Article Portfolio SelectionsGroup 1

Construction Projects, Programs, Policies, and TrendsCoastal Restoration, Protection Projects Help Reduce Disaster Losses

(01/2017)New Standards, Research Address Mitigation of Natural Disaster Damage

(10/2016)Innovative Construction Technologies Require Tempering with Experience

(07/2016)Evolving Construction Technologies Offer an Array of Functions, Options

(04/2016)Women,Minorities Remain at Forefront of Current Labor Recruitment Efforts

(04/2015)Construction Industry Reaping Major Dividends from Investment in BIM

(01/2015)Matters of Ethics Remain a Continuing Challenge for Construction Industry

(01/2014)Improving Construction Inspection Advances Overall Project Quality

(10/2013)Researchers Continue Pursuit of Construction Technology Innovations

(04/2013)The Dynamic Paradigm of Construction Quality Management

(10/2012)Cleanroom Construction Projects Offer Unique Engineering Challenges

(07/2012)Constructing for Fire Safety Remains a Major Focus for Research

(10/2011)Integrated Project Delivery Sets New Construction Team Objectives

(11/2010)

Survey Finds Security Issues Taking Forefront in Hiring of Executives(09/2003)

Automated Garage Parking System Premieres in Hoboken, New Jersey(07/2003)

Construction of UPS Worldport Facility Raises Bar on Project Cooperation(06/2003)

Arizona Finally Moves Forward on Delayed Football Stadium Project(06/2003)

Historic Preservation Offers Inviting Challenges for Construction Industry(03/2003)

Engineers Release Preliminary Findings On Trade Center’s Structural Collapse(07/2002)

High-Tech Engineering Tools Find Their Way to the Construction Site(01/2002)

Rebuilding of Tall, Futuristic Structures Draws Mixed Reviews Among Experts(12/2001)

Bengals Stadium Project Scores High in Construction Project Safety(02/2001)

Use of BIM Creating New Paradigm in Construction Project Delivery(07/2010)

Skilled Labor Shortages Still Problematic for General Construction Industry(03/2010)

Shortfalls in Cement Supplies Draw Much Concern in Construction Industry(10/2005)

Industry Consortium Issues Challenge for Construction Productivity Measures(07/2005)

CMAA Study Confronts Issue of What a Construction Manager Does(06/2005)

Crom Corporation Takes Construction of Elevated Tanks to New Heights(07/2004)

Artificial Islands: No Ordinary Challenge in Waterway Projects(12/2000)

Mt. Rushmore: A Technically Skilled, Creative Release for a Restless Soul(10/1997)

Coastal Restoration, ProtectionProjects Help Reduce Disaster Losses

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

LAST year’s flooding and storm-bat-tering of several Southern and East-ern seaboard states serves as a re-minder of how fragile coastal and rivershoreline ecosystems can be duringextreme weather conditions. Naturaldisasters, though, can also serve as vi-able proving grounds for the construc-tion challenges of shoreline restora-tion and erosion mitigation.

At $17 billion, the total flood loss in2016 was six times greater than the over-all flood damage experienced in 2015,according to CoreLogic, Inc., propertyinformation analysts based in Irvine, Ca-lif. Five major events in 2016 shared thebulk of that devastation: the Louisianaflood in August; Hurricane Matthew inOctober; the Sabine River Basin floodin East Texas and Louisiana in March;the Houston flood in April; and WestVirginia’s flash and riverine flooding inJune.

CoreLogic further states that overallhurricane activity in the Atlantic coastalregion was slightly higher than averagein 2016, with 15 named storms, includ-ing eight tropical storms and seven hur-ricanes. Three of the latter were majorhurricanes identified as Category 3 orgreater.

ConstructionDive.com notes that theresidential construction market has con-tinually researched and developed meth-ods to mitigate the impact of severeweather and natural disasters. For in-stance in December, researchers at theMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyConcrete Sustainability Hub showcasedan estimating tool for developers thathelps in determining initial investmentswhen designing structures to be more

resilient and to lower the risk of futurenatural disaster damage. Another mea-sure aimed at reducing the risk ofweather-related damage includes a planannounced last summer by the U.S. Fed-eral Emergency Management Agency. Itproposes that most federally fundedconstruction projects be constructedtwo feet above a 100-year floodplain inthe wake of flooding damage from hur-ricanes Katrina and Sandy in 2005 and2012, respectively.

In a regional resource report issuedby the Southern Legislative Conferenceof the Council of State Governments,SLC policy analyst Anne Roberts pointsout that since the throes of HurricaneKatrina, much attention has focused onthe rehabilitation of the area’s homes,businesses, and infrastructure, but lessattention has been directed toward thereconstruction of the coastlines of Ala-bama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

“In order to maintain a sustainable GulfCoast, investments in sound redevelop-ment and restoration practices, balanc-ing the critical natural resources of theGulf Coast with the equally vital eco-nomic drivers in the region, are criticalto full recovery and necessary to weak-ening future natural disasters,” she con-tends. The report, SLC State Efforts toRebuild the Coastline, highlights recentprojects undertaken by southern statesto rebuild their coastlines, specificallythe communities of Dauphin Island, Ala-bama; Pascagoula, Mississippi; and themetropolitan area of New Orleans.

Roberts says that although leveesand structural protections are impor-tant components of mitigating damagefrom hurricanes and floods, they aremost effective when coupled withnatural forms of mitigation. In thewake of Hurricane Katrina, many

coastal communities have turned tocoastal and wetland restoration as anadditional mitigation measure, sheadds.

“Though Alabama, Mississippi, andLouisiana are Gulf Coast neighbors withsimilar resources, they have prioritizeddifferent forms of economic develop-ment and have divergent hurricane miti-gation approaches,” Roberts explains.Louisiana and, specifically, the NewOrleans metropolitan area, has long re-lied on a series of levees for protectionfrom river- and hurricane-related floods,she says, whereas Alabama and Missis-sippi have emphasized structural pro-tection, such as seawalls and elevatedbuildings, that do not impede ocean-front access.

For example, in Alabama, buildingcodes require beachfront structures tobe built high on pilings. Hurricane miti-gation trends also include installing hardstructures, such as bulkheads, seawalls,or “rip-rap” on the shoreline to protectwaterfront property from erosion andstorm surge. Rip-rap is simply a foun-dation or sustaining wall of stones orchunks of concrete amassed withoutorder. In Mississippi, Roberts notes, ex-periences with storms prior to Hurri-cane Katrina have resulted in modifica-tions to building codes and land usespecifications, including the early cre-ation of a 26-mile, 10-foot-high seawalldesigned to act as a storm barrier.

Spearheading restoration and pro-tection projects in Louisiana is theCoastal Protection and RestorationAuthority, which has identified spe-cific projects that address the rootcauses of land loss. Since 2007, thestate has increased its financial com-mitment to the coastline, yielding sub-stantial progress. CPRA has built or

improved about 250 miles of levees— benefitting more than 25,700 acresof coastal habitat — and secured $18billion in state and federal funding forprotection and restoration projects.Also noteworthy, the agency hasmoved more than 150 projects intodesign and construction, constructedprojects in 20 parishes, and construct-ed 45 miles of barrier islands andberms.

CPRA’s targeted projects encom-pass bank stabilization, barrier island/headland restoration, channel realign-ment, waterway diversions, hydrologicrestoration, marsh creation, oysterbarrier reefs, ridge restoration, andshoreline protection. The latter com-prises near-shore rock breakwaters toreduce wave energies on shorelines inopen bays, lakes, sounds, and bayous,in addition to project work on navi-

gation channels. CPRA’s protectionprojects utilize concrete walls, earthenlevees (both linear and circular in de-sign), floodgates, and pumps for en-closed-risk reduction systems.

The agency also addresses structuralresiliency as an essential part of coastalrestoration and protection, focusing pri-marily on the options of elevation andflood-proofing. The elevation optioninvolves raising residential structures sothat their lowest floors are higher thanprojected flood depths, ranging fromthree feet to 14 feet. The other optionrefits structures so they can be resistantto flood damages; commercial flood-proofing has been considered for areaswith projected flood depths of three feetor less.

NOLA.com and The Times-Picayunereport that Louisiana could spend $663million on coastal restoration and levee

projects in fiscal year 2018, with 56percent of the money used for construc-tion, according to a draft annual planunder consideration by CPRA. The pro-posal would also create 800 squaremiles of additional coastal wetlands overa 50-year period. CPRA’s annual planacts as the budget for the state’s masterplan for coastal restoration and hurri-cane storm surge protection, both ofwhich will be subject to public hearingsacross Louisiana.

January 2017

New Standards, Research AddressMitigation of Natural Disaster Damage

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

IN the aftermath of natural disasterssuch as hurricanes, earthquakes, andfloods, construction professionalsare often called upon to assess prop-erty damage and assist with initial re-covery operations. While these im-mediate tasks do serve a greater goodtoward public health and safety, theongoing advancements made in con-struction research, methodology, andtechniques aimed at mitigating or re-ducing extensive damage from natu-ral disasters should not be overlooked,either.

For instance, national safety stan-dards were recently announced by theAmerican Society of Civil Engineers(ASCE 7-16) that address for the firsttime in the United States the structuralrisks posed by tsunamis. Developed byASCE, this latest edition of the stan-dards is in addition to chapters relat-ing to seismic, wind, and flood haz-ards. However, they apply only tosteel-reinforced concrete buildings in“inundation zones,” not wood-framestructures.

The ASCE 7-16 standards are in ef-fect for six years and will become partof the International Building Code. In-dividual states, though, have the optionin deciding whether to adopt newcodes in their entirety, partially in amodified format, or not at all.

The new standards were based inpart on research from Oregon StateUniversity’s O. H. Hinsdale Wave Re-search Laboratory, according to DanCox, Ph.D., a professor of civil andconstruction engineering at OSU andone of about 20 engineers on theASCE subcommittee that developed

ASCE 7-16. The committee began itswork in late 2010, a few months be-fore the March 2011 earthquake andtsunami that devastated Japan.

The large wave flume at the Hinsdalelab played a major role in producingthe data used in developing the tsunamistandards. “One of the big projects wasdebris,” Cox notes. “What force doesdebris have, and how can you build acolumn to keep a building in place ifdebris were to strike it? Now we haveequations to use to size that columnto withstand a large piece of debris,like a shipping container.”

Already underway on the new stan-dards, Cox and other subcommitteemembers went to Japan after the 2011tragedy to study what had worked andwhat didn’t. “We got enough informa-tion to estimate hydraulic forces andunderstand damage patterns, and weused this to validate what we were do-ing,” Cox explains. “It was indepen-dent, real-world experience to checkon whether our approach was valid.These standards are built on lab work,field observation, and engineeringpractice. We used all of the toolsavailable to come up with these stan-dards.”

Cox points out that the tsunami stan-dards will have the most impact onengineers designing and buildingstructures five stories high or less.Above five stories, even-stronger build-ing codes will take precedence overcodes to protect smaller structuresfrom tsunamis. Although there wouldbe some added expense to the cost ofa two- or three-story building, the ad-ditional amount would be compara-tively small.

“The structural cost of a building isless than 10 percent,” Cox adds. “It

will be more expensive, but it doesn’ttriple the cost. When you make abuilding twice as strong, it doesn’t costtwice as much.”

Another construction field gainingattention is the use of alternative ma-terials in seismic hazard design. In lieuof using specially detailed reinforcedsteel, is it possible to build a struc-ture in less time and at lower cost, yetstill exhibit the same required defor-mation capacity? According to theAmerican Concrete Institute (ACI),researchers at the University of Mich-igan and the University of Wisconsin-Madison believe such a possibilityexists and are examining the use offiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) inearthquake-resistant construction.

FRC refers to concrete that hasshort fibers mixed evenly throughoutthe material. The research team used1.2 inch-long steel fibers with a di-ameter of 0.02 inches made out of ahigh-strength steel wire. The fiberswere mixed into the fresh concretebefore it was poured into the form-work. The short fibers are randomlydisbursed throughout the mixture, act-ing like distributed reinforcementwhich holds the concrete togetherupon cracking.

The research team focused its studyon the use of FRC in walls and cou-pling beams. Tests were conducted onlarge-scale models to evaluate the per-formance of walls constructed in amanner consistent with current prac-tice using reinforced steel versuswalls constructed with FRC. The mod-els were built to about one-third offull-scale and then subjected to revers-ing lateral displacements to simulateearthquake loading. The test resultsshowed that when walls and coupling

beams are constructed with FRC, re-inforcing steel can be reduced sig-nificantly in the walls and couplingbeams (by up to 40 percent in cou-pling beams) without compromisingbehavior. The FRC members had thesame or better deformation capacityand showed less damage after testingthan the members constructed with-out FRC.

ACI cites the plausibility for futureuse of FRC, contending that its de-ployment will allow for the use of lessand simpler steel reinforcement, whilemaintaining good structural behaviorand potentially reducing the amount ofpost-earthquake repair. Such resultsshould lead to a less-expensive wayto construct safe buildings with re-duced life-cycle costs for the owner,ACI adds.

On a related front across the Pacificin Singapore, engineers and scientistsfrom the JTC Industrial Infrastructure

Innovation Centre at Nanyang Techno-logical University have invented a newtype of concrete called ConFlexPave.The material is bendable, yet strongerand longer lasting than regular con-crete, which is heavy and brittle bynature and can break under tension.

The innovation is targeting the for-mation of slim precast pavement slabsfor quick installation, reducing by halfthe time needed for repairing road-works and placing new pavements.ConFlexPave, which is also touted asbeing more sustainable and requiringless maintenance, will undergo fur-ther scaled-up testing during the nextthree years.

As explained by the research cen-ter, the typical concrete mixture re-sults in a hard and strong material, butit does not yield or promote flexibil-ity, in essence making it more brittleand prone to cracks if too much weightis applied. ConFlexPave, on the other

hand, is specifically engineered tohave certain types of hard elementsmixed with polymer microfibers. Theinclusion of these special synthetic fi-bers, aside from allowing the concreteto flex and bend under tension, alsoenhances skid resistance.

Concrete is also the subject of cur-rent research at the Massachusetts In-stitute of Technology, aimed at find-ing a new formula for concrete or vi-able alternatives to Portland cement,the primary binding ingredient of con-crete. As their mission, researchersare looking into the biological com-position of natural materials such asbones, shells, and deep-sea sponges asa sustainable blueprint.

October 2016

Innovative Construction TechnologiesRequire Tempering With ExperienceBy Steven J. Storts

Dublin, OhioAS INVITING as construction in-novations may be, there are always po-tential issues or possible tradeoffswith the advent of newer technologies.For instance, one of the most fre-quently cited criticisms of innovativetechnologies is the displacement ofemployees or workers. While thisperception pervades almost all U.S. in-dustries to some degree, the construc-tion industry can sometimes find it-self in a public relations conundrum.

For more than a decade due to ashortage of skilled labor, there havebeen ongoing promotional campaignsin radio and television media, highschools, vocational schools, commu-nity colleges, and some four-year uni-versities touting the benefits of em-ployment and careers in construction.

Equally publicized, both print andelectronic media continually report onthe numerous advances being made inthe construction industry through com-puterization, robotics, drones, and in-telligent transportation equipment toincrease productivity and safety byeliminating some of the human ele-ment — occasionally prone to per-sonal injury and errors in judgment.The result can sometimes be a mixed,confusing message to a younger audi-ence seeking job security.

For many businesses and profes-sions, though, the line is already blur-red between job creation and techno-logical advancements, exhibiting aparadoxical trend. In fact, two manage-ment academics from the Massachu-setts Institute of Technology, ErikBrynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee,opine that technology is behind both

the healthy growth in productivity andthe weak growth in jobs. “It’s a star-tling assertion because it threatens thefaith that many economists place intechnological progress,” says the MITTechnology Review in an online re-port.

The Review further points out thatBrynjolfsson and McAfee still believethat technology boosts productivityand makes societies wealthier, but theythink it can also have a dark side,namely, that technological progress iseliminating the need for many typesof jobs and leaving the typical workerworse off than before.

During their research into the ex-tent and speed of recent digital ad-vances, Brynjolfsson and McAfeelearned that the same technologiesmaking many jobs safer, easier, andmore productive were also reducingthe demand for many types of humanworkers, the Review reports.

“It’s the great paradox of our era,”says Bryn-jolfsson. “Productivity is atrecord levels, innovation has neverbeen faster, and yet at the same time,we have a falling median income andwe have fewer jobs. People are fall-ing behind because technology is ad-vancing so fast and our skills and or-ganizations aren’t keeping up.” Thereinrests one of the major challenges —implementing new technology.

For any innovation to succeed, ac-cording to the Harvard Business Re-view, an implementation team mustinclude the following: a sponsor, usu-ally a fairly high-level person who en-sures the project receives financialand manpower resources and who iswise about the politics of the organi-zation; a champion, who is salesper-son, diplomat, and problem-solver for

the innovation; a project manager, whooversees administrative details; and anintegrator, who manages conflictingpriorities and molds the group throughcommunication skills. Because theseare roles, not people, more than oneperson can fulfill a given function, andone individual can take on more than asingle role.

Also, as the deskilling potential fornew computerized technologies in-creases, the Review notes that unionsare pursuing the retraining of theirmembers for whom automation wouldotherwise displace. “Many companiesare upgrading the status of their work-ers who are forced to trade hard-earned manual skills for the oftendreary routine of button pushing,” theReview adds. “Although the problemis far from being resolved, it has atleast merited recognition.”

On a different front, the Construc-tion Financial Management Associa-tion contends that while the engineer-ing and construction fields unques-tionably boast some of the most in-dustrious, innovative, and creative pro-fessionals nationwide, there is still alack of technological innovation inconstruction methods.

“After all, the basic inputs to theconstruction process — wood, stone,steel, and craftsmanship — have ex-isted for centuries and will likely re-main consistent for some time,” saysCFMA. “However, it is clear that con-struction tools and technology arechanging dramatically. Broadbandmobile communication and handheldprocessing power are radically alter-ing the way general contractors deliverprojects.”

Technology adoption in the field isinarguably altering the expectations of

services that contractors provide toowners, CFMA notes, adding that thesheer efficiency with which informa-tion can be shared and processed de-mands that businesses change. How-ever, for construction market partici-pants and the financial managers wholead them, “there is not as much em-phasis on finding the next best tech-nology” as the more important issues“relate to the culture and structure ofan organization and its flexibility toincorporate technology that ulti-mately improves the value proposi-tion for customers,” the organizationpoints out.

