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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
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
很少有工人接受卡尔·马克思(Karl Marx)的古老,认为“生产力”意味着工作越来越努力。尽管如此,许多建筑行业还是犹豫不决地认可大约在马克思去世时引入的重要思想。在1880年代,弗雷德里克·W·泰勒(Frederick W. Taylor)敦促寻找工作“更聪明”的方法。一个多世纪以后,该行业在其许多实践中仍然是古老的,建筑官员过多地怀疑衡量生产力对工作现场的价值。考虑一下我的最新经验:访问一个动力装置项目时,我听了一个熟悉的说法:“我们给了它100%,并且
Want to take a fast multibillion-dollar ride to a dead end? Taxpayers soon will if the Federal Railroad Administration continues to railroad through plans for the nation's first commercial train operated with magnetic levitation. Seven authorities in six states shared a first-round allocation of $12.2 million in maglev planning awards. Last month in one of its last acts, the Clinton administration promised up to $55 million in second-round funds to both the Pittsburgh and Washington-Baltimore areas to refine plans for a maglev pilot project. Whichever area succeeds may receive another $950 million under the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the
Imagine working under 200 tons of structural steel being hoisted by two cranes. One operator has the skills to safely operate his crane. But the second operator, untrained and unskilled, accidentally drops the load on the 22-ft-high crib pile where you are standing. The first operator struggles to maintain the load, but his boom starts to buckle. You realize you've lost control over whether you will live or die. Major construction failures in recent years have cost many lives and millions of dollars in property damage. Collapses not only killed three friends of mine last July at Miller Park stadium