerplant each week for the next 20 years, and drilling for oil and and gas in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But the plan gives short shrift to a more environmentally and politically benign option. Barely noticed by the Bush administration, evidence is mounting that large-scale development of wind energy is becoming much more feasible and economical. Once dismissed as the darling fringe technology of environmentalists, wind is becoming a commercially viable, middle-of-the-road power source that could be a significant building block
Furious over an incident at work eight years ago, I walked out of my engineering job and marched to an artist's supply store. Without any previous experience or training, I began painting monumental-size oil canvases, including a self-portrait–Gone Mad. But instead of going mad, I returned to work and redoubled my efforts to prove two things: the importance of value engineering and the importance of women in the profession. Reinvigorated by my art, I fought and made dramatic presentations at work, while overlooking the sniping of colleagues. "You're acting just like my wife," someone snipped at me once at a
Sour grapes? As a frequent participant in bridge design competitions worldwide, I do not expect my firm to win them every time. But I do see lessons to be learned from the recent contest to design the world's longest cable-stayed structure: Hong Kong's $384-million Stonecutters Bridge. This type of competition is intended to attract the world's best bridge designers, who often spend many months preparing their entries at great expense. Usually, clients make the process extremely competitive to find the best solutions aesthetically and technically. But are clients doing enough to keep the process fair for all participants? PRIDE. My
Last year, I watched an audience back Eric Horn into a corner. A project director at Webcor Builders, he was speaking in Chicago on e-construction and contracting. At first, his audience listened receptively as he described Web-enabled tools that let constructors collaborate and bid online. But then several attendees asked "to see the money." Stumped, Horn conceded that he could not document the savings. I am not criticizing him. I believe that someone of Horn's caliber to be quite capable of the exercise. My assertion is this: He could not document the savings because there aren't any significant savings yet
As a civil engineer, I get infuriated whenever I see a newspaper story about the proposed tax cut. Why are President Bush and Congress focused on saving taxpayers $1.25 trillion when the impact on the average citizen would be minimal? As a nation, we would gain more if we spent that on our deteriorating infrastructure. Our nation's infrastructure rates a grade of D+, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. ASCE figures we should spend at least $1.3 trillion over the next five years to improve and expand our infrastructure, just to meet our current needs. As commuters, many
The worsening violence in Israel all but guarantees its continued dependence on imported construction labor. The awful consequences provide a lesson for U.S. contractors who employ a low-paid, poorly trained work force. Unlike the US, Israel lacks unionized crafts. History dictated otherwise; Israel formed suddenly in 1948 when the British pulled out of Palestine. The task of building the new country fell to fewer than 1 million inhabitants, including concentration camp survivors, most of whom had never before picked up a hammer or shovel. By trial and error, they acquired construction skills. But after the 1967 Six-Day War and the
Thinking of redecorating your jobsite trailer? How about putting up some wallpaper, like a CPM schedule that no one will notice except as background "stuff?" In this era of lawsuits by contractors with claims for delays and unabsorbed overhead, many facilities owners insist on getting a detailed schedule for critical path management before permitting any construction work to start. But do they demand enough documentation? Oftentimes, a contractor will spend thousands of dollars preparing a baseline CPM schedule, to plan the project before the first shovel hits the ground. And frequently, the contractor will update the schedule monthly to show
An unexpected change in the weather had left a thin layer of frost on our windshield. As we carpooled to a transportation megaproject in Asia where fellow expatriates and I were serving as construction advisors, we talked of the day's upcoming concrete pour. Upon arriving at the site, we immediately found the project manager and quoted to him the bilingual project specifications that described the temperature limits of cold-weather concreting. Smiling courteously, he merely replied, "Yes, I know. I will discuss it with the client." And we knew what that meant: proceed as scheduled. The sector we were working on
Fasten your seatbelts--potholes ahead! Beginning next fiscal year, and as early as July in some places, the value of public infrastructure must be stated in the annual financial statements of state and local governments. The accounting rule--a radical change that some public officials want to ignore or downplay--will put a spotlight on the condition of our nation's infrastructure. It could revolutionize how infrastructure is financed and managed, and may encourage the allocation of more money for infrastructure preservation. For too long, public infrastructure has been built without regard for the long-term costs of operations and maintenance. This is because funding
Few working people accept Karl Marx’s old saw that "productivity" means working longer and harder. Still, much of the construction industry hesitates to endorse important ideas introduced at about the time of Marx’s death. In the 1880s in the U.S., Frederick W. Taylor urged finding ways to work "smarter." More than a century later, the industry remains archaic in many of its practices, with too many construction officials suspicious about the value of measuring productivity on the jobsite. Consider a recent experience of mine: While visiting a powerplant project, I listened to a familiar claim: "We’re giving it 100% and
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