CFMA suggests that constructionprofessionals need to decide if any newtechnology under consideration willdo the following: improve the build-ing process for owners; increase co-ordination with upstream and down-stream subcontractors and trade part-ners; and provide a stimulating envi-ronment for innovation. The pace oftechnological change in construction

services will only quicken in the yearsahead, the organization forecasts, andconstruction businesses must be pre-pared to address how change will im-pact the services they provide toproject owners.

New methods of contracts andproject management are becomingmore widespread in the constructionindustry, too. Among the emergingtrends in construction managementtechniques and technology are inte-grated project delivery, building infor-mation modeling, prefabrication, leanconstruction, robots and drones, andcollaboration software. ConstructionDive.com observes that with thatgrowth comes the question of whetherthe new techniques will actually re-sult in fewer disputes — a commongoal in the industry.

With these new technologies andtechniques, Christopher Payne, execu-tive vice president of McDonoughBolyard Peck, says he expects the in-dustry to deal with fewer disputes in

the future, according to ConstructionDive. However, when disputes do arise,they will be more complex and diffi-cult to resolve because they will in-volve uncharted territory, he predicts.

ConstructionDive also cites RonPennella, construction project man-ager at Structure Tone and adjunct pro-fessor at the Polytechnic Institute ofNew York University, who points out,“We keep hearing about the differencewith technology, but it can’t replaceexperience . . . . These machines havea usefulness, but it’s like a ruler or ahammer. You have to know how to usethem.” He adds, “As a constructionleader, my responsibility is to advo-cate for completion of the project, forthe client, for the design team, for thesubcontractor, for everyone else af-fected. It’s all about people.”

July 2016

Evolving Construction TechnologiesOffer an Array of Functions, Options

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

ALTHOUGH evading technology isreally not an option for most construc-tion companies these days, keeping upwith technological trends is no smalltask, either. However, staying on thecusp of new technologies does helporganizations and their employees bet-ter adapt to change, albeit gradually,making the change process more man-ageable and less complex.

Still, are all technological innova-tions useful for the construction pro-fessionals, particularly in an industrywhere a majority of the actual work isoutdoors, often under remote or rug-ged conditions or in rural environ-ments? For the most part, the answeris yes, but with some caveats.

Depending on an organization’s cul-ture and its workforce diversity, con-struction management should not shyaway from technological advance-ments or become too discouraged iflagging behind the technology curve.Instead, the focus should be on scru-tinizing, setting financial priorities,and then deciding which technologiesbest suit a project site or its field of-fices. Some of the fledgling construc-tion trends that began only a few yearsago have now become more main-stream and will continue to expand inthe future.

Today’s innovative standouts, somestill under testing, include advancedconstruction robotics, 3-D printedbuilding components, driverless ve-hicles at work zones, permeable orflexible concretes, and “phablets” (themerging of a smartphone and a tablet).Other construction technologies ortrends that have already gained a foot-

hold and increased use are integratedproject delivery, building informationmodeling (BIM), lean construction,sustainable (green) construction, pre-fabricated building components, andaerial drone surveillance.

Some tech-minded advocates cat-egorize the field of emerging con-struction technologies into three ele-ments: Internet applications, digitalfabrication, and “real-time” environ-ments. In an article published by Con-structionExecutive.com, author PaulDoherty emphasizes that smartphonesand tablets are offering unprecedentedaccess to updated project informationaimed toward reducing errors, therebyincreasing efficiency. “Apps, 3-D vi-sualization, and real time data are justsome of the next-generation tools thatconstruction professionals are enjoy-ing in the field,” he adds.

Doherty contends that the commer-cial exemption for use of aerial dronesat construction sites will bring “enor-mous benefits in the form of increas-ed safety, security, and operationalefficiencies to construction job sitesthroughout the United States.”

For example, smartphones can be at-tached to drones and then directed intohard-to-reach areas under construc-tion to record pictures or videos ofpotential problems — all set up forlater use in hands-free video confer-encing with engineers or architects.Doherty further points out that sen-sor technologies, which provide inex-pensive, automated solutions for job-site access to information, are alsogaining attention for use in “locationawareness” of personnel, equipment,materials, and tools.

On a different front, Doherty ob-serves as the pricing of computer nu-

merical control-enabled machinerycontinues to fall and the training ofconstruction professionals to usethese machines increases, the use ofdigital fabrication is becoming morecommonplace, providing better qual-ity and increased profits for firms us-ing this production and procurementmethodology. He notes that digitalfabrication is already being widelydeployed in the homebuilding indus-try.

Finally, the gaming industry has de-veloped sophisticated graphic tech-nologies that allow developers to cre-ate virtual worlds that act as “stagesets” for their customers, accordingto Doherty. “The A/E/C industry hasadopted gaming technologies and isquickly discovering a solution thatemancipates their design and construc-tion data from expert system authoringtools, such as BIM, and allows theirdata to become open and flexible tobe used in other ways,” he says. “Be-cause of gaming technologies’ levelsof detail for 3-D visualized objects andthe ability to place objects in a highlyaccurate geospatial manner, the use ofgaming technologies is exploding inA/E/C.”

Moreover, distributing A/E/C datainto various facility management soft-ware solutions is no longer a labori-ous effort and offers tremendous valuefor building operators, Doherty adds.“A lasting effect of this new processis that authenticated data is now asso-ciated with a physical building,” hesays, “providing the opportunity tohave buildings communicate with eachother.”

What about emerging communica-tion technologies? For the last severalyears, construction companies have

frugally invested in either smart-phones or tablets for their on-site andfield personnel.

The introduction of phablet devicescan now provide the best of bothworlds, according to structural engi-neer Lauren Hasegawa, co-founder ofBridgit, a developer of mobile-firstsolutions for on-site project manage-ment issues. She notes that a “phablet”is basically a smartphone with a screenthat is intermediate in size betweenthat of a typical smartphone and a tab-let computer. With Apple’s continualupgrades and launches of its iPhoneseries, she predicts a steady rise inphablet sales, with other manufactur-ers and brands following suit.

Hasegawa has other predictions,too. In an article published by ForConstructionPros.com, she says,“Augmented reality technologies,

such as Google Glass, allow the userto see a digital image beside or on topof their view of the world. The use ofthese technologies in construction hasthe potential to make virtual design andconstruction and the use of BIM moreaccessible on-site.” By using GPS ca-pabilities already present in most aug-mented reality technologies, she ex-plains, a user could sync his or herlocation data to a BIM model. In do-ing so, the user would have the abilityto see the 3-D virtual view of the con-struction overlaid on the real-worldview of the job site with just the clickof a button.

A rising popularity of near-fieldcommunications at the job site is an-other forecast of Hasegawa’s. NFC isa secure form of data exchange thatallows data to be transferred fromphysical tags to NFC-enabled devices

and is frequently discussed in relationto mobile payments from smart-phones. “As NFC begins to grow as apopular form of data exchange, we canexpect to see many uses for it in con-struction, especially with materialstracking, prefabrication, and work-force management,” she says.

For example, Hasegawa points outthat NFC can be used to track prefab-ricated sections of large structures asthey arrive at the project site. Track-ing these prefabricated materials canhelp quickly identify if an incorrectsection has been delivered, or if partsare missing, prior to installation —saving time and labor costs.

April 2016

Women, Minorities Remain at ForefrontOf Current Labor Recruitment Efforts

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

ONE of the nationwide celebratedevents every March is Women in Con-struction Week, an observance aimedat raising awareness of the opportu-nities available for women in the con-struction industry and emphasizingthe growing role of women in the in-dustry. Sponsored by the National As-sociation of Women in Construction(NAWIC), the event’s core purpose isto enhance the success of women em-ployed in construction.

By comparisons from decades ago,progress has been made in the ad-vancement of women and minoritiesin the construction industry, attributedin part to federal, state, and local equalopportunity employment statutes, andin some cases, affirmative action re-quirements. For instance, the Office ofFederal Contract Compliance Pro-grams requires construction contrac-tors to “engage in a self-analysis forthe purpose of discovering any barri-ers to equal employment opportunity”and to take good faith steps to increasethe utilization of women and minori-ties in the skilled trades.

On a different front, the FederalHighway Administration On-the-JobTraining Program requires statetransportation agencies to establishapprenticeship and training pro-grams to move women, minorities,and disadvantaged individuals intojourney-level positions. The missionis to ensure that a competent work-force is available to meet highwayconstruction hiring needs and to ad-dress the historical underrepre-sentation of these groups in highwayconstruction skilled crafts.

State and local governments arealso committed to bolstering the em-ployment of women and minoritiesin construction. In 2012, public of-ficials and labor leaders in Newark,N.J., announced a $300,000 grantprogram to train local residents forapprenticeships in the building andconstruction trades. Funding wasprovided by the New Jersey Build-ers Utilization Initiative for LaborDiversity, which addresses employ-ment programs for women and mi-norities.

Also in 2012, the St. Louis mayorreleased an executive order extend-ing existing workforce goals on citypublic works projects $1 million orlarger. Among those goals, 25 per-cent of labor hours were to be per-formed by minorities, with five per-cent of those labor hours addressedby women.

More than five years ago, the Phila-delphia Mayor’s Advisory Commis-sion on Construction Industry Diver-sity issued numerous recommenda-tions to help increase inclusion ofwomen and minorities in the localregion’s construction workforce.Among minority men, a long-termgoal of 32 percent participation wassuggested. An initial goal of sevenpercent for the participation of womenwas also strongly recommended, butonce reached, that goal should likelybe raised.

Interestingly, the advisory com-mission recommended the reintegra-tion of vocational and technical edu-cation options into local middleschool and high school systems,rather than as stand-alone schools.The commission also challengededucators to help recruit qualified

female and minority candidates forinclusion in the building and con-struction trades, with emphasis onentering apprentice programs aftergraduating from high school.

In 2013, KARE-TV in Minneapolisreported on a series of meetings ad-dressing the planned construction ofthe new sports stadium for the Minne-sota Vikings. The initial meeting,hosted by Mortenson Constructionand the Minnesota Sports FacilitiesAuthority, provided subcontractorswith details on the work bidding pro-cess, in addition to the required com-position of the workforce. The statedoverall labor goal was 11 percentwomen-owned businesses and ninepercent minority-owned businesses,with workforce participation being32 percent minority and six percentwomen during the constructionphase.

“They are challenging goals,” saidJohn Wood, senior vice presidentwith Mortenson Construction. “Ithink everybody acknowledges that.They are higher than what has everbeen achieved on a major project be-fore.” He emphasized that the goalstranscend the stadium project, stat-ing, “It’s about creating a pipelineof workers of the future that are go-ing to make up the men and womenof the Minnesota construction in-dustry in the years to come.”

More recently in January, Con-creteConstruction.net highlightedAlise Martiny, business manager ofthe Greater Kansas City Building andConstruction Trades Council. Sheentered the concrete industry in1982 as a concrete finisher appren-tice and then advanced to regularproject work for commercial con-

crete contractors in the Kansas Cityarea, eventually focusing mostly ondecorative concrete installations.Today, she serves in more of a train-ing and recruiting role, as showcasedby her MAGIC (Mentoring a Girl inConstruction) program. Sponsoredby NAWIC, her initiative targets girlsat a young age, promoting construc-tion as a viable ambition.

Martiny points to the necessity to“get outside the box about who tohire.” Labor goals in Kansas City onprojects over $300,000 call for thedesired workforce to be at least twopercent female. “There’s going to bea lot of work in this town over thenext year” she says, “and my goal isthat the workforce on those projectsshould look like the community inwhich they are being built, so wehave to recruit females and minori-ties.” She further notes, “We’ve gotto market ourselves better and let

young people know there are op-portunities. We’ve got to change themindset.”

Perhaps one of the more compre-hensive recruiting programs for wo-men and minorities is spearheadedby Turner Construction Company.Although women comprise only 2.2percent of construction labor, ac-cording to the Center for Construc-tion Research and Training, Turnersays federal census figures indicatethat the future growth of the nation’sworkforce will be attributed prima-rily to women and minorities. Con-sequently, the company has devel-oped and expanded outreach activi-ties and programs that encourage,promote, train, and sustain minori-ties and their construction busi-nesses.

One of the organization’s major out-reach initiatives is The Turner Schoolof Construction Management, a pro-

gram started in 1969 to enhance thetechnical, administrative, and mana-gerial skills of minority and womenbusiness executives in both the pub-lic and private sectors. Today, the pro-gram is offered in more than 70 citiesacross the country. Instructionalclasses are held two evenings per weekand typically run from six to 10 weeks.Participants learn the essentials ofmanaging a business, including howto develop a business plan, estimateand bid larger jobs, obtain bonding,enforce safety principles, and estab-lish and manage credit.

To date, the program has been acatalyst in helping Turner achieve suc-cess in awarding more than 52,000contracts valued in excess of $18 bil-lion to minority- and women-ownedbusiness enterprises.

April 2015

Construction Industry Reaping MajorDividends from Investment in BIM

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

THERE is little doubt that the Digi-tal Age is carving its brand on theconstruction industry, particularly inthe area of building informationmodeling. And why not? For thoseorganizations taking advantage ofwhat BIM brings to the project table,the future may be brighter.

In a study released last year byMcGraw Hill Construction, contrac-tors in nine of the world’s top con-struction markets using BIM re-ported that digital modeling helpsthem to improve productivity, effi-ciency, quality, and safety on theirprojects, in addition to boosting theirown competitiveness. The BusinessValue of BIM for Construction inMajor Global Markets reveals thatbusinesses in markets with well-established BIM use — includingCanada, France, Germany, theUnited Kingdom, and the UnitedStates — are seeing a positive returnon their technology investments.

Moreover, the study notes thatconstruction markets that are still inthe initial stages of BIM adoption —Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, Ja-pan, and South Korea, for example —are experiencing benefits, too, suchas reduced errors and omissions, im-proved collaboration among projectteam members, and an enhanced or-ganizational image.

Through digital information net-working and management in a teamenvironment, BIM creates measure-able value by combining the effortsof project stakeholders, process, andtechnology. Essentially, BIM is aclearinghouse for every component

of the built structure, making it pos-sible for any project team memberto access information for any pur-pose. The process integrates differ-ent aspects of the project design moreeffectively, reducing the potentialrisk for mistakes, discrepancies, orconflicts during the delivery process.As its core advantage, BIM data canbe used to illustrate a building’s en-tire life-cycle from inception and de-sign to demolition and materials re-use. Spaces, systems, products, andsequences can be exhibited and com-pared in relative scale to each otherand, in turn, relative to the entireproject.

The McGraw Hill study demon-strates that businesses deployingBIM achieve more benefits and re-alize a stronger return on their tech-nology investment than those lessengaged. Half of those organizationshighly engaged in BIM report re-turns in excess of 25 percent on theirtechnology investment. Much of thatreturn on investment is due to sig-nificantly reduced rework on proj-ects. The study results also forecastexponential growth in BIM use in thenear future. Over the next two years,contractors expect the percentage oftheir work involving BIM to increaseby 50 percent on average.

In a separate analysis, Massachu-setts-based Fast Market ResearchInc., an online aggregator and dis-tributor of market research and busi-ness information, forecasts the BIMmarket to grow from $2,640.12 mil-lion in 2013 to $8,646.47 million by2020 at a compound annual growthrate of 16.72 percent. FMR pointsout that newer applications and usesare continuously being devised for

this technology, which will furtherpropel the market in the coming fiveyears, with much of the expectedgrowth due to the expanding indus-trial sector for the BIM market.

“As greater industry demands un-fold, BIM is emerging as a vital pro-cess to promote efficiency and lean-er operations throughout a construc-tion project’s life-cycle,” says LisaCampbell, vice president of indus-try strategy and marketing at Auto-desk, the McGraw Hill study’s pre-mier partner. She further notes thatconstruction organizations with veryhigh BIM engagement levels areheavily investing in mobile devices,demonstrating that BIM’s future forcontractor use lies in getting it morewidely used in the field.

Additionally, the study demonstratesthe broad range of BIM use globally,including how use varies by specificmarkets. For example, while 82 per-cent of U.S. contractors use BIM formultitrade coordination, leading theglobal market in this area, Braziliancontractors notably lag in this area, withonly 25 percent using BIM for the pur-pose. On the other hand, contractorsfrom Brazil lead in the integration of4-D scheduling, a practice only usedby 21 percent of U.S. firms. Aside fromthe project construction phase, BIMis gaining attention in the precon-struction and postconstruction phases.One emerging area is project manage-ment for the owner beyond closeout,a trend showing strength in Asia andEurope but only moving slowly inNorth America.

In actual practice, a BIM objectcan be a combination of many things:information content that defines aproduct; product properties; or ge-

ometry representing a product’sphysical characteristics. Among itsmore familiar functions, BIM pro-vides 3-D visualization data givingan object a recognizable appearanceand exhibits functional data, enablingan object to be positioned or reposi-tioned and then viewed throughoutvarious applications.

Many construction stakeholdersare coming to the realization thatBIM technology may be far superiorto shop drawings in terms of actualbuilding representation. Because 3-D objects are machine readable, spa-tial conflicts in a building model canbe tracked automatically. And by in-tegrating this capability at all phasesof project delivery, errors, omissions,and change orders due to internalcauses can be greatly reduced. Pro-ponents also contend that BIM im-

proves overall productivity due toeasier retrieval of information andincreases coordination of construc-tion documents, thereby increasingspeed of delivery and reducing de-lay costs. To that end, BIM quicklyembeds and links vital informationinto its model, including suppliersfor specific materials, location de-tails, and the quantities required forestimation and procurement.

National Building Specification,an informative arm of RIBA Enter-prises Ltd., which is wholly ownedby the Royal Institute of British Ar-chitects, publishes annual researchinto BIM adoption in the UnitedKingdom. A survey of 1,000 U.K.construction professionals last yearrevealed that BIM engagement hadincreased from 13 percent in 2011to 54 percent in 2014.

NBS suggests that organizations in-terested in pursuing or honing BIMstrategies need to perform five initialtasks: establish an existing BIM ma-turing level (knowledge base and/orlearning curve); examine current cli-ent base needs for best practices; re-view technological nature of currentprojects; forecast future work sectorplans and ambitions; and assess theskill sets of existing staff. Regardingthe latter, NBS emphasizes that BIMencompasses more than just knowl-edge about the latest 3-D imaging orCAD software; a wide range of tech-nical, communicative, and leadershipskills is required for a successful BIMproject.

