Effective Weather Protection Solutions In Construction

Weather protection solutions are becoming increasing necessary in today’s business needs. These structures are necessary for protecting people and equipments from different climatic conditions. These portable buildings have variety of applications in the construction industry. These shelters provide temporary storage area, work as a site for equipment servicing and repair work, and for storing construction materials dry. Different sizes provide different utilities which makes them ideal for construction sites.

These temporary shelters can be used for a cement cover base, equipment repaid facility and work area for laborers. This allows bringing outdoor work inside. The demand of these temporary shelters is increasing every day and its popularity can be estimated from the fact that even US military uses it for many applications like equipment and vehicle maintenance centers. Some of these temporary fabric shelters are as simple as a rolling canopy spread over a boat or a truck. These shelters are an energy efficient solution for temporary storage at construction sites and the best part is that these structures are absolutely green conscious

These are effective weather protection solutions for construction sites because it fulfils the one of the most important needs of construction business – These shelters are able to keep Construction, concrete and aggregate products dry on the jobsite. Another advantage is that these shelters are made up of translucent materials which provide sufficient natural light to work inside – thus saving energy. These eco friendly shelters provide weather protection for rebar forming and fabrication.

Construction shelter manufacturers excel at providing coverage for on-site construction supplies, which eliminates the risk of water damage. These shelters are low cost, take few days to build and they can be moved within a project and from one site to another to maximize their use. A custom designed fabric shelter can be designed for the majority of construction business needs.

Panama Canal Construction Creates Jobs

International construction is on the rise in 2013. From Western Europe to Eastern Asia, there are abundant construction job opportunities as companies and governments look to expand and repair commercial property and infrastructure. One of the most notable construction development projects is taking place in Panama, specifically the expansion of the Panama Canal.

Located between Central America and South America, Panamas economy is currently flourishing due to the amount of attention on development in major cities. Since the Panama Canal plays an essential role in exporting and importing goods internationally, a project of this magnitude presents US construction workers with the opportunity to travel and work abroad where diverse construction jobs are plentiful.

Though the Panama Canal expansion started in 2007, experts believe it will not be complete until 2014 or 2015. Over 7,000 jobs are still readily available for construction workers of all types. There are job opportunities for engineers, electricians, people with experience operating heavy machinery and more.

Some construction workers from the US may be hesitant to pursue an overseas job opportunity. However, the ends far outweigh the means if you choose to explore opportunities outside of the States. Because this expansion will expedite globalized importing and exporting, you would be pursuing a construction job opportunity that could significantly affect our suffering global economy.

In addition, overseas construction projects are a great opportunity to gain remarkable experience and become a more distinguished and eligible candidate when you arrive back home. By pursuing an overseas construction job, you will be able to display to colleagues and employers alike that you can work with a diverse array of people and adapt to unfamiliar circumstances.

Whenever you are considering jobs in construction, you dont want to limit yourself by waiting for local opportunities to arise when there is no sign of development in sight. The greatest aspect about being a construction worker is that your skills are cross-cultural. The skills you have already honed at home will translate to overseas construction opportunities.

ConstructionConnection.com, the online networking and job-matching site, connects members with job opportunities domestically and internationally. With a massive network of over 50,000 registered individuals and construction companies, the Construction Connection community shares a common goal toward finding more opportunities in their industry. While individuals gain access to jobs and resources, companies gain access to a wide pool of well-qualified professionals of all levels. Companies also increase their Internet presence and visibility by joining the Construction Connection network, which may lead to more construction projects. By broadening your scope for opportunities, you will be able to find work quicker than ever.

Construction Connection was created out of a need for a more effective and streamlined way for construction industry professionals to get matched with the right industry jobs and with the right industry opportunities. The partners of Construction Connection, both construction industry professionals themselves, listened to both company and individuals dissatisfaction with the traditional job boards, the paid resume blasts, the overpriced resume services and overall lack of sympathy toward the individual candidate. They listened to the dissatisfaction from companies who post jobs only to get many irrelevant results or having to purchase high priced ads to showcase their company. Construction Connection is a patent-pending, one-of-a-kind profile creating / match-making system. The system delivers effective results. Construction Connection saves you time, money and aggravation by matching people to people, people to companies, companies to people, and company to company.

The Role Of Construction Lawyer

The recent problems in the construction industry of Chicago have resulted in many abandoned as well as canceled projects. The current economic situation is responsible for these problems to a great extent. But there are other factors involved in such problems. Therefore the demand of construction lawyer in Chicago has become greater today than ever before.

A construction lawyer is liable for all the legal issues that may arise from a construction project. Most contractors prefer to have a construction attorney on their side right from the planning stage to the end of a construction work. Having an experienced attorney on your side ensures that he will handle all the disputes arising during or after the completion of the project.

