Use Another Brush ENR's editorial, "The Insurance crisis May Have a Cleansing Effect," paints construction wrap-ups with a dirty brush in an insurance marketplace where these programs should be accepted as a fresh new coat of protection (ENR 2/4 p. 48.) Your statement that "there is no incentive for subs to work safe" is incorrect. All contractors enrolled into a wrap-up provide their federal identification number as part of their policy application process. Contractors' loss experience on a wrap-up is recorded under their FEID number, which factors into their EMR and ultimately affects the premiums they will pay in the
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
A Different Look I just read your article on the engineers who face hazards every day at Ground Zero (ENR 12/24/01 p. 27). It's a great piece. It gave me a small taste of what it must be like to be working at the site. After reading so much about what emergency workers are going through, I needed a reminder of how many other people are stepping up to the plate as well. Major news outlet coverage seems to have dwindled to a predictable cycle of the same four or five stories. Not being in New York, I've wondered if
As we learned from last year's Washington Group-Raytheon fiasco, accounting is an interpretive art, professional ethics are pliable and things aren't always as they seem. Bankruptcies are messy affairs where behind-the-scenes haggling and hardball practices produce plenty of winners and losers. The Enron scandal is a much bigger mess than either of Washington Group's bankruptcies or the IT Group's recent request for protection from its creditors. The Enron bankruptcy undermines confidence in our institutions at a time of war and economic peril, liquidates the retirement nest eggs of many former employees and knocks a hole in power development plans. Enron
There is nothing sexy about building codes. But codes are critical to the safety of structures and those who occupy them. So when the International Code Council announced the availability of its new performance code for buildings earlier this month, it was news of critical importance to the industry (ENR 1/21 p. 13). No less important will be the voting by the National Fire Protection Association, with its different but well-respected "consensus" process that encourages greater input from building product manufacturers, on a competing version in May. Unfortunately, frustrated bystanders such as the Building Owners and Managers Association International regard
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
Like alcoholics who have announced that they are going on the wagon, the World Bank couldn't resist sneaking one last nip of top-down dambuilding, while promising not to do it again. As a result, the upper Nile River will never be the same again, thanks to the 200-Mw Bujagali Dam in Uganda. In spring 1997, the World Bank and its frequent enemy, World Conservation Network, joined hands in an attempt to find a way through the conflict that has halted dam construction in many developed countries and has made it a hated symbol of technological imperialism in developing lands. They
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