January 2015

Matters of Ethics Remain a ContinuingChallenge for Construction IndustryBy Steven J. Storts

Dublin, OhioPROFESSIONAL engineers are nostranger to the pursuit of ethicalprowess, but how do the ethical cardsstack up on an industrywide basis,in particular, within the constructioncommunity?

Survey results released in Novem-ber by the Ethics Resource Centerindicate that when compared to thenational averages, employees in theU.S. nonresidential construction in-dustry are facing more pressure tocompromise standards (18 percent),and that they are witnessing moremisconduct (53 percent). ERC fur-ther notes that 37 percent of con-struction employees are significantlymore likely to experience retaliationby managers or co-workers after re-porting issues of misconduct.

Among the more positive findingsof ERC’s National Business EthicsSurvey of the U.S. Construction In-dustry were the reporting rates formisconduct. Nearly 75 percent ofconstruction employees said theyreported workplace misconduct, anumber that is higher than any othergroup of employees in all 19 yearsof NBES research. As a comparison,the 2011 national average was only65 percent.

Located in Arlington, Va., ERC isAmerica’s oldest nonprofit organi-zation dating back to 1922. Its op-eration is devoted to independentresearch and the advancement ofhigh ethical standards and practicesin public and private institutions.More specifically, ERC researchersanalyze current and emerging issuesand produce new ideas and bench-

marks aimed at the public trust.Sponsors of ERC’s recent researchinclude the Construction IndustryEthics and Compliance Initiative,Reed Construction Data, AmericanSociety of Civil Engineers, Ameri-can Road and Transportation Build-ers Association, Associated GeneralContractors of America, TravelersIndemnity Company, and BechtelCorporation.

“No industry in America is im-mune to ethics challenges,” ERCpoints out. “In truth, certain indus-tries are just inherently more at riskfor facing ethical issues dependingon the kind of work they do. Theconstruction industry is one suchindustry, especially given the con-texts in which companies conductbusiness, the safety risks that are in-herent to their work, and the perfor-mance pressures they face.”

ERC emphasizes, however, thatwhen companies come together toidentify and address their ethics con-cerns, their collective efforts can anddo make a difference. For example,in 2005 a group of 17 companieswithin a single industry agreed to useERC’s metrics to identify their eth-ics/compliance challenges. Oncedata was collected, the group regu-larly met to compare results and dis-cuss best practices. They continuedto collect data within their individualorganizations and benchmarkedagainst each other. Each companylearned from their peers, and to-gether they raised the bar for theirindustry. Over time, the industry wasable to reduce perceived misconductby 24 percent.

NBES research demographics arealso noteworthy because over the

years, ERC has polled and reportedfindings on more than 23,000 em-ployees. Participants in the recentNBES research were 18 years of ageor older, currently employed at least20 hours per week for their primaryemployer, and working for a nonresi-dential construction company basedin the United States. Self-employedgeneral contractors, project manag-ers, and self-employed subcontrac-tors working in an office werescreened out from the survey to en-sure that data were reflective of indi-viduals in organizations that poten-tially could support an ethics andcompliance program or individualsthat would be expected to adhere toethics and compliance programs main-tained by an organization hiring orcontracting with them. Data wereweighted according to three factors —age, education, and sex — aligned withmethods established by ERC in 2007and per their representation in the ci-vilian labor force defined by censusreporting of the U.S. Bureau of LaborStatistics.

Key findings of ERC‘s 2011 sur-vey revealed that misconduct wit-nessed by U.S. workers is at historiclows, while reporting of misconductis at near highs. Additionally, retali-ation against employee whistle-blowers rose sharply, and the per-centage of employees who per-ceived pressure to compromise stan-dards in order to do their jobsclimbed five points from 2009 to 13percent. The share of companies withweak ethics cultures also climbed tonear record levels. Not surprising,two influences stood out in the un-usual shift in trends: the economyand the unique experiences of those

actively using social networking atwork.

Both past and recent NBES researchcontinues to show that companies canreact differently during economicshifts. For instance, during economicdifficulties, the decisions and behav-iors of their organizational leaders areperceived by employees as a height-ened commitment to ethics.

Consequently, employees person-ally adopt higher standards of conductin the workplace. As the economy im-proves — and companies and employ-ees become more optimistic abouttheir financial futures — it seems likelythat misconduct will rise and report-ing will drop, mirroring the growth inpressure and retaliation that have al-ready taken place and conforming tohistoric patterns.

In 2011, active social networkersreported far more negative experi-ences in their workplaces. ERC’sfindings point out that as a group,social networkers are much morelikely to experience pressure to com-promise ethics standards and to ex-

perience retaliation for reportingmisconduct than co-workers who areless involved with social networking.This group also shows a higher tol-erance for certain activities thatcould be considered questionable.

Construction organizations, ofcourse, still need to explore both thepositive opportunities as well as thepitfalls of social networking withintheir own employee ranks. NBES so-cial networking research focuses onU.S. workers who participate on atleast one social networking site. Theobjective is to capture the awarenessand opinions of these employees atall levels within companies to revealreal-life views of what is happeningwithin business cultures and the ethi-cal risks confronted by these em-ployees.

ERC reports that almost three outof four social networkers (72 per-cent) spend at least some time oftheir workday on social networkingsites, and more than 25 percent in-dicate that such activity adds up toan hour or more of every workday.

One third of those employees alsoadmit that none of that activity iswork related. As cited earlier, themore active the social networker, themore likely they are to encounterethical risks, such as witnessing mis-conduct, feeling pressure to compro-mise standards, and experiencingretaliation for reporting misconduct.

Moreover, ERC emphasizes thatdespite what many perceive, socialnetworks are not just for youngeremployees. Although 47 percent ofactive social networkers are underthe age of 30, not far behind are the40 percent between the ages of 30and 44.

January 2014

Improving Construction InspectionAdvances Overall Project Quality

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

ONE of the most unheralded yetvital tasks of the construction com-munity is the responsibility ofproject inspection. However, excel-lent performance is too often con-sidered routine, expected, and is gen-erally unrecognized for its success.Failure, on the other hand, or anymisstep in inspection protocol cansometimes result in serious threatsto public safety.

Competent, qualified constructioninspectors require common sense,honed powers of observation, and ex-cellent communication and organiza-tional skills. Equally important, theymust understand basic engineeringprinciples and be knowledgeableabout con-struction materials andmethods. In public works inspectionalone, these requisites need to be ap-plied in the following areas: contracts,plans, and specifications; soils funda-mentals; water and sewerage systemsconstruction; concrete and asphaltpavement systems; highway, street,and bridge construction; dredgingoperations and dam construction; ero-sion control techniques; and workzone traffic control.

Outside of the context of residen-tial home inspections, many of thosein the general public are usually notaware of the broad scope of con-struction inspection duties. Typi-cally, inspectors ensure that newconstruction, changes, or repairscomply with local and nationalbuilding codes and ordinances, zon-ing regulations, and contract speci-fications. To perform their duties,inspectors must be adept at using

surveying instruments, metering de-vices, and testing equipment to veri-fy level, alignment, and elevation ofstructures and fixtures, and they areobligated to issue violation noticesand stop-work orders until compli-ance is satisfied.

According to the U.S. Bureau ofLabor Statistics, the employment ofconstruction and building inspectorsis expected to grow 18 percent from2010 to 2020, about as fast as theaverage for all occupations. Withconcern for public safety and a de-sire to improve construction qualityspurring this growth, those who areprofessionally certified and canmulti-task their inspection duties areexpected to have the edge in employ-ment opportunities in both the pub-lic and private sectors.

Indeed, one of the interesting con-struction trends is how inspectionteams are diversifying. For instance,construction inspectors that tradition-ally have checked the structural qual-ity and general safety of buildings arenow expanding into specific areas ofstructural steel and reinforced-con-crete structures. Other inspectionteams are focusing more individuallyon electrical, elevator, mechanical,plumbing, and fire and sprinkler sys-tems. More recently, some inspectionactivities have diversified specificallyinto examining plans and specifica-tions to determine whether compliancewith building codes is satisfactory andto ensure that services performed areaccording to an owner’s design speci-fications.

As noted earlier, professional certi-fication will become increasingly de-sirable in the future. To that end, in1984 the American Construction In-

spectors Association created the Boardof Registered Construction Inspectorsto establish a program to set minimumstandards for general engineering in-spectors, general building inspectors,public works inspectors, and for dif-ferent categories of specialty inspec-tors. Today, RCI receives and pro-cesses numerous applications for reg-istration, conducts examinations, andregisters construction inspectors whosuccessfully meet all the specified re-quirements. Registrations may be re-newed, conditional upon payment ofrenewal fees and verification of com-pleting a minimum of 24 units of con-tinuing education.

Of course, at the core of any vi-able construction inspection pro-gram — whether managed internallyby a company’s project staff or out-sourced to certified professionals —is the use of inspection forms, check-lists, and other documentation, suchas photographs, drawings, and digi-tal or taped recordings. Well-orga-nized documentation on paper orthrough use of mobile or onlinetechnology cannot be overstated.Not only is this prudent business-wise, but it is an excellent precau-tionary move to ward off or mitigatepotential legal claims that mightarise during construction or afterproject closeout.

First Time Quality L.L.C., a devel-oper of construction quality and safetyproducts based in Crofton, Md., citesfive important ways that inspectionchecklists can improve project qual-ity. First, inspection forms that list criti-cal quality concerns can be used tobuild consensus among project stake-holders. Next, as the various phasesof construction begin, contractors

can use their checklists as remindersfor important items to remember andas verification of completion of theirwork tasks. Third, inspection check-lists serve to verify compliance toquality control protocol and adher-ence to relevant construction specifi-cations. Fourth, because any stake-holder can use the same inspectionform to inspect work, these forms area good vehicle for identifying com-monly cited issues for improvement.Finally, project owners, constructionmanagers, and general contractors canuse inspection checklist data for de-ciding which subcontractors providedthe best “return on investment,” a toolthat can be used for monitoring futureproject performance.

Two other resources for improv-ing construction inspection qualityare at the fingertips of constructionstakeholders, one in NSPE’s ownbackyard. A few years ago, the Pro-fessional Engineers in Constructioninterest group of NSPE released anonline publication, A Field Guide for

Inspection of Sewerage and Drain-age Construction. The 156-pageguide is designed for use by con-struction inspectors serving on sew-erage and drainage projects for smallto mid-size municipalities or privateowners. The document’s purpose isto help advance the mission of high-quality construction standards byproviding a series of proven policies,established procedures and tech-niques, and helpful resources, in-cluding inspection checklists, appli-cable to construction projects on anysize scale.

The second useful resource, the sev-enth edition of the Construction In-spection Manual, is available at Con-tractor-Books.com. The 358-pagemanual provides recognized guide-lines for construction inspectors andincludes comprehensive checklists forfield inspection. Cited in the doc-ument’s foreword, the field manual’sgoal is to assist the construction indus-try in improving the inspection pro-cedures on all types of construction

work and to achieve a consensusamong owners, architects, engineers,contractors, and construction inspec-tors as to the best methods and prac-tices.

Finally, for inspection of publicworks projects in the transportation in-dustry, the Federal Highway Admin-istration offers the Construction Pro-gram Management and InspectionGuide. Among its diverse content, the196-page guide defines the purposesof construction inspection reports anddiscusses the various types and scopeof inspections. Specifically, the guideteaches how to prepare for inspectionactivities, including how to conductreviews, collect and evaluate data,write field inspection reports, processand distribute reports, and how to con-trol and expedite information sharingand technology transfer, as it pertainsto construction program management.

October 2013

Researchers Continue Pursuit ofConstruction Technology Innovations

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

AS a late spring thaw finally givesway to new construction activity,innovations in building technolo-gies — materials, methods, and pro-cesses — are also moving to theforefront of the construction com-munity.

Recently, a joint research programbetween the Indiana Department ofTransportation and Purdue Univers-ity’s Pankow Materials Laboratoryyielded successful test results for an“internally cured” high-performanceconcrete. The new material will beused for maintenance projects onfour bridge decks this year in thestate, following a review of productspecifications for construction use.

The researchers assisted MonroeCounty (Indiana) in the specificationof internally cured concrete used ina bridge built in 2010, adjacent to abridge built the same year using con-ventional concrete. According toPurdue civil engineering and mate-rials science professor Jason Weiss,the control bridge has developedthree cracks, but no cracks have de-veloped in the internally curedbridge. Tests also indicate that theinternally cured concrete is about 30percent more resistant to salt in-gress. As further field data are col-lected, Weiss anticipates broaderdeployment of this concrete speci-fication.

Traditionally, curing is promotedby adding water on top of the bridgedeck surface. The new technologyfor internal curing provides addi-tional water pockets inside the con-crete, enhancing the reaction be-

tween the Portland cement and wa-ter, which adds to strength and du-rability. The water pockets areformed by using a lightweight, fineaggregate to replace some of thesand in the mixture. A key step in theprocess is to pre-wet the lightweightaggregate with water before mixingthe concrete, Weiss points out. Healso notes that the internal curingprocess allows engineers to reducethe amount of Portland cement usedin the concrete by replacing a por-tion of it with supplementary orwaste stream materials, such as lime-stone, silica fume, and fly ash.

On a different front, a new structuralbuilding system resistant to earth-quakes was successfully tested a fewyears ago at the Hyogo EarthquakeEngineering Research Center in MikiCity, Japan. Spearheaded by research-ers from Stanford University and theUniversity of Illinois, an engineeringteam designed a construction tech-nique that not only secures a multi-story building during a violent earth-quake, but returns the structure to itsoriginal stance on its foundation fol-lowing the seismic activity, with dam-age confined to a few easily replace-able parts. During final testing, thesystem survived simulated earth-quakes in excess of magnitude 7,which is greater than either the 1994Northridge earthquake or the 1989Loma Prieta earthquake in California.

This new construction method dis-sipates energy through the move-ment of steel-braced frames that arelocated around the building’s coreor along exterior walls. The framescan be part of a building’s initial de-sign or incorporated into an exist-ing building undergoing seismic ret-

rofitting. They are economically fea-sible to build from materials com-monly used in construction today,and all the parts can be made usingexisting fabrication methods.

Unlike most conventional systems,though, the steel-braced frames ac-tually “rock off” of their founda-tion under large earthquakes andare free to move up and down withinsteel “shoes” secured at their base.To control the rocking and returnthe frame to vertical when the shak-ing stops, steel tendons run downthe center of the frame from top tobottom. The tendons are each madeof seven high-strength steel cablestrands twisted together and de-signed to remain elastic during shak-ing. When shaking is over, they re-bound to their normal length, pull-ing the building back into properalignment. At the bottom of the framerest steel “fuses,” designed keep therest of the building from sustainingdamage.

Professional engineer Greg Deier-lein, a professor of civil and envi-ronmental engineering at Stanfordwho led the research team, explains,“The idea of this structural systemis that we concentrate the damage inreplaceable fuses,” which are builtto flex and dissipate the shaking en-ergy induced by the earthquake,thereby confining the damage. Likeelectrical fuses, the steel fuses areeasily replaced when they “blowout.”

Deierlein further notes that whilevarious researchers have been work-ing for more than a decade on someof the ideas and techniques incor-porated in the new structural system,this is the first time anyone has put

them all together and demonstratedtheir performance. The structuraltechnology developed is applicableto steel-framed buildings up to about15 stories tall, but Deierlein contendsthat the general approach could bemodified for other types of buildingsand possibly applied to alternatematerials and configurations as well.

The National Institute for Stan-dards and Technology is also pursu-ing a number of innovations of po-tential interest to the construction in-dustry. For instance, NIST has devel-oped a climate suitability softwaretool that helps ventilation designteams evaluate the suitability of alocal climate for cooling a prospec-tive building with natural ventilationor whether a hybrid system will berequired for supplying supplemen-tal cooling capacity.

Additionally, the institute has proto-typed a framework for evaluating andimplementing sustainability standardsfor green projects. Advocacy forsustainability practices has expandedconsiderably the last five years, andwith the NIST-customized framework,stakeholders can view individual sus-

tainability standards from their par-ticular perspective, such as that of amanufacturer, services provider, soft-ware supplier, regulator, or consumer.Complex standards are broken downinto six different levels of detail, fromthe contextual view of a planner downto the actual data to collect and use.

Along environmental lines, NISTand Virginia Tech researchers arealso developing a promising ap-proach for checking the accuracy ofmeasurements of hazardous indoorair pollutants. Such a measurementtool would prove useful to testers ofindoor air quality or volatile organiccompounds and to manufacturersand suppliers of paints, floor cover-ings, cleaners, and other buildingand construction products, in addi-tion to planners, architects, and de-sign engineers. The researchers con-clude that their prototype could sig-nificantly reduce costly, time-con-suming interlaboratory studies andvariability in testing results.

Finally, although thermoplasticcomposite, known as “plastic lum-ber,” may not be a new concept, theU.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Con-

struction Engineering Research Lab-oratory (CERL) has found new waysto utilize the material for high-capacity load structures, such asbridges, large decks, docks, seawalls,wharves, and railroad bridges. Inher-ently resistant to rot, insects, bacte-ria, and rodents without the need forchemical treatments, thermoplasticcomposite rarely cracks or splinters,is weather- and graffiti-resistant, pro-vides great shock-absorption, and re-quires no waterproofing, staining, orregular maintenance.

CERL researchers are also address-ing state-of-the art and emergingtechnologies to remotely monitor thecondition of bridges and overpasses.The engineering goal is to integrat-ing durable, low-cost sensor systemswith software to provide advancewarning of growing structural prob-lems due to corrosion and materialsdegradation or events such as earth-quakes.

April 2013

The Dynamic Paradigm of

Construction Quality Management

By Steven J. Storts

Dublin, Ohio

WHAT is the value of construction

quality? The answers to this question

are as varied as the interpretations of

the word “quality,” and within the

construction community, the term re-

mains subjective in meaning or defi-

nition. For some, quality is simply a

measure of the degree to which a

constructed project meets the expec-

tations of the client. For others, qual-

ity may be more complex, represent-

ing strict adherence to project re-

quirements, free of deficiencies or

limited to few standard variations

from projected outcomes.