Chicago construction attorneys may work on a variety of building projects. It can be a commercial project or a residential project. The attorneys take every possible means to protect the interests of their clients. They also negotiate with third parties on behalf of their clients and also carry out their diligence.

The construction lawyers cover a wide area. Some of the areas which they deal with are as follows.

Finances:

A construction lawyer is supposed to advise the construction firms on how their projects should be funded on various stages. When a lawyer works with a construction firm on a regular basis he will know the relationship the construction firm and its lenders share. This is an added advantage of having a construction lawyer. The objective of the attorney is to minimize the fees that the firm pays the advisers. It is also the solicitors duty to ensure a smooth transaction.

Legislation:

It is necessary for a construction firm to have a construction lawyer who can guide the firm on how to implement the relevant legislation in all stages starting from the planning to the execution of the construction project. With proper guidance there will be less chance of any pitfalls.

If your company works for public sector you should hire an attorney who has knowledge of US construction law. It is even better if you can hire a local attorney because he will be aware of the local law and all the recent updates. Since construction law in Chicago is quite complicated hiring a Chicago construction lawyer will be a wise decision.

Risk Management:

Risk management is one of the major services offered by construction solicitors. It ensures that the construction firm is protected against all kinds of risk that their projects may face. The lawyer makes sure that the projects undertaken by the firm runs maintaining the health and safety regulations of Chicago. The attorney also takes care of the fact that the project doesnt get affected by any financial and regulatory risk.

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Prefabrication And Modularity In Bim Construction

As Building Information Modeling continues its march through the AEC industry, its effects and advantages for construction management are coming more into the spotlight. BIM construction is a fundamentally different animal than past practices. In terms of the relationship between the owner, designer and builder, in how construction is actually accomplished, and in terms of the bottom-line, BIM construction is changing in subtle and radical ways how a project is executed. Construction managers are now included in the design process, prefabrication is increasingly used and build times, change orders and site logistics are all positively affected by BIM construction.

The construction industry has lagged far behind most other industries in leveraging modern technology for productivity gains.One of the most glaring facts about the construction industry as a whole is encapsulated by the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Labor Statistics finding that the construction industry has had continual losses in productivity since 1964, in stark contrast to all other non-farm labor, which has almost doubled productivity in the same 40 years.

One of the prime reasons for declining labor productivity in the construction industry has to do with the traditional process by which a project is conceived and delivered. The design-bid-build paradigm is a fragmented process, where the owner contracts with separate professionals for the design and construction of the project, and each phase follows the previous one. Any collaborative involvement between the design professionals and the construction professionals is highly limited, leading to change orders, errors and other issues when the best-made plans are confronted with construction site reality.

BIM construction provides the necessary platform and processes for reversing this trend. The National Research Council of the National Academies identified BIM construction enabled prefabrication and modularity as important components to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the US construction industry in a 2009 report. As 3D modeling and parametric design make constructability part and parcel of the design process, construction managers are increasingly brought in early in the projects design phase, to evaluate the practicality of a design. This involvement has driven what some call the oldest new idea in construction. Prefabrication, and modularity, bring to bear in the construction industry practices that Henry Ford discovered well over a hundred years ago. Fundamental to this is the decoupling of manufacture from assembly. Instead of costly, time-consuming onsite fabrication and fitting of parts, prefabrication in a controlled environment allows for a reduction in labor, faster completion times, less waste and change orders. This is particularly true in the finish and detail portions of a building, as well as the skin and faade systems.Modular components are then brought to the site for efficient assembly. This is neither new nor particularly foreign to the construction industry.

One of the earliest examples of modern prefabricated construction was the magnificent Crystal Palace in London, built for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Made of cast-iron and glass, the Palace was longer than Versailles and higher than Westminster Abbey. The building was completed in less than 200 days, from conception to occupation. 3300 iron columns, 2150 iron girders, 250 miles of sash bar, 293,635 panes of glass. The crucial detail is that these all conform to a basic 24 foot module, allowing the manufacture to be contracted to several foundries and glass factories. The entire structure was dismantled in 1852 and moved to another site, reassembled and stood until fire destroyed it in 1936.
The Hilton Palacio del Rio in San Antonio was designed, built and occupied for the Texas World Expo in 202 working days! A 500 room deluxe hotel, still in use today, had each room factory built and placed by crane in 46 days.

