Power Up

This week, I visited one of our projects that covers several acres. It’s not ready for permanent power, but also needs power in a lot of locations. In the past, we’ve run conduit to a stationary board, which works, but has its downfalls. If there is too much load demand, breakers get tripped and the whole job shuts down until the problem can be fixed. There is very little flexibility to relocate easily. As walls go up, locations have to be changed. In short, productivity is lost.

On this project, we’ve brought in temporary power distribution units. Simply put, these units are daisy chained throughout the job, so that we now have multiple temp electrical locations. They are easy to move, with no single source. A few advantages:

• Safety. There are fewer cords, less chance of overload and all plugs are GFI protected.
• Portability. We can easily move the units from space to space to accommodate changing needs.
• Convenience. There are multiple plug in spots for equipment that needs to charge overnight.

While temporary power distribution units are frequently used in industrial construction, we are seeing potential with these system in our commercial mix. Good call by the management on this job.

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Construction Efforts Scale with New Drone Mission Capabilities

Drones are already making a difference at construction sites. Companies are collecting data to monitor progress, optimize job reports and complete many other construction functions by deploying these small, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Find out how they're doing this here. 

12 Steps for Developing and Driving Stronger Business Strategies

Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” The purpose of business planning is to set overall goals for your business and to develop a strategy to achieve them. This includes implementing deducting and balancing approaches, making decisions, setting a destination or direction, and action planning. However, many construction companies have no long-term plan, with some even touting, “We just bid and pray.”

Securing Better Bonding

For contractors, securing bonding is the lifeblood of their businesses, but it comes with challenges that range from having the necessary working capital to demonstrating a track record of success. Find out how to overcome these challenges, ensuring your construction business is in a good position to attract a surety, and, in turn, profitable projects. 

Reach Out

Not too long ago, as I was traveling home on a Friday evening, I found myself at an escalator in the Chicago airport. It was one of those long steep ones that takes you down to travel under the tarmac to the next concourse, and I noticed no one was traveling down. As I approached, I realized the situation. There was an elderly woman with a baby strapped to her back. She was dressed in clothes that clearly placed her from another country and seemed frozen in fear as she looked down that long escalator. She may have never been on escalator before.

If I had faced a similar situation years ago, I might have let someone else help. I have since realized that we all need a hand at times to take leap of faith, or in this case ride down about 100 feet under the airport runway. This time was different. I reached out, held her arm and said, “Let’s go.” While she had no understanding of what I said, I must have established a little trust because we rode down together. On the other end, going back up, she got on with ease, and about half way up looked back at me. I gave her a thumbs up and she smiled. While we spoke different languages, we connected that evening.

Maybe we all could do a bit better job, me included, offering a reassuring hand and a smile as we travel these trails. Who knows? The roles might be reversed one evening.

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5 Things To Consider When Hiring New Talent

Throughout your business life, especially as a chief executive officer (CEO), president or business owner of a company in the construction industry, you will be hiring people to work for you. In fact, you may sometimes observe you are in a constant cycle of hiring people to properly staff and grow your company. There are many factors to think about when hiring, depending on the circumstance and the job position to be filled.

Understanding the Profile of a Fraudster

“I didn’t think fraud would happen to me—I have the best employees,” is a phrase I hear all too often when I meet a new client. Unfortunately, fraud is a real and ever-present threat to business.

Why You Should Have a Plan for Properly Dealing with ICE Inspections

You’ve seen the news coverage—another day, another highly visible immigration raid on a business. All politics aside, there is no denying the federal government is making a big, loud statement that it will continue to come down hard on the companies that flout hiring rules. A very different sort of enforcement action that tends to fly below the radar, but still can be intimidating and costly is an inspection of your hiring records by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Looking Forward in Workforce Development

I recently had the opportunity to listen to Raphael Bostic of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta speak at the Civil Rights Institute. My takeaways from that afternoon were primarily focused on workforce development in current times.

As a business community, there is a need to ensure students have an eye toward the workplace, understanding which opportunities are likely to prevail. Communication with community colleges and technical schools is key, so that relevant skills are being taught, with an eye towards the future.

As local communities, we need to connect. This means economic linkages with things like transportation, but also as strong networks of people who are sharing opportunities and high-quality employment.

As participants in the financial community, we need to lean into our bankers. These professionals have local relationships that can be a real asset in funding individuals who have good ideas and want to spark economic activity and employment growth.

Overall, the key is to figure out what what kind of skills will be needed for the jobs of tomorrow, and set our sites there.

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How to Use IoT to Create Safer & More Lucrative Projects

Construction is a low-margin industry facing a skilled labor shortage and increasingly complex, fragmented projects. While every project is unique, with countless moving parts and diverse physical, environmental or regulatory challenges, that doesn’t mean lessons learned at one site can’t be applied to the next. By failing to capture, unlock and employ insights from one project to the next, owners and contractors miss out on a critical opportunity to make the industry safer, more efficient and, ultimately, more profitable.

July 2018 Construction Industry Stats

Each month, the Construction Business Owner team compiles statistics from several different sources, including the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the United States Census Bureau, to give you a better understanding of the current state of affairs for the construction industry. The statistics featured in each month's print issue are for 3 months prior to the publication of the magazine, based on the data available.

Low-Bid Contractors Don’t Need Marketing...Or Do They?

Do construction contractors that win 100 percent of their business through the low-bid process need marketing? If you are this type of contractor, you will likely insist wholeheartedly that you don’t. After all, as a low-bid construction business owner, your fate lies strictly in the ability of a hard-nosed, creative estimator to bring in new work on bid day. Low-bid contractors often fly below the radar. It’s good to be on the bidder’s list for the agencies you serve, but what are you missing out on more than just those lists?

How U.S. Tariffs on Solar Panel Imports Will Impact the Industry

The new solar panel import tariffs being implemented by the United States are causing some concern for the construction industry, and for good reason. A 30-percent duty on solar panels from overseas will have quite the financial impact on a growing industry in the nation—an industry that was poised to make the next jump in its evolution.

How to Protect Against Contingent Business Risk

Two partners at a building supplies manufacturing company were exactly where they wanted to be. Their firm sold best-in-class building supplies at competitive prices. Profit margins were exactly where they should be. The firm had earned the trust of a dedicated client base. Suppliers had proven themselves to be conscientious and dependable. Key employees had embraced the company mission.