The subtle trend in construction

quality for nearly a decade has been

a honing of traditional quality con-

trol and assurance methods, marked

with a renewed commitment to man-

age organizational resources and

tools to achieve benchmark perfor-

mance levels in all facets of business

operations — not just the constructed

project. Quality becomes more than

a perception when it harnesses every-

one’s cooperation in reaching zero

defects, controlling costs, and continu-

ally satisfying customer requirements.

There are several benefits to host-

ing a comprehensive construction

quality management program, in-

cluding increased employee morale,

enhanced project efficiency and reli-

ability, improved organizational im-

age, and expanded revenue streams.

Moreover, an efficient quality pro-

gram is relatively simple to develop

and initiate, particularly for smaller

construction organizations with lim-

ited financial resources. And it all

begins with a focus on three quality

concepts: competence and integrity

in the constructed work; compliance

with documents, drawings, and speci-

fications; and timely project comple-

tion according to the client’s sched-

uling requirements.

Quality control and quality assur-

ance have always been key compo-

nents for addressing these quality con-

cepts. More recently, though, quality

improvement has been added as an

essential element to the traditional QC/

QA approach. This component can

assume many faces — Total Quality

Management, Six Sigma, lean con-

struction methodology, or adoption

of ISO 9001 quality management sys-

tem standards — but they all subscribe

to a core belief that quality should be

oriented toward the process, not the

end result, and that the bottom line fol-

lows quality, not vice versa.

Quality improvement programs

share other commonalities, too, such

as customer focus, highlighting pro-

cess development techniques for

continual improvement, innovation,

leadership from top management,

education and training of employees,

teamwork, two-way feedback mecha-

nisms, recognition and rewards for

outstanding performance, and evalu-

ation of all organizational goals and

initiatives.

Of course, a viable quality man-

agement system also requires review

of QC/QA directives. Misronet Con-

struction Information Services, an

online data provider, suggests an ap-

proach to quality control through

proper planning in five stages:

n Setting the quality standard or

quality of design and construc-

tion required by the client;

n Planning how to achieve the re-

quired quality, construction meth-

ods, equipment, materials, and

personnel to be employed;

n Constructing the project cor-

rectly the first time;

n Immediately correcting any qual-

ity deficiencies; and

n Providing for long-term quality

control through development of

a quality culture within the orga-

nization.

Misronet also points to the costs

of quality, noting that quality is al-

ways proportional to the costs asso-

ciated with any construction process,

and that these costs need to be iden-

tified early on in the planning pro-

cess in order to make proper man-

agement decisions.

The online information service

places quality costs in three catego-

ries, the first being failure costs,

those associated with demolition

and rebuilding and the loss of pro-

duction time due to delays and

change orders. There are also ap-

praisal costs, which are necessary

for inspection and testing purposes.

Finally, there are prevention costs,

which can be regarded in a positive,

forward-thinking sense because

they are aimed at providing better

designs and more training to reduce

failure costs or unnecessary main-

tenance overhead.

From a slightly different perspec-

tive, Donald Neff, president and

CEO of La Jolla Pacific Ltd., a con-

struction services firm located in

Irvine, Calif., regards quality control

as just one component of quality as-

surance. He contends that quality

control is more short-term, limited

to specific project considerations

and generally addressing budget is-

sues or expense reductions. Quality

assurance, on the other hand, he ex-

plains, should be expansive to en-

compass all elements of a quality

management program, addressing all

levels of work and performance and

focusing on greater value-added

benefits.

Clients often look to quality assur-

ance as a measure of reassurance that

they will receive an optimum project

outcome without undue quality prob-

lems. To help accomplish this, Neff

says ongoing organizational inter-

ventions are usually required, such as

process training in design, purchas-

ing, construction, and delivery; tech-

nical training in all field risk ele-

ments; incentive benefit structures for

both the office and in the field; and

proactive document retention and

archiving.

So, how does an organization de-

velop a construction quality man-

agement system of value? The pre-

ferred method is to personalize a pro-

gram using the expertise and re-

sources already accessible within

business operations, without the need

to retain an outside consultant, if pos-

sible. Some construction firms down-

load templates at a reasonable cost

from providers on the Internet and

then tailor the specifics to their orga-

nizational structure. Through person-

alization or the customization ap-

proach, staff personnel gain an inti-

mate understanding of the quality

management program and feel more

confident in implementing it.

Regardless of how a quality man-

agement program is developed, it’s

necessary to build in safeguards.

Neff emphasizes that new challenges

in the construction industry pose

new risks, including new technolo-

gies, innovative building practices,

and increased expectations from

project owners and tenants. There

are risks specific to construction, too,

he says, citing entity management,

design direction, governing docu-

ments, the construction process, and

maintenance obligations.

However, under an effective qual-

ity management system, risks can be

avoided, Neff adds. For instance,

project “unknowns” can be elimi-

nated or mitigated by establishing

expectations and specific perfor-

mance standards in the project speci-

fication manuals. Also, regular insur-

ance reporting throughout the con-

struction process can play a vital role

in risk avoidance, in addition to pro-

viding regular e-mail communica-

tions among project stakeholders as

a continuous thread in quality assur-

ance.

October 2012

Cleanroom Construction Projects

Offer Unique Engineering Challenges

By Steven J. Storts

Dublin, Ohio

CLEANROOM construction is

nothing new in the literal sense, dat-

ing back more than a hundred years

to hospital environments. The process

was later applied to industrial manu-

facturing during World War II as a

means for safeguarding instrumenta-

tion during the production of muni-

tions, tanks, and aircraft. However,

the evolution of cleanroom construc-

tion and the expanded applications

for these projects today have helped

create a renaissance business, equal

in stature to sustainable design and

green construction.

The cornerstone of cleanroom de-

velopment is, of course, the control of

contamination, specifically airborne

particulate matter that naturally occurs,

such as dust, dirt, pollen, bacteria and

other microorganisms, and even sea

mist. Industrial functions, office activ-

ity, and workplace personnel, too, con-

tribute significantly to airborne con-

tamination, including particulates gen-

erated from combustion processes,

chemical vapors, and friction in manu-

facturing equipment and contaminate

particles emitted in the form of skin

flakes, lint, cosmetics, and respiratory

gases.

In most instances, the required

standard of cleanliness of a room area

depends on its purpose. Federal Stan-

dard 209E, considered the bench-

mark for cleanliness for many indus-

tries, defines a cleanroom as that in

which the concentration of airborne

particles is controlled to a specified

maximum number of particles 0.5

microns in size per cubic foot (or cu-

bic meter) of sampled air. Usually,

cleanroom cleanliness is expressed

in terms of classification areas or

numbers, such as Class 100 or Class

100,000. For example, those classi-

fications would denote there should

be no more than 100 or 100,000 par-

ticles, respectively, larger than 0.5

microns per cubic foot of air during

the sampling period.

The more susceptible a product or

procedure is to contamination, the

more stringent the FS 209E require-

ments become. And as technology

advances, the purposes for clean-

rooms increase, too. Aside from hos-

pital health care, cleanroom con-

struction has carved niches into nu-

merous other industries: electronics,

semiconductors, micromechanics,

optics, biotechnology, pharmaceuti-

cals, medical devices, and food and

beverages.

Today, a substantial number of

manufacturing or production pro-

cesses require that area spaces be

designed and constructed to control

particulate and microbial contami-

nation, while maintaining reason-

able installation and operating costs.

Not surprising, the key stakeholders

in modern-day cleanroom construc-

tion have become the mechanical

engineers who must design and build

HVAC systems sophisticated enough

to satisfy FS 209E requirements.

Professional engineer Abraham

Marinelarena, a specialist in clean-

room development and senior me-

chanical engineer for Bath Con-

sulting Corp., of El Paso, Texas,

notes that cleanrooms have evolved

into two major types, differentiated

by their method of ventilation — tur-

bulent air flow and laminar air flow.

The general method of ventilation

used in turbulent air flow clean-

rooms is similar to that found in gen-

eral building and plant construction,

with air supplied by an air-condition-

ing system through diffusers in the

ceiling structure. However, a clean-

room differs from an ordinary ven-

tilated room in three ways: increased

air supply, use of high-efficiency

particulate air filters, and room pres-

surization.

Laminar air flow, Marinelarena

explains, is used when low airborne

concentrations of particles or bac-

teria are required. This air flow pat-

tern is in one direction, usually hori-

zontal or vertical and at a uniform

speed of between 60 to 90 feet per

minute throughout the entire clean-

room area. The air velocity must be

sufficient to remove relatively large

particles before they settle onto sur-

faces and must take into account

practical situations, such as room

obstructions and personnel moving

around. Any contaminant released

into the air can be immediately re-

moved by laminar air flow, whereas

turbulent air flow ventilation relies

on mixing and dilution to remove

contamination.

Although air flow design is criti-

cal, Marinelarena emphasizes that it

alone does not guarantee that clean-

room conditions will be satisfied.

“Construction finishes, personnel

and clothing, materials and equip-

ment, and points of egress are other

sources of particulate contamination

that must also be controlled,” he

says. In particular, room construc-

tion and material finishes are a sig-

nificant part of cleanroom design, he

points out, because not only is it vi-

tal to exclude outside contaminants,

it is also important that material fin-

ishes not contribute to particle gen-

eration in the cleanroom space itself.

Benchmark Engineering Group

Inc., of Toledo, Ohio, recognized

cleanroom consultants, also stresses

the importance of carefully selected

construction materials and products

that meet cleanroom standards, in-

cluding walls, floors, ceiling tiles,

lighting fixtures, doors, and windows.

Benchmark’s clean construction

guidelines cite the maintenance of ven-

tilation as paramount, noting, “Con-

tamination of the existing house venti-

lation can be prevented by isolating

supply air dampers in the construction

areas to prevent a positive pressure

within the construction space.” Main-

taining construction in a state of nega-

tive pressurization should always be the

primary goal.

“A cleanroom requires the high-

est standards of construction,” says

Space Industries Ltd., of Christ-

church, England. “The construction

materials used to build cleanrooms

can differ greatly from those used in

non-cleanroom construction.” For

example:

n A cleanroom should be built with

an airtight structure.

n The internal surface finish should

be smooth and suitable for clean-

ing.

n The internal surface finish should

be sufficiently tough to resist

chipping or powdering when im-

pacted or abraded.

n Some process chemicals, cleaning

agents, disinfectants, and water

may attack or penetrate conven-

tional finishes.

n In some cleanrooms, electro-dis-

sipative construction materials

will be required.

n In some cleanrooms, construction

materials that give a minimum of

“outgassing” will be necessary.

Additionally, materials that are

used for cleanroom construction

should be smooth on the surface fac-

ing the inside of the cleanroom, and

all butts and joints as seen from the

inside of the cleanroom should not

show openings that may harbor, and

then disperse, dirt.

All cleanrooms, as expected, have

their own specific protocols for con-

struction and operation. When de-

signing and constructing a pharma-

ceutical cleanroom, for instance, the

International Journal of Pharma-

ceutical Compounding says several

critical factors must be considered,

such as policies and procedures, em-

ployee training, aseptic technique

and process validation, ongoing en-

vironmental monitoring, facility

maintenance, and compliance audit-

ing.

If these factors are not properly ad-

dressed, problems of quality, opera-

tion, or maintenance will result. It is

often suggested that professional in-

dependent consultants be retained

who can serve as project managers

for constructing clean-rooms for spe-

cific industries.

July 2012

Constructing for Fire Safety

Remains a Major Focus for Research

By Steven J. Storts

Dublin, Ohio

THE annual observances of the

September 11 terrorist attacks on the

World Trade Center in New York

serve as a constant reminder to the

engineering community that build-

ing construction is often key to hu-

man survival in any natural or man-

made disaster. As investigative analy-

ses have shown, the major root cause

for the structural collapse of the

WTC twin towers in 2001 was ex-

cessive heat levels generated through

the fiery explosion of projectile air-

craft and their unspent fuel reserves.

During the course of the WTC in-

vestigations, construction industry

and fire protection professionals

began new research aimed at curb-

ing or preventing mass structural fail-

ure from heat levels at elevated tem-

peratures. Since 2009, the National

Institute of Standards and Tech-

nology’s Engineering Laboratory has

been examining the adhesion prop-

erties of spray-applied fire resistive

materials (FRMs) for structural steel.

The performance of these materi-

als—specifically their dislodging

upon impact from a debris field—

was identified as a key factor in the

failure of the steel framework of the

twin towers.

NIST points out that the adhesion

properties of FRMs at high tempera-

tures, which are vital for modeling

and performance predictions, were

not available in 2001. Providing this

necessary measurement science in-

frastructure for FRMs will ultimately

allow the forecasting of their perfor-

mance during standardized testing

by the American Society for Testing

and Materials (ASTM) and actual fire

exposures, in addition to the adop-

tion of performance-based code re-

quirements based on science and

engineering.

For the NIST Engineering Labo-

ratory, this project poses major chal-

lenges. FRMs change dramatically

during exposure to high tempera-

tures, including mass losses, dimen-

sional changes (shrinkage and ex-

pansions), chemical reactions, and

microstructural modifications ef-

fecting modifications in mechanical

properties. To expedite research, at-

tention is being focused on apply-

ing a NIST-developed fracture me-

chanics approach to FRM adhesion

at elevated temperatures. Building

on the success of a recently com-

pleted consortium where the new

adhesion test methods were devel-

oped and commissioned, these tech-

niques will be adapted to measure

FRM temperature dependence.

Another NIST research project,

also initiated in 2009, is looking at

the total building envelope in terms

of fire resistance design. Although

current building codes specify fire

ratings of individual building com-

ponents and assemblies from stan-

dard fire endurance tests, such as

ASTM E-119, NIST contends that

there are no accepted scientific mea-

surement tools to evaluate the fire

performance of entire structures—

including connections—under real-

istic fire scenarios. “The state of the

art in measurement science to pre-

dict structural performance to fail-

ure under extreme loading condi-

tions, such as during an uncontrol-

lable fire, is lacking,” agency officials

admit.

As an alternative to current pre-

scriptive design methods, NIST rec-

ommends the development of per-

formance-based standards and code

provisions to enable the design and

rehabilitation of structures to resist

actual building fire conditions, in

addition to the development of tools,

guidelines, and test methods neces-

sary to evaluate the fire performance

of the constructed project as a whole

system.

For instance, the agency says a key

recommendation resulting from the

WTC investigations was that care-

ful consideration should be given to

the possibility that certain design

features, such as long-span floor sys-

tems and connections that cannot

accommodate unusual thermal ef-

fects, may adversely affect the per-

formance of the entire structural sys-

tem under abnormal or excessive fire

conditions.

NIST’s new technical approach is

incorporating a broad range of know-

ledge concerning fire load, material

response, and overall structural re-

sponse to elevated temperatures.

Building layout, windows and ven-

tilation, construction materials, pas-

sive and active fire protection sys-

tems, and the amount and location

of combustibles will be included in

this approach. Recent technical ad-

vances will also aid in this research

by providing the ability to forecast

both the development and propaga-

tion of building fires and structural

system performance at elevated tem-

peratures.

Another closely aligned initiative,

the Whole Building Design Guide, a

program of the National Institute of

Building Sciences, is addressing the

need for new facilities and renova-

tion projects to be designed to incor-

porate efficient, cost-effective pas-

sive and automatic fire protection

systems—systems that are effective

in detecting, containing, and control-

ling or extinguishing a fire event in

the early stages. At the core of WBDG

is the mission to creatively and effi-

ciently integrate code requirements

with other fire safety measures and

design strategies to achieve a bal-

anced facility that will provide de-

sired levels of safety.

According to WBDG, the major

components necessary for develop-

ing a successful fire protection de-

sign include: the design team; design

standards and criteria; site require-

ments; building construction require-

ments; egress requirements; fire de-

tection and notification system re-

quirements; fire suppression require-

ments; emergency power, lighting,

and exit signage; and special fire pro-

tection requirements.

At a minimum, all building con-

struction requirements should ad-

dress the following elements: con-

struction type, allowable height, and

area; exposures and separation re-

quirements; fire ratings, materials,

and systems; occupancy types; inte-

rior finishes; and exit stairway enclo-

sures.

An advocate for whole building

design, professional engineer Mor-

gan Hurley, fellow and technical di-

rector of the Society of Fire Protec-

tion Engineers, advises, “It is ben-

eficial to involve fire protection en-

gineers in a design at the earliest

stages of planning, generally at the

feasibility or concept design stage.”

He cites the benefits: greater design

flexibility; innovation in design, con-

struction, and materials; equal or bet-

ter fire safety; and maximization of

cost/benefit.

“Designing from a ‘whole build-

ing’ approach does not require that

design be on a performance basis,”

Hurley explains. “It is necessary, how-

ever, that the design of fire protec-

tion-related systems be coordinated

with each other and with other build-

ing systems and the overall build-

ing design.”

October 2011

Integrated Project Delivery Sets

New Construction Team Objectives

By Steven J. Storts

Dublin, Ohio

ONE of the more general miscon-

ceptions about Integrated Project

Delivery is the assumption that IPD

is just an expanded version of the

design-build concept. While design-

build principles may be closely align-

ed with the fundamentals of IPD, the

latter actually pitches a larger tent;

design-build simply shares space

under that tent.

Construction industry sources

point out that design-build procure-

ment and management methods can

differentiate among projects and

may or may not include the owner

to varying degrees. If design-build

moves more toward a procurement

process or a project management

that does not include the owner, it

also begins to move away from the

fundamental principles of IPD. Con-

versely, when design-build is used

according to its best practices, it also

aligns with the best practices of IPD.

This is where the two concepts are

sometimes inadvertently considered

synonymous.

In its 2007 report Integrated

Project Delivery—A Working Defini-

tion, the Integrated Project Delivery

Task Force released its now widely

accepted statement: IPD is a project

delivery approach that integrates

people, systems, business structures,

and practices into a process that

collaboratively harnesses the talents

and insights of all participants to

optimize project results, increase

value to the owner, reduce waste, and

maximize efficiency through all

phases of design, fabrication, and

construction.

The IPD Task Force, an interdis-

ciplinary group sponsored by Mc-

Graw-Hill Construction and the

American Institute of Architects/

California Council, notes that within

the ideal IPD and design-build mod-

els, the owner, designers, and build-

ers work jointly cooperate from a

project’s inception to mutually es-

tablish the performance, budget, and

schedule within the constraints of the

owner’s business model. Moreover,

IPD principles can also be applied

to a variety of contractual arrange-

ments, with project teams including

members beyond the basic triad of

owner, engineer/architect, and con-

tractor—all aimed at a life-cycle ap-

proach toward constructed facilities.