Most recently, in Lin Gang Industrial Zone in Xiangyin County, a 17,000 square meter hotel known as T30 was completed in an astonishing 15 days! Over 350 rooms with restaurant, gym, swimming pool and underground parking, 93% of the building was pieced together onsite with premade assemblies. Earthquake resistant up to magnitude 9, the building boasts quadruple-paned windows, external solar shading, LED lighting and an innovative air filtration system.
One of the main challenges in prefabrication in BIM construction is the necessity for working with tight tolerances from the start of the design process. This is aided by 3D modeling, as BIM construction brings the trades in early in process, driving a new design philosophy. Instead of onsite builders building to the design, designers now design to the module specifications, achieving substantial savings and compressing construction schedules.

Another stumbling block is what is known as multitrade prefabrication. Common in Europe, but almost unknown in the US, this involves the creation of modular units with duct work, gas mains, hot water supply, electrical conduits and communication pathways built-in. Independent prefab firms in Europe have developed BIM construction software for these horizontal systems that convert the model into a bill of materials on a module by module basis. The need for multi-trade coordination in the design of these modules is obviously necessary.

Another challenge is the task of lifting and manipulating these large modular units on the work site. With stick-built construction, only raw materials are handled by individuals or well-developed machinery systems. New systems and logistics will now need to be devised to transport, store and place the multi-ton, large-dimension assemblies that are a result of BIM construction prefabrication.
On the flip side, the advantages of modern prefabrication and modularization in BIM construction are overwhelming. So much so that the McGraw-Hill SmartMarket Report: Prefabrication and Modularization: Increasing Productivity in the Construction Industry reports that their survey shows that 98% of all architects, engineers and contractors expect to be using prefabrication and modularization to some extent in the projects. Healthcare facilities (49%), hotels and motels (11%), commercial warehouses (11%) lead the way in using BIM construction driven prefabrication. The building elements most conducive to prefabrication and modularization are building superstructure (27%), MEP systems (21%) and exterior walls (20%).

The reasons listed in this report for using prefab and modular systems include: improved project schedules, reduced costs and budgets, site safety improvements and green building/waste reduction.
The ability of modern prefabrication to provide a spectrum of customization possibilities is an important part of the new surge in acceptance of BIM construction modularization. The maturation of the manufacturing industry now provides sophisticated understanding and processes of the customization spectrum which can translate to the burgeoning sector of BIM construction prefabrication.

The terms made to stock (MTS), assembled to stock (ATS), made to order (MTO), and engineered to order (ETO) are used in manufacturing to define the extent to which a product is customized. This is generally considered proportional to the cost and lead time necessary for production.
This allows owners to achieve both a uniquity of design along with the savings of prefabrication. No longer does modular and prefab mean drab and boring. In the modern era one no longer needs to sacrifice aesthetics for the efficiencies of factory production.
BIM construction, in and of itself provides many benefits to the AEC industry. But its ability to lay the groundwork, along with IPD and new contractual landscapes, for modern prefabrication and modularization, heralds an almost revolutionary change in commercial building.

For more information about BIM construction visit ODonnell & Naccarato BIM:
Dennis Mordan ([emailprotected])
Jon Brazier ([emailprotected])
877-854-9783
www.o-n.com

What You Should Know About Theft of Construction Equipment

People often think that it’s basically impossible for construction equipment to be stolen, since it would be pretty noticeable if someone started driving a crane down the street. But, many construction equipment thefts are easy to conduct for quite a few different reasons. It’s actually really easy to get away with, and has become commonplace in countries such as the US, Canada, Japan and Europe. People should, therefore, be made aware of such thefts going on in their areas.

Because construction equipment doesn’t come with doors or locks, they are easy for burglars to break into. Thieves feel that hi-jacking construction vehicles is a piece of cake compared to most other types of vehicles. And people won’t be able to tell if the equipment being driven is being operated by a thief or construction worker. Most people wouldn’t recognize a piece of construction equipment if it was camouflaged somehow.

Thieves find it beneficial to steal this kind of equipment because it can command a high price on the black market. Forklifts alone can fetch a price of $12,000 to $50,000, and thieves could sell a generator for $150,00 a pop. Because constructions sites often have lots of these kinds of equipment, it’s easy money for clever thieves. Criminals are very fond of stealing construction vehicles for these reasons, not to mention the fact that most construction sites are unsecured and the vehicles are left out in the open with no protection.

The problem has become too severe to be ignored any longer. According to statisticians in Japan, roughly 450 pieces of construction equipment was stolen in 2008 alone. While in the united states, the National Insurance Crime Bureau found that nearly a billion dollars in construction equipment is stolen and sold each year on the black market.

To date, numerous government agencies and manufacturers of construction equipment have tried their best to prevent this theft from continuing. In the UK, construction equipment registration systems make it easier for the police and the companies who own the equipment to recover their stolen goods.