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Volume 13 Number 05
The construction industry is in a conundrum, of sorts, these days because as more and more companies lose employees, they are not only losing the manpower—but their expertise and experience too.
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Volume 13 Number 04
Contractors can’t afford to be local anymore. This is especially true of those whose livelihood is involved in heavy construction fields such as roads, bridges, dams, and other infrastructure work. You go where the (often stimulus-funded) work is. And some of that work is way out “in the boonies.”
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Volume 13 Number 03
In just about eight years, Webcor Builders, www.webcor.com, San Mateo, Calif., has put together an entire sustainability program, and the results are significant. In 2008, its LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design) work was 85% of its construction volume. In 2009, it anticipates it was more than 95%. And in 2010, it plans to have all of its projects LEED certified.
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Volume 13 Number 02
Throughout the construction industry, 2009 was a watershed, a year in which the housing collapse of 2007-2008 started to turnaround. Not enough, of course, to make it a good year; certainly not early enough to make a difference in some regions. But as the year ended, housing starts were up, the market was starting to move in a positive direction, and many company executives were starting to breathe again—shallow breathing perhaps, but signs of respiration none the less.
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Volume 13 Number 01
Looking back at 2009, one could consider it to be a year of change—or more accurately, a year in which some key societal, political, and environmental factors were put in place that will drive a significant amount of change in the years to come.
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Volume 12 Number 12
Your equipment is no longer just a piece of equipment. It can shut itself down after two minutes of idling and can limit your drivers to a certain speed. Your equipment can even alert you when it is leaving the jobsite and help you perform some of the more time-intensive surveying tasks.
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Volume 12 Number 11
These days it’s hard not to get buried beneath the details on a construction job. Whether it’s a scenario of not having access to the right information at the right time or the complete opposite circumstance of becoming bogged down by all the diminutive data that circulates throughout a typical job, companies are struggling with an inability to manage content.
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Volume 12 Number 10
Lennar Homes, www.lennar.com, Miami, Fla., typically tweets between five to 20 times a day, providing nearly 50,000 followers with information about its communities, housing news, and contests, as well as other topics that relate to its prospective clients and existing homeowners.
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Volume 12 Number 09
The moment one of your technology providers notifies you via email that they will no longer be supporting your product is the moment you realize this is a much different business environment than you have ever experienced.
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Volume 12 Number 08
Putting RFID (radio frequency identification) tags and readers into concrete, piping, tools, or vehicles to track where the item is in the construction process may seem a bit advanced, but the truth is the construction industry is using these “smart chips” for practical purposes.
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Volume 12 Number 06
Whatever it takes to get the job done. This policy has become practice for many construction companies to do business. While this business tactic can be considered highly commendable, and often times necessary to ensure customer satisfaction, it also leads to jobs being not as profitable as originally thought. And for an industry in which margins remain compressed, ‘whatever it takes’ might actually be doing more harm than good.
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Volume 12 Number 05
What is it about a recession that makes collaboration look so appealing? That’s not to say that collaboration is looked at negatively during strong market conditions; it’s just the fact that when the economy is strong and jobs are moving forward, it’s difficult for many AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) professionals to make certain technological transitions that are necessary to streamline the collaborative process.
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