As part of its core definition, IPD

is a “deeply collaborative process

that uses best available technologies,

but it goes beyond merely the appli-

cation of digital tools, such as Build-

ing Information Modeling (BIM),”

the task force report notes. Unless

all parties are committed to a set of

essential principles, integrated prac-

tice will not succeed, the task force

emphasizes. These principles in-

clude mutual respect, mutual benefit,

early goal definition, enhanced com-

munication, clearly defined stan-

dards, appropriate technology, and

high performance.

To some, thoe principles may

sound reflective of the construction

partnering process. However, the

AIA/California Council contends

that partnering is purely aspiration-

al, with project stakeholders signing

a non-binding agreement that sup-

ports joint and open interaction.

“Partnering does not, however,

change the basic contract and liabil-

ity relationships, nor does it create

incentives and consequences that

flow from achieving or ignoring the

collaborative goals,” the council ex-

plains.

In contrast, IPD is a value-driven

process, where project goals are re-

inforced through shared risk (appro-

priate liability allocation) and re-

ward based on the best interests of

the project as a whole rather than

individual performance.

Noteworthy, too, the council says

that acceptance of IPD’s essential

principles does not necessarily guar-

antee project success. “Although in-

tegrated projects can proceed using

various business models, some ap-

proaches are better suited to an in-

tegrated project than others,” accord-

ing to the IPD Task Force, which rep-

resents the interests of architects,

engineers, contractors, subcontrac-

tors, owners, and attorneys.

For instance, under the more tradi-

tional design-bid-build approach, key

participants cannot be identified un-

til bids are received—too late to

meaningfully participate in develop-

ing the integrated design, resulting in

a likely failure to achieve the effi-

ciency and performance benefits of

an integrated process, the task force

points out. For this reason, progres-

sive design-build delivery methods

have the potential to be more consis-

tent with the integrated approach.

If a business model is a good fit

for IPD, there are eight primary se-

quential phases that comprise the in-

tegrated approach, the task force re-

ports:

nnnnn Conceptualization (tradition-

ally known as pre-design): the be-

ginning of determining what is to be

built.

nnnnn Criteria Design (traditionally

known as schematic design): where

the project begins to take shape.

nnnnn Detailed Design (traditionally

known as design development): con-

cludes the what-is-being-created

phase of the project.

nnnnn Implementation Documents

(traditionally known as construction

documents): where the focus shifts

from what is being created to docu-

menting how it will be implemented.

nnnnn Agency Review: use of digital

technologies such as BIM, early in-

volvement, and validation by agen-

cies to shorten the final permitting

process.

nnnnn Buyout: complete buyout of re-

maining contracts.

nnnnn Construction: where the benefits

of the integrated model are realized.

nnnnn Closeout: delivery of an intelli-

gent 3-D model to the project owner.

For construction organizations

considering an IPD approach, pro-

ponents recommend business mod-

els that promote early involvement

of key participants; equitably bal-

ance risk and reward; have compen-

sation structures that reward best-

for-project behavior or provide in-

centives related to project success;

clearly define responsibilities with-

out discouraging open communica-

tion and risk taking; and implement

management and control structures

built around team decision making.

November 2010

Use of BIM Creating New ParadigmIn Construction Project Delivery

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

MUCH of the engineering design andconstruction community has been in-troduced in some manner to BuildingInformation Modeling — the processof generating and managing computer-ized multi-dimensional models linked todatabases containing design specifica-tions, schedules, and other documentsrelated to a construction project. Whenused, BIM is a digital representation ofthe building process itself, making iteasier for construction firms to acceler-ate construction, lower costs, and man-age facility operation throughout aproject’s lifecycle.

Virtual building, virtual design andconstruction, and integrated practice areall synonymous terms for this emergingtechnology that is trending toward be-ing the next-generation tool for projectdelivery. Regardless of terminologypreference, BIM’s mission is not to re-place traditional or modern forms ofproject delivery; rather, the process aimsto dramatically increase productivity andefficiency in the construction industry.

Although the academic origins ofBIM can be traced back to the late 1970s,it took more than decade for informa-tion modeling to achieve wider accep-tance in the building industry itself.

BIM gained further ground in 2004following the release of a report entitledCost Analysis of Inadequate Interoper-ability in the U.S. Capital FacilitiesIndustry. Published by the National In-stitute of Standards and Technology(NIST), the report concluded that nearly$16 billion is lost annually by the U.S.construction industry due to inadequateinter-operability, including the highlyfragmented structure of the overall in-

dustry, continued paper-based businesspractices, lack of standardization, andinconsistent technology use amongproject team members.

Today, adopted in principle by morethan 20 construction industry organi-zations, BIM overcomes many of thebarriers cited in the NIST report. Propo-nents tout it as a process that offersimproved visualization, better coordina-tion of construction documents, andgreater productivity due to easy retrievalof information. Because BIM embedsand links vital data such as suppliers ofspecific materials, location of details, andquantities required for estimation andprocurement, it also increases speed ofdelivery and reduces overall costs.

By its own nature, BIM represents anew approach in architectural and engi-neering design. Digital representationsof the actual components used to con-struct a building can be created, and thequantities and shared properties of ma-terials can be extracted easily. Scopesof work can be isolated and defined, andthe systems, assemblies, and work se-quences can be shown in a relative scalewithin the entire project or just a groupof facilities.

“BIM provides all parties involved ona project with shared up–to–date projectdata,” the Associated General Contrac-tors points out, “subsequently allow-ing for a richer design process, in-creased budget control through predic-tions about the project’s constructionprocess, and fewer surprises with re-spect to potential design and schedul-ing conflicts among trades — long be-fore ground is even broken.”

AGC’s perspective is shared withTerry Cook, president of the Construc-tion Owners Association of America.“The challenge in the design and con-

struction process isn’t to expand ourhorizons but to fix the seams,” he says.“BIM is an important conduit for infor-mation to flow from concept throughdesign, construction, operations, andback to concept for the next project.”

The structural steel industry has alsodemonstrated the viability of BIM intoday’s marketplace, according to theAmerican Institute of Steel Construc-tion. “The accomplishment of verticalintegration has motivated other spe-cialty contractors to begin the processof replicating these successes in theirvertical project supply chain,” AISCnotes.

“At the same time, the marketplacecontinues to move toward a horizontalintegration of design software where thesharing of coordinated 3-D design mod-els between architects and engineersbrings further advantages.”

In an industry that can sometimes beslow to embrace change, what is thefuture role of BIM in building documen-tation and project delivery?

The SmartMarket Report on Build-ing Information Modeling: Transform-ing Design and Construction toAchieve Greater Industry Productivity,published by McGraw-Hill Constructionin December 2008, found that BIM useon construction projects is growing rap-idly. In fact, 62 percent of users surveyedindicated they would be using BIM onmore than 30 percent of their projects in2009. The research findings also showedthat 82 percent of those using BIM be-lieve it is having a very positive impacton their organizations’ productivity.

As part of its market summary,McGraw-Hill says BIM is being broadlyaccepted by the construction industry,with more than 50 percent of each sur-vey segment — architects, engineers,

contractors, and owners — utilizing thetechnology tools at moderate levels orhigher. Architects are the heaviest us-ers of BIM; contractors are the lightestusers, although they expect to see thegreatest rise in BIM use in the future.Engineers see their BIM use increasingbut not as much as that of other projectteam members; owners expect to seemoderate increases.

“This powerful trend points to anunstoppable wave of adoption andcreative implementation that will rede-fine project delivery and affect everycompany in the construction industry,”the McGraw-Hill report contends.

As with any new or emerging tech-nology, some legal uncertainties may be

associated with using BIM. To addressthese potential legalities, in 2008 an ad-dendum was added to the Consensus-DOCS catalog, which addresses con-tractual agreements among all forms ofproject delivery. The BIM addendumprovides a tool to utilize the processfrom start to finish, thereby allowingcontractors to more closely integrateproject delivery with owners and de-sign professionals.

ConsensusDOCS — a collaborativeeffort of 22 leading organizations rep-resenting owners, contractors, subcon-tractors, sureties, and designers — con-tains more than 70 construction con-tracts aimed at identifying and employ-ing best practices that allocate risk fairly

among all contractual parties. The ad-dendum expects to serve as a catalystfor acceptance of BIM in many sectorsof the industry.

“BIM is changing how constructionprojects are planned, coordinated, anddocumented, and that means contractsmust change accordingly,” says E.Colette Nelson, executive vice presidentof the American Subcontractors Asso-ciation. “ASA endorses the addendum,a truly pioneering effort to help con-struction team members define theirbusiness relationships on projects thatuse BIM.”

July 2010

Skilled Labor Shortages Still Problematic

For General Construction Industry

By Steven J. Storts

Dublin, Ohio

“BUILD it, and they will come!”

This approach to project planning

worked well, of course, in the popu-

lar movie Field of Dreams. But in the

current construction marketplace,

fielding a skilled labor workforce

is beginning to pose greater chal-

lenges for project owners and mem-

bers of the construction team.

One of the core principles that

evolved out of a long-term cam-

paign of The Business Roundtable’s

Construction Committee—the Con-

struction Industry Cost Effectiveness

Project—emphasizes that good per-

sonnel management enables people

to make their maximum contribution,

develops their potential, and ensures

that skilled craftsmen are used only

in those tasks where their skills are

required.

Although construction workers are

usually contractor employees, the

Roundtable notes, it is in the owners’

interest to require that they be man-

aged and used effectively and to ac-

cept the associated costs. Unfortu-

nately, recent survey and census data

from numerous organizations point

toward a growing shortage of skilled

workers in construction and heavy

equipment industries.

The growth rate of the construction

workforce has been steadily declining

since the 1970s. Also, both the U.S.

Census Bureau and reports from pri-

vate consulting firms indicate the

workforce will begin to experience a

negative growth rate beginning in

2015. Census estimates further project

that by 2020 one out of every two

people in the U.S. will be older than

50. Many of these older workers, how-

ever, are willing to stay in the work-

force longer or even re-enter it after

retirement.

In March 2008, the Construction

Labor Research Council conducted

a survey of more than 6,000 contrac-

tors nationwide and found that the

largest expansion in decades in in-

dustrial construction is causing sig-

nificant shortages in the workforce

within single and multiple trades.

The findings come from a study, The

2008 Construction Industry Condi-

tions Survey, which was sponsored

by construction industry unions to

determine the impact of increased

job demand within various sectors

of the construction market. Accord-

ing to the survey results, those trades

most often associated with labor

shortages include boilermakers,

pipefitters, ironworkers, operating

engineers, and electricians.

With the availability of an ad-

equate supply of skilled trade labor

becoming less certain, construction

stakeholders are responding by

adopting nontraditional work prac-

tices, which in some cases increase

labor costs beyond the contractual

wage and fringe rate. In fact, to cope

with temporary labor shortfalls,

many contractors are posting weekly

work schedules of more than 40

hours; some have schedules exceed-

ing 70 hours weekly. Additionally,

supplemental payments that are $1

to $3 above scale are being made on

a project-by-project basis in order

to attract sufficient and adequately

skilled trade workers.

However, construction profession-

als point out that real solutions to

labor shortages must be long-term in

their approach and address both the

recruitment and retention of a skilled

workforce. To that end, the Construc-

tion Industry Institute formed a re-

search team more than a decade ago

to examine the U.S. Department of

Labor’s forecasted workforce short-

ages for the new millennium. The

research team’s early findings still

hold true today: contractors that ex-

perience an employee retention rate

of 80 percent or better realize prof-

its on more jobs, complete more

projects on or ahead of schedule,

and experience better safety perfor-

mance.

Based on its research, CII recom-

mends that owners should pre-

qualify contractors according to

these factors: employee wages and

benefits; overall trade worker reten-

tion rates; attributes used to attract

and retain trade workers; and efforts

in craft training, assessment, and

certification to enhance the employ-

ee’s career development process.

Recommendations to contractors

include the following: providing

competitive wage and benefit pack-

ages; monitoring and using reten-

tion rates to diagnose company field

staffing trends; providing a safe

workplace; implementing a skill as-

sessment process; enhancing perma-

nent employment opportunities;

adopting certification programs to

ensure qualified trade workers; and

treating employees with respect.

March 2010

Shortfalls in Cement Supplies DrawMuch Concern in Construction Industry

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

THE Portland Cement Association’spredictions of tight supplies of ce-ment and even shortfalls in some re-gions of the U.S. are proving all tootrue for many stakeholders in the con-struction industry.

In its May survey of cement suppli-ers, PCA reported tight supplies in 23states. Among those, 10 indicated tightsupplies in only portions of the state,typically surrounding large metropoli-tan areas. The states most affected werelocated in the Southwest, Southeast,and Northeast, with the exception ofthe New England region.

But PCA also cautioned, “Fragilemarket balances prevail in severalother areas currently not characterizedby tight supplies.” That fragile naturehas now reached critical stages in Ar-kansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri,Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Okla-homa, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas,Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.

Citing delays in construction proj-ects and hoping to mitigate furthershortages of cement supplies, gover-nors in four Western states recentlyforwarded a letter to U.S. CommerceSecretary Carlos Gutierrez, urging thefederal government to immediatelyend a trade policy that restricts cementimports from Mexico.

The letter, signed by GovernorsMike Rounds of South Dakota, KennyGuinn of Nevada, Bill Richardson ofNew Mexico, and Jon Huntsman ofUtah, stated, “The effects of the short-age are rippling through the construc-tion industry. Concrete producers arebeing forced to reduce their allotmentsto their customers, meaning the possi-

bility of costly delays or even the can-cellation of construction contracts.”

The governors cited further con-cerns. “If this shortage continues, thou-sands of jobs and millions of dollarsin broken contracts will be at risk, andmany small construction businessescould be forced out of business,” theynoted. “Public projects will increasein cost, while failing to meet construc-tion schedules.”

Additional letters to Gutierrez havealso been sent by Governors Jeb Bushof Florida and Rick Perry of Texas,and by Steven Sandherr, president ofthe Associated General Contractors ofAmerica.

According to Richardson’s office,the U.S. instituted a tariff in 1990 toprevent Mexican cement manufactur-ers from dumping their product on U.S.markets below domestically producedprices. AGC reports that domestic ce-ment production is now falling shortof demand, and the antidumping duty,which is “essentially a tax of up to80%,” is preventing Mexican cementfrom entering the U.S. market.

PCA has also adjusted upwardly itsdemand forecast for this year from a3% increase to 5%. Tight supplies areprimarily the result of record demandfor cement, the organization explains.Cement consumption in the U.S. grewto 119.9 million metric tons in 2004,an increase of 6.8% over 2003 and arecord year for cement consumption.Through the first quarter of 2005, ce-ment consumption has increased 7%over the very strong 2004 levels.

Because mortgage rates have re-mained near historic lows, home build-ing continues to be very strong. Inaddition, nonresidential and publicconstruction is also expected to in-

crease as the economy improves, PCAforecasts. “Price hikes for other con-struction materials have also increaseddemand for concrete,” the organizationexplains. “Overall, concrete price in-creases have been slight—and rela-tively stable—compared to increasesin steel and lumber prices.”

Shortages of fly ash, used as a sup-plementary cementing material in con-crete mixes, have further increased thedemand for cement in some regions ofthe U.S., PCA points out.

Sandherr’s letter to Gutierrez in Junewarned the Commerce Departmentabout possible cement shortages. Sincethen, he says the number of states wheresignificant shortages or tight suppliesof cement are reported has risen to 30,plus Washington, D.C. “The long-awaited enactment of surface transpor-tation and energy bills . . . will add tocement demand, at a time when con-struction spending has already risen9% from last year, while domestic ce-ment production has barely budged,”Sandherr contends.

The AGC president says domesticsuppliers are currently selling all theycan produce, rationing existing cus-tomers, and turning down new custom-ers. “It is high time for other cementproducers to admit they are not being‘injured’ by Mexican cement importsand to agree . . . to a suspension of the15-year-old antidumping duty on thoseimports,” Sandherr emphasizes. “Theduty is causing needless hardship forcontractors and concrete suppliers instates all across the country.”

Cement companies are currentlytaking both near- and long-term mea-sures to prevent and resolve regionalshortages by operating at full capac-ity, expanding domestic capacity, and

importing more cement when possible,PCA reports. In fact, it is expected thatthe imports’ share of total U.S. con-sumption will exceed 25% during2005 through 2007, a rise of more than4% since 2003.

“U.S. cement plants are operating atmaximum levels, as they did through-out 2004,” PCA notes. “To meet mar-ket demand last year, cement produc-ers drew four million tons from inven-tory. This year, inventory levels are athistoric lows and a further draw-downis not likely.”

According to the organization, U.S.cement manufacturers have announc-ed plans to spend about $3.5 billionto build new plants and expand exist-ing ones to produce an additional es-timated 14.5 million tons of annualcapacity by 2010, which represents a15% increase over 2004 domestic ca-pacity levels.

October 2005

Industry Consortium Issues ChallengeFor Construction Productivity Measures

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

A NATIONAL building industry con-sortium is calling on the U.S. Bureauof Labor Statistics to establish stan-dard productivity measurements in thedomestic construction industry.

In May, the Building Futures Coun-cil released a white paper that docu-ments the inadequacy of current pro-ductivity measures for the construc-tion industry and encourages BLS tocontinue its efforts to improve mea-surement.

BFC says these efforts, includingfuture studies, should pay close at-tention to recent industry innova-tions—increased offsite fabrication,new materials, and improved commu-nications—and attempt to gauge theeffect of these innovations on con-struction productivity.

BFC, a national, nonprofit organi-zation comprising building and con-struction industry stakeholders, ad-dresses the challenges and rewards ofthe built environment. The consor-tium operates as a think tank to iden-tify critical issues encountered in thebuilding and construction process,and then analyzes, discusses, and ad-vocates guidelines and criteria forimproving efficiency in the process.

The value of construction put inplace equals nearly 9% of the U.S.gross domestic product, yet despite itsimportance, BLS has not developedany standard productivity measuresfor the construction industry. Conse-quently, there are difficulties in mea-suring outputs, inputs, and prices, al-though BLS will begin publishing itsfirst index for finished structures—warehouses—this summer.

Aside from the difficulties of estab-lishing suitable measurements, BFCsuggests that BLS develop, publish,and monitor adequate benchmarksthat the construction industry coulduse to better evaluate, improve, and,most importantly, identify the valuablecontributions the industry brings to theU.S. economy.

