In Japan, space comes at a premium, so it is no surprise that small drills rule the jobsite there. Contractors here are now warming up fast to Japan’s small, torque-heavy impact drivers. Impact guns are not just for mechanics anymore. In Japan, cordless impacts have a staggering 95% share because of ergonomics and available accessories, according to Baltimore-based DeWalt. Convincing workers here that they are tough enough is a challenge: This year, both DeWalt and Milwaukee came out with hardened bits designed for cordless impacts, because their less-expensive, traditional bits snap under the pressure. Photo: DeWalt More trades are warming

Last fall, Manitowoc Inc. was flying high. The 107-year-old fabricator had just wrapped up two years of factory upgrades worth roughly $70 million and was popping out construction cranes for record sales and backlogs worth more than $3 billion. It also had started building its biggest crane ever—the Model 31000—a massive, 2,500-ton rig with a $30-million price tag. Photo: Tudor Van Hampton / ENR The giant crane’s lowerworks are powered by two 600-hp Cummins diesels and stand firm on four trunnion-mounted tracks. Tellock says Manitiwoc may apply its patented designs to other rigs. Related Links: Heavy Lifter: Manitowoc Builds Its

Bernie Maez is frustrated by the lack of alternatives to higher-costing trucks and equipment. “We are always looking for ways to save fuel, but nothing is really working yet,” he says. So instead of buying new, alternative vehicles, the director of fleet maintenance for Denver International Airport hopes to save money and pollute less by retrofitting older ones. Next month, he plans to begin testing a 2002 Chevy Silverado 2500 pickup truck fitted with a hydraulic hybrid kit that weighs just 250 lb. Photo: Lightning Hybrids Inc. Hydraulic Pumps Supply Power for the first 30 mph, a critical range for

Nationwide research is firming up the case for “intelligent” compaction, or IC, a construction method three decades in the making that could save billions of dollars a year in potholed roads, cracked bridges, broken dams and blown-out tires. But as it represents a huge cultural shift in project delivery, the industry is struggling to find a standard way to roll it out. (Photo: Courtesy of Iowa State University.) Researchers test a �smart roller.� (Photo: Iowa State University.) Three rollers face off in a field trial. Such tests across the U.S. are under way, focusing on evaluating the benefits of �intelligent�

Twenty years ago, Chris Traylor found himself rewiring the controls of a 225-ton, American 9310 crawler crane in his family’s equipment shop in Evansville, Ind. “It was important to my dad that all of us worked in the shop during the summers of our high-school years,” he says. Little did he know, he would be rewiring again one day, but on a much bigger scale: Now 37, the co-president of Traylor Bros. Inc. is helping to direct an ambitious fleet overhaul as the family-owned firm ramps up for a heavy workload of major U.S. infrastructure projects. Slide Show Photo: Traylor

...is really about how many rigs we can put on a job, how many crane barges we can put under them and how many deck barges we have to support them,” he says. “It is not a monetary thing to me.” Effective equipment management also is about managing people, he adds, and that nitty-gritty detail work falls to Thad Pirtle, the firm’s vice president of equipment. He came to Traylor in 1983, interestingly, to assemble one of those old model 9310 American crawler cranes like the one Chris helped fix. “I was working out of the union hall in Terre

It may be a cliché that middle-aged engineers, saddled with a midlife crisis and perhaps a divorce, return to their youth for inspiration. But Ford Motor Co.’s Power Stroke designers did just that. They found solace in the Scorpions, the German rock band that sang “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” while Ford battled with a longtime engine supplier. The project’s code word, Scorpion, stuck as the unofficial name of Ford’s new 6.7-liter diesel in its F-Series work trucks. Slide Show Photo: Ford Motor Co. Fully dressed, Scorpion fits inside the existing footprint of the previous, 6.4-liter V-8. The new 6.7-liter

Nationwide research is firming up the case for "intelligent" compaction, a construction method three decades in the making that could save billions of dollars a year in potholed roads, cracked bridges, broken dams and blown-out tires. But as it represents a huge cultural shift in project delivery, the industry is struggling to find a standard way to roll it out. Photo courtesy Iowa State University IC in its simplest form is an onboard measuring device that shows roller operators whether they are overcompacting, undercompacting or right on target in soil, aggregate and asphalt. Related Links: ENR Slideshow David White, a

The number of construction workplace deaths and the industry’s fatality rate declined in 2008, but construction continues to have the most deaths among all industries, according to the U.S. Labor Dept.’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS also confirms what many knew: 2008 had the most crane accidents in years. Slide Show The latest annual BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries, released on Aug. 20, shows construction had 969 fatalities in 2008. It is the largest total among U.S. industries, but the number was down 20% from construction’s 2007 total. One possible factor contributing to the sharp 2008 downturn in fatalities

As equipment manufacturers stare into the second half of 2009 and see 30% to 50% fewer annual sales, a “Cash for Clunkers”-style program for dozers, backhoes and excavators may be just what the economy ordered. Or is it? Suppliers say they have been kicking the idea around internally since C4C started winding down this month. This year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has done little to shore them up: Peoria, Ill.-based Cat alone has shed 34,000 jobs since late last year, it says. Photo: Tudor Van Hampton / ENR Photo: NADA Equipment makers say infrastructure spending under ARRA has been