“It is essential to establish uniformmeasurements of inputs and outputs,”notes Derish Wolff, BFC vice chair-man and chairman of Berger GroupHoldings in East Orange, New Jersey.“Without proper measurement and re-porting of productivity, the U.S. con-struction industry will continue to bewrongly perceived by some as resis-tant to innovation and change.”

The effect of this perception on thepublic is significant, BFC emphasizes.The construction industry is oftencriticized as unprogressive, archaic,and conservative. This perception isunfounded, and in many ways, discour-ages the very talent needed to prop-erly fuel growth and productivity, theorganization adds.

“Collectively, the industry has madesignificant strides in recent years indeveloping safer work sites, shorterconstruction time lines, and more re-silient products and systems that makethe built environment more productiveand efficient for the industries thatoccupy the facilities built,” says Wolff.

If suitable measurements for con-struction productivity can be identi-fied, then industry productivity andthe effect of improved technologiescan be better evaluated and under-stood, Wolff contends. “This will en-hance the industry’s efficiency whilecontributing to the economy, and per-formance against other major sectors

will be more accurately measured,” headds.

The BFC white paper MeasuringProductivity and Evaluating Innova-tion in the U.S. Construction Industrypoints out that, in general, detailedconstruction productivity measure-ment has been avoided by U.S. gov-ernment analysts due to a lack of ad-equate data and professional and aca-demic consensus on measurement tech-niques and their significance.

Statistics on long-term productiv-ity trends are available for many in-dustries in the U.S., particularly ingoods-producing sectors such as min-ing and manufacturing. “The samecannot be said for the constructionindustry,” the white paper reports.“This discrepancy is primarily due tothe measurement difficulties regard-ing real inputs and outputs unique tothe construction industry. Most of theproblem involves measurements ofoutput, particularly the problem ofcontrolling for the change in qualityin the inflation indices.”

BFC says the use of proxy indicesin construction also adds to the prob-lem, such as using the Census Hous-ing Index to deflate commercial andmilitary construction.

While the input data is measured inhours worked by BLS, output is mea-sured by the U.S. Census Bureau. Incomparison to other industrial sectors,it appears that a number of analystsbelieve, even in the absence of agreedmeasurable data, that constructionproductivity growth was above aver-age in the 1960s and early 1970s, andbelow average in the 1990s, accord-ing to BFC researchers.

There have been few studies aimedat accurately quantifying construc-

tion productivity growth, the whitepaper notes. Therefore, BFC recom-mends that any future studies shouldfocus on analyzing—and perhaps re-defining—the unique characteristicsof the diverse subsectors of the con-struction process and establishing ap-propriate measurements of inputs andoutputs.

National estimates of costs of la-bor, material, and equipment com-pared to the price of the finished prod-ucts may not, given the complexityof the sector, produce the most accu-rate or beneficial productivity data,BFC explains, noting that productiv-ity factors should, where practical, bequalified by categories such as geog-raphy, types of products or services,and materials.

July 2005

CMAA Study Confronts Issue ofWhat a Construction Manager Does

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

A RECENT study by the Con-struction Management Association ofAmerica pinpoints the key functionsof a construction manager, includingthe tasks and responsibilities thatmost realistically define the job as itis actually practiced in the market.

CMAA contends that the real def-inition of a professional CM is oftennot correctly understood. Part of themisunderstanding arises from confus-ing terms, with people applying dif-ferent job titles such as owner’s rep-resentative, project manager, and pro-gram manager to this critical function.

“We see an urgent need for clarityin describing and defining the contentof the professional construction man-ager’s job,” says CMAA ExecutiveDirector Bruce D’Agostino.

The organization surveyed its ownindividual, corporate, and ownermembers, in addition to certified con-struction managers and certificationcandidates. More than 500 profes-sional CMs responded to the survey.Participants were asked to rank 120common project responsibilities ac-cording to their importance in a CM’swork and the frequency in which theyactually engaged in the activities.

The CM project responsibilities fellinto seven broad functional areas:project management planning, costmanagement, time management, qual-ity management, contract admini-stration, safety management, and CMprofessional practice.

Survey respondents ranked projectmanagement planning as the mostimportant of all project-specificfunctional areas. Overall, CMs and

owners ranked maintenance of pro-fessional practice as their primaryongoing concern, including adher-ence to ethical standards and pro-viding leadership to their firms.

Among specific project manage-ment tasks, CMs assigned the highestvalue to defining the responsibilitiesand structure of the project manage-ment team. Second place went to“organizing and leading the projectteam by implementing project con-trols, defining roles and responsi-bilities, and developing communica-tion protocols.” Third place was as-signed to identifying the elements ofproject design and construction thatwere most likely to give rise to dis-putes and claims.

CMs reported that their most fre-quent tasks—functions they performon a daily or almost-daily basis—include prequalifying designers, de-veloping and managing a selectionprocess, creating project proceduresmanuals, and developing trade con-tractors’ scope of work definitions forcontract agreements.

The next most important func-tional category cited in the survey wastime management, where CMs saidtheir most important task is to developa master construction schedule, fol-lowed by developing and managinga critical path schedule for the project,and reviewing detailed short-termschedules with contractors.

CMs noted that they perform theseduties on at least a monthly basis, withthe greatest frequency being reportedfor “developing project schedulingrequirements and systems,” followedby “developing a project programschedule” and “reviewing acquisitionplan and design documents to verify

constructability within establishedperformance periods.”

A number of quality managementfunctions were also identified in thesurvey as being central to a CM’s role.Chief among these tasks is to “manageconformance of work to contractdocuments during the constructionphase.” Tied for second in importanceare “monitoring risk management andimplementation of safety plans” and“ensuring review comments are ade-quately addressed during the designphase.”

Survey respondents reported per-forming these tasks on a monthly basis.Other duties performed on a monthlyor weekly basis include preparing aquality management plan, selectingand leading a QM team, conductingdesign reviews on behalf of the owner,and monitoring the effectiveness ofcontractors’ QM/QC teams.

Contract administration is also acentral CM function, the survey found.CMs attached the highest value tomonitoring contractor compliancewith contract requirements, develop-ing scope-of-work documents for bidpackages, and organizing team inter-actions. The most frequently per-formed tasks include defining thepartnering process, developing a con-tract procurement plan, establishingcontractor prequalification proce-dures, and developing requirements foroccupancy and startup.

Construction management alsofocuses heavily on project costs. In thearea of cost management, the surveyfound CMs and owners defining thebudget development process as theirmost important duty, followed byreviewing design documents for con-formity with budget and scope re-

quirements, and monitoring costs asthe design is developed.

In addressing safety management,CMs said their most valued functionis to establish project emergencyplans, including coordination of pol-ice, fire, rescue and other emergencyservices. Assessing job-site risks,defining the responsibilities of on-site employers, and reviewing con-tractor safety programs are alsoconsidered highly important.

“This survey clearly demonstratesthat both CMs and project owners seea large number of important, specificjobs that must be performed by the CMat every stage of a project,” says Agos-tino. “The most important functionsidentified by respondents, as well asthose they report performing mostoften, are equally distributed across thedesign, construction, and project de-livery stages.”

June 2005

Crom Corporation Takes ConstructionOf Elevated Tanks to New Heights

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

FROM a distance, a water tower’s an-gular, yet smooth, domelike shape sit-ting atop a narrow pedestal resemblesa landed spaceship of sorts. Otherssimply describe the sighting as a gi-gantic golf tee, slightly rounded ontop. Either description satisfies the en-gineering creativity that emanatesfrom The Crom Corporation, a Gaines-ville, Florida-based construction firmspecializing in prestressed compos-ite tanks.

A longtime sustaining firm of theNational Society of Professional En-gineers’ Construction Practice Divi-sion, Crom has become a recognizedbuilder of prestressed concrete waterstorage tanks. In fact, when the timecomes for your community to build anewer, improved water storage facil-ity, there’s a good chance Crom willbe there. And with it will come itsproven expertise in constructing el-evated prestressed concrete tanks.

Professional Engineer James Neff,senior vice president of Crom, notes,“The design and construction of thesetanks are unique compared to typicalconstruction projects. Building a wa-ter-containing, leak-free concretestructure of this type is difficult at best.The techniques used in our construc-tion eliminate many of the problemsinherent in satisfactorily building sucha structure.”

In addition to Crom’s more than half-a-century of design and constructionexperience that is the cornerstone ofthese newer, elevated storage tankstructures, key features include con-crete construction throughout, addingto the structure’s long life span; water

containment within a vessel in perma-nent compression; and a low-silhou-ette, free-span dome roof with no sub-merged interior columns. All of thesefeatures complement the aesthetic ap-peal of the facility that sports an at-tractive texture with smooth outsidelines.

“Concrete has long been recognizedas a building material with great dura-bility,” Neff notes. “It stands to reasonthat it has become the preferred mate-rial for construction of water storagestructures throughout the U.S. andworldwide.”

The Crom executive further pointsout that elevated prestressed concretetanks provide long-range economy forany owner. “Because exterior paintingis not required, and the fact that inte-rior coatings or linings aren’t neces-sary, maintenance costs are almostnegligible,” Neff explains. “Also, theinconvenience of service interruptionsis minimal, and in many cases, isavoided entirely.”

Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is the lat-est home to one of these innovative,elevated storage tank systems. Just re-cently completed, the $4.2 million,180-foot-high tower structure willhold two million gallons of water forcustomers of the Murfreesboro Waterand Sewer Department. The commu-nity also plans to replace an older500,000-gallon steel storage tank withone of Crom’s two-million-gallon sys-tems, estimated at a cost of $3.8 mil-lion. Crom has also constructed el-evated prestressed concrete tank tow-ers in Frankfort, Kentucky, and Boyn-ton Beach, Florida.

The company’s unique constructionmethod employs a specially designed,self-supporting concrete formwork

system that eliminates all through-wallties, essential for water impermeabil-ity. Horizontal and vertical prestress-ing keeps the concrete in the vesselwalls and the dome roof in permanentcompression, both of which ensure awatertight structure that will providemany years of service.

The elevated prestressed concretetank structure starts with a floor foun-dation constructed with heavily rein-forced concrete. Resting on that foun-dation is the tank pedestal, cast usingthe jump-formed method. From thatpoint, the exterior forms for the coni-cal concrete vessel wall are erected.When the ring is complete the formsare self-supporting.

Reinforcing steel and prestressingducts are then placed for the conicalvessel wall, followed by the installa-tion of the interior formwork systemin preparation for casting the conicalvessel wall. Interior shutter boards areplaced one row at a time and concreteis cast in 22-inch-high lifts to assuregood consolidation. A hydraulic jackis used to tension the prestressing ele-ments for the vessel wall, which over-all is put in permanent compressionusing both horizontal and vertical pre-stressing.

The concrete cylindrical vessel walland the free-span dome roof are thencast and prestressed, followed by thetank’s completion, consisting of add-ing stairs, ladders, accessories, andpainting of the exterior surfaces.

Crom’s years of experience in build-ing more than 2,600 prestressed com-posite tanks—the majority of whichare still in service—have perfected thecomposite system for tank wall designand construction. These improve-ments have included the use of ready-

mixed concrete and pneumaticallyapplied shotcrete in combination witha steel shell diaphragm; high-strengthprestressing wire; and various epoxiesfor sealing the steel shell membrane.

Of the major developments in pre-stressed composite system design andconstruction, Crom engineers cite thesteel shell diaphragm as the most ef-fective means for making the tank’score wall watertight. Also, shotcrete,with its high cement factor and lowwater-to-cement ratio, has been found

to have greater corrosion inhibition,impermeability, and strength as com-pared to conventional concrete.

“Our more recent move toward el-evating some of our water storage tankstructures is, in effect, a culminationof many of these improvements in con-struction materials and techniqueswithin the industry,” Neff points out.“When it comes to prestressed com-posite systems, Crom’s mission is toprovide a turnkey design and construc-tion service stressing good workman-

ship, structural integrity, and pleasingaesthetics that result in expanded lon-gevity with low maintenance costs.”

Over the last two decades, The CromCorporation has been nationally rec-ognized for technological expertise,construction excellence, and architec-tural and environmental aesthetics bythe Portland Cement Association, with12 major awards spanning the 1980sand 1990s.

July 2004

Survey Finds Security Issues TakingForefront in Hiring of Executives

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

A RECENT survey of constructionCEOs indicates that the events of Sep-tember 11, 2001, and the resulting na-tionwide response to terrorism havebrought about permanent change inconstruction executive hiring.

More than 500 construction CEOsand industry executives, respondingto a ConstructionExecutive.com sur-vey, show that since 9/11, more em-phasis has been placed on candidatescreening for executive hiring, includ-ing increased demands for third-partyreference checking, detailed back-ground checks, assessment testing, fee-based company research, and proba-tionary hires.

Construction Executive is a careeradvancement and leadership develop-ment center for CEOs and industryexecutives in the architectural, engi-neering, and construction communi-ties. Through its emphasis on humancapital services, the New Orleans-based firm maintains one of the larg-est, offline, private profiles databaseof employed or contracted A/E/C ex-ecutives and is a leading informationprovider of construction salary sur-veys, construction career trends, con-struction demographics, and other A/E/C employment data.

Kevin Carney, marketing directorfor Construction Executive, says that9/11 forever changed the way con-struction executives are hired. “MostCEOs believed they were hiringsmarter and being more careful withcandidate screening this year than inprevious years,” he reports. “Even theconstruction executives we heardfrom (who accepted new positions),

felt they were much more cautious andhad performed more company re-search prior to accepting a job offer.”

One of the survey’s findings pointstoward an increase in probationaryhiring of executives. The survey showsthat 16% of all executive hires overthe last 12 months involved a proba-tionary or trial period. This figure hasrisen 12% from 2002 figures, afterclimbing 9% from the previous yearwhen a similar survey was conducted.

Although probationary hiring maymake sense for cautious employersand executives who prefer to test thewaters before jumping in, it could bea smart move statistically for risk-tak-ers as well, Carney observes. “Ourstudies indicate that most new execu-tive hires that fail usually fail withinthe first 90 days,” he says. “However,we found that employers who imple-mented a 90-day probationary periodhad a lower failure rate and were morelikely to retain their hires longer thanemployers who did not.”

Employers without probationaryhiring showed an 18% failure rate (dueto termination or resignation) for newhires within the first 90 days, whileemployers with probationary hiringshowed a 15% failure rate.

“We also found that executives andemployers who consider probation-ary hiring usually are more diligentwith their research and qualifying ef-forts,” Carney adds, “and more likelyto put forth their best efforts to ac-commodate each other throughoutthe probationary period. Probation-ary hiring acts like an extended court-ship giving everyone a chance to workcooperatively together over a longerterm before making a permanent com-mitment.”

Overall, the survey indicates a gen-eral change in attitude and approachto hiring for construction employersand executives, including changes inhiring practices at the corporate gov-ernance level. “Since 9/11, we haveexperienced a significant rise in de-mand for our third-party referencechecks, e-background checks, assess-ment testing, and company researchservices,” Carney points out.

The hiring of company executivesis not the only practice undergoingchange within the construction indus-try. Building project owners and build-ing management officials are placinggreater emphasis on security, which isresulting in higher operating costs.

Larry Soehren, president of Build-ing Owners and Managers Associa-tion International, testified earlier thisyear before a congressional subcom-mittee that oversees funding alloca-tions for the General Services Admin-istration. The BOMA Internationalofficial told lawmakers and GSA offi-cials that building operating costs forboth private and public sector build-ings have steadily increased about10% annually over the past five years.

Chief among those operating costsare security measures, Soehren pointsout. “In these times, most office build-ings—whether private or public, ur-ban or suburban—have no alternativebut to increase the security in build-ings,” he explains. “Whether the threatis real or perceived, tenants are de-manding more secure workplaces, andowners and managers are responding.”

In a survey conducted last year byCEL & Associates on behalf of BOMAInternational and the Urban Land In-stitute, the results indicated that mostbuilding owners, managers, and devel-

opers have improved security systemsand procedures since 9/11 by addingsecurity cameras, increasing securitypersonnel, and either installing or morerigidly enforcing card-access systems.The basic security enhancement pro-cedures used most frequently includemore accurate vendor identificationand check-in and more comprehen-sive employee background checks byvendors.

“It is clear that, in today’s environ-ment of terrorism and war, buildingowners and managers in both private

and public sector buildings must con-tinue to meet new standards of safetyin office buildings,” Soehren con-tends. He encouraged subcommitteemembers to give GSA more flexibilityin its management and developmentof the buildings in its federal portfolioand to enact legislation that would“allow GSA and private sector com-panies to enter into public-privatepartnerships.”

BOMA International is generallysupportive of the “lease-back” conceptof public-private partnerships. Under

this arrangement, the government en-gages a private entity to assume eco-nomic control of a building and itsrenovation. The government, though,still retains a first-refusal option tolease the building back for a rent thatincludes a return on building improve-ments. Soehren notes there are alsoopportunities in leasing outright somegovernment-owned buildings to theprivate sector.

September 2003

Automated Garage Parking SystemPremieres in Hoboken, New Jersey

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

PARKING a vehicle in Hoboken,New Jersey, just got a little easier andsafer. The nation’s first modular andfully automated parking garage open-ed this fall—a 56-foot-high structureresting on a lot just 100 feet square,accommodating 324 cars. But really,automated parking? Sounds too goodto be true.

Modestly described, Robotic Park-ing’s new facility is an elaborate sys-tem of lifts and rails that place, move,and retrieve cars among any of theparking bays on any floor level—allwithout the assistance of a vehicleowner or parking attendant. Thosewanting to park simply leave theirlocked car on a pallet at the entrancebay and let the computerized systemtake it through a series of lifts and car-riers to a vacant parking space. Whenit’s time to retrieve the vehicle, thecar owner inserts an e-card and theautomated pallet fetches the vehiclein minutes.

Robotic Parking’s automated park-ing systems can park twice as manycars in the same space (or use half thespace for the same number of vehicles)as a conventional garage. It offers thehighest level of security possible in aparking structure, all with the conve-nience of a valet service but withoutthe valet. The fact that no one entersthe parking garage itself virtuallyeliminates any danger of vandalism,scratches, dents, or theft of a vehicle.

More importantly, the risk of per-sonal injury or robbery that can oc-cur in conventional parking areas isdramatically reduced because driversremain safely outside the building at

all times. Additionally, the facility hasall the convenience of ground-levelaccess, eliminating the need to takeelevators or walk up and down stairs.

Less than a decade ago, GerhardHaag, president of Robotic Parking,had a vision to provide a smart solu-tion for urban planners in major met-ropolitan areas. Why plan all thatspace for traditional parking when itcould be more efficiently utilized forother purposes, with the added ben-efit of increased aesthetics. That vi-sion is being realized today, Haag ob-serves, adding, “Our unique, patentedtechnology offers a revolutionary al-ternative to conventional parkingwhere space is limited. This technol-ogy is truly the wave of the future.”

The founder of the Clearwater, Flor-ida-based company has more than 27years experience in engineering andconstruction. Haag, who holds an ad-vanced degree in engineering, hasbeen involved in designing, planning,manufacturing, supervising, and con-structing several major projects inEurope, particularly in Germany, in-cluding a Volkswagen factory, a Hit-achi chip fabrication plant, a Mercedesautomobile assembly plant, a BMWpaint plant, a launch test frame forEuropean Rocket Ariane 4, and MUCII, Munich’s newest airport.

In addition to his engineering andconstruction successes, Haag’s man-agement skills are evidenced by hispurchase and subsequent turnaroundof Krupp’s Steel Manufacturing Di-vision in Stuttgart, Germany, grow-ing the company by nearly 200%.

Established in 1994, Robotic Park-ing is the designer, manufacturer, andoperator of a complete line of auto-mated, modular parking systems that

can accommodate from 10 to more than5,000 cars, wherever garage space islimited. With more than 60 years cu-mulative automation experience, thecompany has pioneered the field ofautomated parking to the point whereit can serve a variety of markets thatare dependent upon parking require-ments that can’t be easily satisfied witha conventional garage, such as condo-minium or apartment complexes, rec-reational facilities, hotels, or small of-fice building development projects.

Robotic Parking’s expanded prod-uct line comprises four different mod-els—RPS 1000, RPS 100, RPS 20W,and RPS 20L—to accommodate vari-ous parking needs, particularly build-ing size and location and projecteduses. The RPS 1000 line, for example,can accommodate from 200 to morethan 5,000 cars and can be built onlot sizes as small as 60 feet square.The other three model series, begin-ning with the RPS 100 line, can ac-commodate as many as 200 vehiclesand as few as 10, and all have the op-tion to add more parking modules toexpand capacity.

All models have flexible, modulardesigns that are well-suited for inde-pendent applications, above groundor underground, or can be adapted toan already existing structure, such asinside, underneath, or on top of abuilding. The facades are flexible, too,and can be designed to blend in withneighboring buildings with a look thatis contemporary, historic, or tradi-tional. Materials used in the facade areversatile as well, including concrete,wood, brick, stone, aluminum, or othercomposite building materials.

Both the RPS 1000 and 100 modelsprovide high levels of redundancy—

backup systems for all major compo-nents and early warning signals tohelp ensure uninterrupted operationand minimize any downtime. Accord-ing to Robotic Parking, no single fail-ure will ever result in its system beinginoperable, due to a patent pending“Human Machine Interface,” a sophis-ticated system of advance diagnostics.

Underground applications of Ro-botic Parking’s automated parkingsystems also provide further financialincentive. Because only half the space

is needed, an owner can realize asmuch as 50% cost-savings on the ex-cavation alone. Also, due to lowerlighting and ventilation requirements,lower insurance costs, lower person-nel expenses, and savings in land pur-chase, the overall development costscan be significantly lower than for aconventional garage.

December 2002

Construction of UPS Worldport FacilityRaises Bar on Project Cooperation

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

WITH a looming presence that canonly be described as mammoth whenseen from the air or on the ground,the new UPS Worldport air expressdelivery hub in Louisville, Kentucky,takes technological advancement,project management, and businesscreativity to new horizons.

Not to be understated, the 4 million-square-foot, $1.1 billion expansionproject at the Louisville InternationalAirport, completed last September, isconsidered the most advanced sortingfacility in the world, serving as the nervecenter of UPS’s international air op-erations. Spanning more than 80 foot-ball fields, Worldport is the largest capi-tal project in the company’s 96-yearhistory. The addition more than doublesthe size of its former domestic air ex-press hub and sorting complex.

Although actual construction of theall-points air facility began in 1999,its planning was initiated in 1995. Theproject’s monumental scale requiredmore than 200 contractors, 21 differ-ent trade groups, and an unprecedentedproject labor agreement with theGreater Louisville Building and Con-struction Trades Council to eliminatethe potential for untimely contractexpirations during construction.

Moreover, to help ensure a safe work-place, UPS forged a partnering agree-ment with GLBCTC and the KentuckyOccupational Safety and Health Pro-gram to provide on-site safety train-ing and education in an effort to avertinjuries or fatalities during the 4.5 mil-lion construction hours at Worldport.

UPS officials tout their billion dol-lars’ worth of lessons learned in the

design and construction of Worldportas something applicable to plannersand executives from any industry. Theproof is a finished product that trans-lates to more than 75 million poundsof steel, 122 miles of conveyers, andnearly 4,500 miles of fiber optic cable.

Undoubtedly, the technological ad-vancements leading to Worldport’sexpanded capacity, cutting-edge pack-age and document handling, greaterreliability, and faster transit times forcustomers are partially responsible forUPS recently receiving the inauguralAmerican Business Award for “MostInnovative Company.” The Atlanta-based enterprise, which serves morethan 200 countries and territoriesworldwide, was selected from 18 final-ists for its outstanding leadership, in-novation, perseverance, creativity,teamwork, and integrity.

“Worldport exemplifies the amazingtechnological capabilities of UPS,which enable us to move our custom-ers’ critical business informationaround the world as precisely as wemove their goods,” says Jack Blaisdell,Worldport program manager, who over-saw the design and construction of theexpanded facility that will eventuallycreate up to 6,000 new full- and part-time jobs. UPS currently employs morethan 15,000 people in Louisville.

Constructed with engineering ergo-nomics in mind to reduce the physicaldemands of the package-sorting jobs,the automation technology of World-port increases the package sorting ca-pacity to 304,000 packages per hour—more than 84 packages every second.Still, UPS admits that it’s capable ofexpanding the system to process up to500,000 packages per hour or 140packages every second.

Customers’ express shipments speedthrough 122 miles of conveyors––enough to stretch from Louisville toCincinnati––in as little as eight min-utes. A sophisticated system of cam-eras read detailed information encodedin UPS “smart labels,” triggering a net-work of computer-activated sortingand tracking devices that process some59 million database transactions ev-ery hour. The system not only providessplit-second visibility of packages,but it also reduces manual packagehandling from six times to only two.

The smart labels are considered keyto Worldport’s automation system.Most UPS customers already have theability to produce the machine-read-able labels using special software pro-vided by UPS.

Last year, the company also an-nounced its agreement to participatein the U.S. Customs Service’s TradePartnership Against Terrorism initia-tive. C-TPAT is a joint government-business initiative aimed at strength-ening overall supply chain and bor-der security. Through the program,Customs officials can offer the high-est level of security through close co-operation with the direct owners of thesupply chain––importers, carriers, bro-kers, warehouse operators, and manu-facturers.

Worldport has already providedCustoms officials with updated com-puter software to track and stop po-tentially dangerous or illegal imports.Inspectors can use the new softwareand other automated tools to filterthrough shipping manifests using anysearch query they choose, includingthe name of the shipper or recipient,the description of the goods, theirweight, or declared value.

As a result of this innovative tech-nology, UPS has saved nearly $70million by eliminating the need for aseparate customs facility. The entireWorldport hub now qualifies as a“controlled building,” according toregulations issued by the Federal Avia-tion Administration and Transporta-tion Security Administration.

“We’ve poured every technologi-cal and practical innovation we’velearned during 90 years in the logis-

tics and distribution business into thedesign of this new hub, and our cus-tomers will directly benefit,” notesTom Weidemeyer, UPS Airlines presi-dent and chief operating officer. “Thisis certainly the largest constructionproject ever undertaken by our com-pany. But it’s much more than that. It’sleadership.”

Part of that leadership is attributedto current UPS Chairman and CEOMike Eskew, an industrial engineer

who joined the company in1972. Cred-ited as one of the architects of UPS’stechnology strategy, Eskew was groupvice president for engineering beforebecoming executive vice president in1999 and assuming his current post inJanuary 2002.

July 2003

Arizona Finally Moves ForwardOn Delayed Football Stadium ProjectBy Steven J. Storts

Dublin, Ohio

AFTER nearly a year-and-a-half ofjurisdictional disputes and a land de-velopment lawsuit that went all theway to the state’s high court, the Ari-zona Cardinals can look forward tohaving their new football stadiumbuilt.

Located in the Glendale communityof Phoenix, the $355 million multi-purpose stadium facility had its ground-breaking ceremony in March and isslated as the largest single construc-tion project in the state since the PaloVerde Nuclear Generating Station. Thestadium, to be owned and operated bythe Arizona Tourism and Sports Au-thority, will generate 3,500 new con-struction jobs and is expected to re-duce the state’s budget deficit by $20million over the next three years.

The Cardinals will contribute a min-imum of $85 million toward the con-struction cost and have guaranteed topay the difference between the origi-nal total cost estimate of $331 millionand the most recent $355 million pricetag. Most of the construction fundingwill come from bonds marketed byArizona TSA and paid off with revenuesgenerated by hotel bed taxes and rentalcar surcharges in Maricopa County.

As unveiled by world renown ar-chitect Peter Eisenman, the futurelandmark takes its basic form from abarrel cactus, resulting in dramaticvertical slots that are in contrast tothe smooth outside panels. Even un-der a closed-roof condition, the rooffabric will still allow light inside.

Built on a 160-acre site, which alsoprovides parking for general seating,premium seating, buses, team person-

nel, and operations and maintenance,the multipurpose stadium will have aseating capacity of more than 63,000and include 88 luxury suites. The op-erable (retractable), natural grass play-ing field, the first to be used in theU.S., provides for the optimum foot-ball playing surface, while serving asa multipurpose venue for other publicevents.

The field will support more than94,000 square feet of natural grass andwill weigh more that 7,500 tons. Theflexibility benefits of the operablefield are twofold, allowing the grassquality time outdoors to receive maxi-mum sun for proper growth and main-tenance, while providing a concretefloor base within the facility for mul-tipurpose events.

The roof will have two, large, re-tractable panels that will completelyexpose the entire playing field, whileproviding maximum sun-shading forfans. During the hot months, the roofwill be closed, with the entire facilityair conditioned, In cooler months, theroof will remain open, taking advan-tage of the Arizona sunshine.

Arizona voters approved a new sta-dium law (Proposition 302) in Novem-ber 2000. It enacted a 30-year hotelbed tax and rental car surcharge to payfor stadium construction, in additionto providing for Arizona tourism pro-motion activities, improvements toArizona’s Cactus League baseball fa-cilities, and construction of youthsports facilities in the Phoenix metroarea.

As reported in the Arizona Repub-lic, local developer John Long assertedthat the law was an unconstitutional“special law” because it applied onlyto Maricopa County, and that provi-

sions allowing the sports authority topledge its tax revenues to pay off sta-dium-construction bonds violatedArizona’s constitutional restrictionson public debt. After the state’s attor-ney general rejected his legal claims,Long filed a lawsuit in September2001. Those same claims eventuallywere dismissed by a Maricopa CountySuperior Court judge, but Long tookhis arguments to the Arizona Court ofAppeals.

The appellate court, in a ruling is-sued last August, rejected most of thedeveloper’s claims but agreed that cer-tain income taxes dedicated to theproject violated the state constitution,according to the Republic. Rather thaninvalidate the entire law, the court sev-ered the unlawful portion from the restand ruled the bulk of the law as con-stitutional.

Long took his case to the ArizonaSupreme Court when the appellatepanel declined to reconsider its actionat his request. Long’s final setbackoccurred in early December when thehigh court determined that it wouldnot take the lawsuit under further re-view, allowing Arizona TSA to moveforward on all fronts of the stadiumproject.

Although the court decision clearsthe way for construction, it remainsunclear whether the successive projectdelays can be overcome to completethe facility by the start of the fall 2005National Football League season asoriginally planned.

June 2003

Historic Preservation Offers InvitingChallenges for Construction IndustryBy Steven J. Storts

Dublin, Ohio

IS HISTORIC preservation becominga lost art for the construction indus-try? Not according to Forest City En-terprises Inc. The Cleveland, Ohio-based development company thriveson transforming functionally obsoleteurban areas into vibrant housing andmixed-use properties.

The restoration and adaptive reuseof historic buildings are both a pas-sion driven by a sense of communityidentity and a significant economicdevelopment opportunity for cities,says Ronald Ratner, president andchief executive officer of Forest City’sResidential Group.

“We have a real passion for this kindof work,” Ratner notes. “As a devel-oper, I am sometimes asked if we wouldever be willing to sacrifice profitabil-ity to achieve excellence in historicpreservation. My answer is, that’s afalse choice. Using technical and fi-nancial creativity and working in pub-lic-private partnerships, we can haveit all, including economic return.”

The Forest City executive’s obser-vations are based on a portfolio of ex-perience that includes interests in re-tail centers, apartment communities,office buildings, and hotels. His com-pany has pursued the adaptive reuseand historic preservation of urbanlandmarks in Washington, D.C., andcities such as Boston, Cleveland, Den-ver, Los Angeles, New York City, Phila-delphia, Providence, and Richmond.

Drawing parallels to the environmen-tal movement, Ratner urges engineer-ing planners, construction companies,developers, project owners, policymakers, and other historic preservation

stakeholders to think in terms of “sus-tainable development.” He empha-sizes, “We need to think more aboutadaptive reuse opportunities. That’show we can balance historic preserva-tion and economic reality.”

Ratner, a keynote speaker at a na-tional preservation conference last fall,addressed four issues or challenges inhistoric preservation: the broad con-text of urban fabric, public-privatepartnerships, understanding economicrealities, and the future.

“We cannot focus on a single build-ing,” he explains. “There is a muchbroader context of neighborhood, dis-trict, city, and region. No matter howskillfully done, a building must be partof a vibrant urban fabric if it is to main-tain its value and provide a return onfinancial and civic investment.”

Supporting his stance for reassess-ing historic tax credit requirementsand expanding public-private partner-ships, Ratner says cooperation mustextend well beyond the conventionalareas of economic assistance and regu-latory and code cooperation to includemarketing and urban planning.

“Private investment is the only wayto achieve some of these things. With-out it and without the commitment andleadership of the public sector, it justwon’t happen,” he claims. “Historicrehabilitation introduces costs andcomplexities that are not associatedwith new construction. Bringing oldbuildings into compliance with newneeds, codes, and demands is verycomplex and expensive.”

Ratner says a 20% federal historictax credit can bring some economicrelief, but in most cases, it barely off-sets the premium costs of doing his-toric rehabilitation. Economic chal-

lenges must be addressed through acombination of financial creativityand physical or technical creativity,he adds, noting that state historic taxcredits, where available, can be veryhelpful as an additional layer of ben-efit beyond federal credits.

To illustrate his major themes, Rat-ner cites the many challenges that For-est City had to overcome—fire andsafety code problems, narrow corridors,nonworking elevators, and existingtenants—in renovating the formerDrake Hotel in Philadelphia to create280 prestigious apartment units.

In New York City’s Times Square,Forest City completed a technicalmarvel by using rollers to move thelandmark Empire Theater—all37,000 tons of it—168 feet down thestreet to accommodate the lobby ofthe new AMC Theaters and open upspace for additional commercial de-velopment in the area.

Highlighting Cleveland’s TowerCity Center mixed-use project, Ratnersays the redevelopment of the formerdowntown train station was com-pleted, despite not receiving NationalPark Service approval for historic taxcredits.

“This was a wonderful project thatin and of itself was a tremendous adap-tive reuse/historic preservation successstory,” he reflects. “I will accept thatunder the [current] rules, the NationalPark Service’s decision (to not granttax credits) was correct, although it waspurely academic . . . . [However,] if thedecision was correct within the rulesand guidelines that currently exist,then we need to rethink the rules.”

Looking toward the future, Ratnersays the time has come for a compre-hensive reassessment of the laws and

regulations governing the federal his-toric tax credit program. In particular,he contends that the onerous, resource-intensive requirements in applying fortax credits are detrimental to smallprojects.

“After years of experience, we havelearned a lot—as developers, as pub-lic officials, as citizens,” he points out.“We need greater flexibility in the law.I do not believe that the current stan-dards or process that are in place toreview and approve projects for his-toric tax credits allow for a creativebalance of historic needs and eco-nomic realities.”

March 2003

Engineers Release Preliminary FindingsOn Trade Center’s Structural Collapse

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

A TEAM of 25 leading structural andfire protection engineers report that theWorld Trade Center’s towers couldhave remained standing indefinitelyfollowing the terrorist attacks if firehad not overwhelmed the weakenedstructures.

According to a study conducted bythe Federal Emergency ManagementAgency and the American Society ofCivil Engineers, this finding is signifi-cant. W. Gene Corley, head of theASCE/FEMA Building PerformanceStudy Team, explains that because ex-treme events such as the ones on Sep-tember 11 are generally not consid-ered in building design, the fact thatWTC structures were able to success-fully withstand such damage is note-worthy.

Among the significant findings fromthe World Trade Center Building Per-formance Study: Data Collection, Pre-liminary Observations, and Recom-mendations, the study team noted thatmuch of the jet fuel on board the hi-jacked planes that plowed into thetowers burned off in fireballs outsidethe buildings. Instead of causing thefires to burn at extremely high tem-peratures, as was widely speculated,the role of the jet fuel was to igniteother combustible materials overseveral floors simultaneously. Thosefires eventually weakened the struc-tural steel, leading to the collapse ofthe twin towers.

WTC Building 7 was the focus ofanother finding by the study team. Thebuilding, which sustained no signifi-cant structural damage and collapsedon September 11 after burning uncon-

trolled for seven hours, was the firstprotected steel structure ever knownto collapse solely due to fire.

The team also found that some con-nections between the structural steelbeams failed in the fires. This was mostapparent in WTC Building 5, wherethe fireproofing didn’t protect the con-nections, leading to a partial collapse.Engineers point out that the designand construction of this structure istypical of many steel-framed high-rises and cite the building’s collapseas the first major one caused by failureof connections due to fire damage.

The ASCE Structural EngineeringInstitute, which began putting togetherbuilding performance assessmentteams within hours of the terrorist at-tacks on the WTC complex and thePentagon, says these investigationshave frequently served as the basis forevolutionary development of the na-tion’s building codes. In fact, as a di-rect result of congressional interest inthe ASCE/FEMA study, particularlyfrom the House Science Committee,lawmakers have taken the first step inestablishing building performancestudy protocol.

The National Construction SafetyTeam Act of 2002, recently introducedin the House (H.R. 4687) and Senate(S. 2496), would require the NationalInstitute of Standards and Technology(NIST) to dispatch professional ex-perts to a disaster site within 48 hours.The investigative team would havesimilar authorities to the NationalTransportation Safety Board, includ-ing early access to the disaster site,subpoena power to retrieve key infor-mation, and guaranteed funds up to$25 million annually over a three-yearperiod.

Based on observations of how thetwin towers and the surrounding build-ings performed in the aftermath of theattack, Corley says his study team rec-ommends that the following be con-sidered in the design and constructionof buildings deemed potential targetsof terrorist attack:

# Buildings should be designed withsturdy, backup structural supports tobear the weight held by the primarysupports when damage to the build-ing occurs;

# Fireproofing needs to adhere un-der impact and fire-induced steel de-formation, so that the protective coat-ings remain on the steel and providethe intended protection;

# The connecting structural ele-ments (nuts, rivets, and plates) need tobe analyzed to better understand howthey fare under sudden impact and fire;

# When sprinkler systems are a criti-cal part of a building’s fire protectionsystem, the water supply should bereliable and abundant;

# Stairwells, including transfer floorsand stair spacing and locations, shouldbe evaluated for multiple alternateroutes of escapes and strength in orderto provide safe and clear evacuationroutes when the building is damaged;and

# Fire protection ratings and safetyfactors for structural transfer systemsshould be evaluated for their ad-equacy relative to the role of transfersystems in building stability.

Corley points out that while theASCE/FEMA study team does notcall for immediate changes to exist-ing building codes, it does stronglyurge the continuing study into build-ing collapses, which could eventually

lead to code revisions. Already, NISTresearchers are expected to spearheadthe next round of studies into how theWTC buildings performed. Their find-ings are scheduled for release withintwo years.

July 2002

High-Tech Engineering ToolsFind Their Way to the Construction Site

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

THE once-familiar car advertisingslogan, “This is not your father’s Olds-mobile!” could well describe what iswaiting around the corner for the con-struction industry. High-speed com-puter communications, laser technolo-gies, and electronically generatedgraphics are beginning to evolve intotools that can effectively reduce proj-ect delivery time and offer a signifi-cant competitive edge to engineers,contractors, and owners.

More than 5% of the labor costs in atypical construction project are spenton activity monitoring. For example,workers monitor the state of excava-tion, the presence of raw materials, thestatus of change orders, and the report-ing of “as-built” information about theproject. Researchers at the NationalInstitute of Standards and Technologyare developing measurement and au-tomation tools that can reduce thistime-consuming and costly burden.

Conducted primarily by the NISTConstruction Metrology and Automa-tion Group, the current automationresearch is focused on using informa-tion technologies to make construc-tion activities more productive andqualitative in their evaluation. Muchof the group’s R&D mission targetsreal-time spatial metrology in unstruc-tured applications such as construc-tion sites and includes developmentof position/orientation tracking sys-tems, sensor interface protocols forconstruction data telemetry, and con-struction site simulation.

Fundamental to the group’s ap-proach is what it calls “closing theinformation loop,” which involves

gathering relevant information (con-struction plans, site measurements,and schedule changes), maintainingcoherent models of what has beenbuilt versus the original design, andproviding expedient information tothe people and machines doing theactual building.

An example of this might be a“smart hardhat” that could display toa worker—with an overlay on the fieldof view—the desired location for agirder and to signal (perhaps with acolor change) when the girder wascorrectly placed.

The group emphasizes, however,that any approach toward achievingits R&D objectives hinges on improv-ing and automating construction-sitemetrology, particularly real-time mea-surement, which is the foundation forfeedback and automation. Currentmetrology research includes the de-velopment of a real-time, non-line-of-sight surveying system that can “seethrough wall” and the use of globalpositioning system satellite signalsfor precise, relative position measure-ments in open environments.

NIST’s most successful research todate has been the development of stan-dard methods for tracking the move-ment of manufactured parts at the con-struction site. The new tracking pro-gram encompasses three-dimensionallaser metrology, wireless communica-tions, interactive Web browsers, and aremote time-based project database toprovide quick access to materials andparts activity at both the job site andremote offices.

The impending impact of this de-velopment is evident to structural re-search engineer Geraldine Cheok, whonotes, “Construction managers will

eventually be able to use this technol-ogy to determine the current status oftheir projects and automatically main-tain accurate as-built documents.”

Cheok cites construction excavationas another area of focus for NIST engi-neers and scientists. Researchers arecurrently developing methods andprocedures that would enable the useof a laser scanner—a LIDAR (lightdetection and ranging)—to determinethe status of excavation activities.Briefly explained, the LIDAR first scansthe project site. The resulting set of 3-D points is then used to generate visu-alization models for use by off-sitecontractors, engineers, and designers.

“The idea is to be able to calculateany volume changes in excavationmaterial between any two dates,” saysCheok. However, she notes that someissues still have to be addressed, in-cluding the ability to:

# Easily define the area of interestand determine a suitable scan location;

# Identify and remove objects suchas equipment or landscaping from thescene with little user intervention;

# Register the scans with little userintervention; and

# Include uncertainties associatedwith the laser scanner itself and anyderived values such as volume calcu-lations.

“NIST’s eventual goal is to use LI-DAR technology to obtain cut-and-fillrequirements in both a precise andtimely manner, in addition to report-ing the quantities and rates of materialplaced or removed at the project site,”Cheok points out.

Other institute projects include thedevelopment of test prototypes forevaluating construction automation

techniques, standards, and software;representation standards for construc-tion machinery and components; andstandards for wireless data telemetry.

Cheok reports that NIST’s advancedconstruction initiatives have drawnindustry interest, resulting in severalplanned collaborative research proj-ects with U.S. construction companies.

January 2002

Rebuilding of Tall, Futuristic StructuresDraws Mixed Reviews Among Experts

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

FORMER U.S. Sen. Daniel Moyni-han (D-N.Y.) has noted that the bestdefense against attacks on America’sfree society is to “concentrate, not scat-ter,” and move ahead with thoughtfulrebuilding and reinvigoration of urbanareas.

A widely recognized urban designexpert, Moynihan was recently pre-sented the Urban Land Institute’s (ULI)J. C. Nichols Prize for Visionary UrbanDevelopment during the institute’sannual fall meeting in Boston. Theretired senator was honored for hislifelong dedication to excellence inurban design, public building archi-tecture, and community revitalizationissues.

“This is a moment not to be intimi-dated. The only way they [terrorists]can win is if we change the way welive, and a lot of us live in cities,”Moynihan told his audience. “Whatwe did once [in reviving lower Man-hattan], we can do again, and this time,we can do it even better. These actswon’t change our civilization.”

Still, planners and developers arequestioning the future and need for tallbuildings. Is the skyscraper obsoletein America? ULI researchers point outthat the demand for taller office struc-tures of 100-plus floors could lessen;50-story buildings offering a mixtureof uses could see a rise in popularity.

While opinions vary on the futureallure of working in downtown sites,most participants at the institute’s an-nual meeting generally agreed that“mega towers” are past their prime andwill be increasingly passed over bybusinesses seeking buildings that

have fewer floors and serve more thanone function.

ULI reports that a trend toward lesstall towers, which had begun longbefore the terrorist attacks on the 110-story towers of the World Trade Cen-ter, is due both to market conditionsthat have made such buildings hardto fully lease and to technology al-lowing people to work from a varietyof locations and telecommute.

“The high density and mass urban-ization resulting from skyscrapers arenot necessary or desirable,” says FrankFeather, president of Global Market-ing Consultants in Aurora, Ontario.According to the marketing analyst,the ability to telecommute via theInternet has created a situation inwhich the majority of people whowork in downtown office space “donot actually have to be there.” As aresult, he notes that the events of Sep-tember 11 have escalated changes inworking patterns—such as telecom-muting—that were already takingplace.

“Uses of existing buildings willchange,” Feather predicts. “We will seemore 24-hour, multiuse projects offer-ing employees amenities such as full-service business centers and medicalfacilities, and which provide space thatis communal, flexible, and easilyadaptable.” Also, more working spaceis likely to be provided in horizontal,campus-like settings near the edge ofcities, which are likely to be perceivedas safer locations than downtown ar-eas, he contends.

While attending ULI’s annual meet-ing, Eugene Kohn, president of Kohn,Pedersen and Fox Associates, P.C., ofNew York City, noted that when theeconomy slows pace, building design

historically becomes more conserva-tive and simpler. Given the currenteconomic instability and uncertainty,a tendency toward structures of moremoderate height is understandable, heobserved.

However, Kohn added, “The high-rise is not dead. Everyone is re-exam-ining tall buildings, but I do believein them. They are key to providingdensity and allow people to commuteby foot, not by car. They are importantfor cities.”

According to Kohn, the buildingcodes in the U.S. are among the mostlenient for tall building construction;Asia, by comparison, has among themost stringent codes. For instance,Kohn cited skyscrapers constructed inShanghai that would likely withstandthe impact, fire, and heat of a jetlinerexplosion. In addition, he explainedthat building design in Asia includesfireproof elevators dedicated for fire-fighters, more exit stairwells, and fire-resistant “refuge levels” on every 15floors.

In areas with scarce land, “we needtall buildings, and we need them tobe safe,” Kohn said, noting that if thespace in the World Trade Center tow-ers had been spread over 10-floor and20-floor structures, they would havecovered 30 acres. However, he pointedout that tall buildings do “fare muchbetter” in the event of car and truckbombs, and while there is no marketin the U.S. for “super tall” buildings,Kohn reaffirmed that 70-story struc-tures are still “quite doable.”

December 2001

Bengals Stadium Project Scores HighIn Construction Project Safety

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

THE Cincinnati Bengals may notoften post a winning season in the NFL,but their new football stadium cer-tainly ranks high when it comes to con-struction project safety.

The Occupational Safety and HealthAdministration recently noted that thenumber of job site injuries and illnessesincurred during construction of theBengals’ Paul Brown Stadium is sig-nificantly lower than the national me-dian average for such projects. Areaworkplace safety consultants are cred-iting a voluntary program for the lowincidence rate.

Through a cooperative partnershipwith contractors and the HamiltonCounty government, OSHA’s Cincin-nati area office developed a voluntaryinitiative to enhance overall construc-tion job site safety of the stadiumproject. The partnership, known as theMobilized Alliance for Safety, Team-work, Education, and Results (MAS-TER), was designed to increase em-ployee involvement, joint labor andmanagement job site safety oversight,teamwork, and education of workersat construction sites.

Paul Brown Stadium, heralded as thefirst visible sign of Cincinnati’s planto dramatically refashion its river front,employed as many as 1,000 workersdaily during construction up until lastJune when the Bengals’ coaches andstaff moved into their new 65,600-seatstadium. In just under two years, the40-acre site (including parking andpedestrian access areas) along the west-ern bank of the Ohio River was trans-formed into the Bengals’ third homesince the team’s inception in 1968.

The stadium project achieved someother unique benchmarks: the designphase alone required more than 1,700architectural and engineering draw-ings, which, if pasted together wouldcover almost a half acre; more than11,000 tons of steel bars were used toreinforce the cast-in-place concrete,which, if placed end to end, wouldtotal 1,560 miles; about 95,000 cu-bic yards of concrete were placed andmore than 9,100 tons of structural steelwere erected; and nearly 330 miles ofelectrical wire were installed throughand around 1,438,000 square feet ofdrywall.

While the construction benchmarksof Paul Brown Stadium are notewor-thy, the ensuing safety record is equal-ly impressive. The lost workday injuryand illness rate for the project is 0.95as compared to the national rate of 4.0for the construction industry. The na-tional rate is based on the U.S. Depart-ment of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Sta-tistics survey for 1998, which is themost recent data.

Hamilton County indicates thatmore than $4 million has been savedthrough reduced workers’ compensa-tion and general liability costs due tothe project’s low injury and illness rate.

The MASTER program, which em-phasizes the utilization of fall protec-tion, was implemented at the start ofthe stadium project and remained inplace until completion. A labor andmanagement safety team providedcontinuous oversight and monitoringof job site safety performance.

The MASTER initiative at the PaulBrown Stadium is unique because itincludes county government stake-holders in addition to construction firmpartners Turner/Barton, Malow/DAG

Joint Venture, and contractor and em-ployee representatives.

The agency’s voluntary construc-tion safety program is being tested atother construction sites in the Cincin-nati area, including the CincinnatiReds’ new Great American Ball ParkStadium, which is slated for comple-tion in 2003. OSHA also plans to ex-pand the safety program this year toinclude all of Ohio.

February 2001

Artificial Islands: No OrdinaryChallenge in Waterway Projects

By Steven J. StortsDublin, Ohio

AS you drive along the engineeringwonder that crosses over and underopen waters where the ChesapeakeBay meets the Atlantic Ocean, youhardly even notice that the ends of theChesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel areanchored on man-made islands. Andyet, from a construction engineeringperspective, the most challengingaspect of the project was the creationof these four artificial structures thatprovide a transition from the trestleroadway to the tunnel tubes.

The man-made islands—each eightacres of new land rising 30 feet abovethe surface of the open sea—comprisesome of the more unique structuralfeatures of the 17.6 mile-long bridge-tunnel complex.

Built in water ranging from 35 to 45feet deep, each of the four man-madeislands is roughly the size of YankeeStadium or about as large as fivefootball fields (1,500 feet long and230 feet wide at the top). Eachcontains about 1.5 million tons ofsand and 300,000 tons of rock. Inaddition to providing a base forapproach ramps to the tunnels, theislands also serve as areas for garages,emergency equipment, and tunnelventilation buildings.

The four islands represent some ofthe most expensive real estate in theworld. They cost about $5 millionapiece to build, or $625,000 an acre.Nevertheless, even this price isconsidered reasonable when thecomplex and painstaking construc-tion methods for adding this newgeography to the earth’s surface areexamined more closely.

First, huge derrick barges laid alow, outer formation of rocks on thebay bottom. These formed the firstoutside dimensions of each island. Ahydraulic dredge then pumped downsand to fill the hollow island core.This process was repeated time aftertime—an outer shell of rock filledwith an inner core of sand—until theisland base, now the shape of apyramid with its top leveled off,heightened to about 17 feet below baysurface. A mixture of sand and waterwas then pumped into the underseaisland until it surfaced.

Thirty-four thousand carloads ofheavy boulders—some weighing asmuch as 32 tons—hold the islandssecurely in place. Beginning on thebay bottom, these boulders wereplaced with precision to form theislands’ tough outer shells. Still, more

multiton boulders form a protectivearmor around the islands. Moreover,each island has a 12-foot-highconcrete “splash wall,” designed toresist the forces of hurricanes with105-miles-per-hour velocity.

In addition to the man-madeislands, construction of the bridge-tunnel complex required undertakinga project of more than 12 miles oflow-level trestle, two one-mile tun-nels, two bridges, almost two miles ofcauseway, and 5-1/2 miles of ap-proach roads, totaling 23 miles.Although the individual componentsare not the longest nor largest everbuilt, the bridge-tunnel is unique inthe number of different types ofstructures it includes and the way itwas constructed.

December 2000

Mt. Rushmore: A Technically Skilled,Creative Release for a Restless SoulBy Steven J. Storts

Dublin, Ohio

TO gaze upon the majestic granitefacade of Mt. Rushmore nestled in theBlack Hills of South Dakota, onewould not suspect that its sculptor,Gutzon Borglum, bore a restless youth.But this is often the case with creativegenius. He once said, “American artought to be monumental in keepingwith American life, and Rushmoreought to be colossal in keeping withAmerican achievements.”

Borglum, too, was colossal. Whenhe died suddenly in 1941 at the age of74, he left a lasting legacy of creatingmore art displayed in the nation’scapital than any other artist. Asanother sign of his artistic promi-nence, Borglum designed the flicker-ing flame on the Statue of Liberty’storch. Not only a prolific and talentedartist, he was also an active politicalfigure throughout his life.

Born in 1867 to Danish immigrantson the untamed frontier near BearLake, Idaho, Borglum became fiercelyindependent and rebellious at a youngage. His restless spirit found peaceonly when he discovered his father’sartistic abilities at the age of 14. WhenBorglum arrived in the Black Hills inthe early 1920s, he was 57 years old,but he fell in love immediately withthe area, pointing out that the granitein the mountains was “exactly what hewas looking for.”

Wanting to prepare something thatfuture generations forever would beable to enjoy, the carving of Mt.Rushmore became the focus of hislife for 17 years until his death. Infact, he died as the final dedication ofthe monument was being planned.

Borglum’s son Lincoln, who oversawthe carving when his father was away,completed the monument upon Bor-glum’s death.

America’s shrine to democracy wascarved in stone as a record andcelebration of the nation’s achieve-ment, growth, and spirit. The fourpresidents chosen—George Washing-ton, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lin-coln, and Theodore Roosevelt—symbolized the birth and growingpains of a new nation, each represent-ing a different stage of development.The mountain chosen for the mon-ument’s construction was dedicatedon August 10, 1927. The ground-breaking ceremony was symbolized bya set of drill bits handed to Borglumby President Calvin Coolidge.

The original surface of the moun-tain was soft and cracked, and nearlyhalf-a-million tons of rock had to beremoved to reach granite solidenough to begin carving. The actualcarving time of Mt. Rushmore wassix-and-half years spread over a 14-year period. Work was halted whenfunds diminished, or when weatherbecame too severe.

Borglum developed the engineer-ing techniques for mountain carvingwhile working on the ConfederateMemorial at Stone Mountain, Geor-gia. On both carvings, measurementsof models were multiplied by a factorof 12 and transferred to the mountainvia a boom and plumb line. Ninemodels were made before a groupingwas found that would not be affectedby the granite’s deep cracks. Forexample, Borglum originally speci-fied Jefferson’s head to be on the leftside of Washington’s (looking towardthe monument) instead of his right.

Also, Washington’s nose had to bemodified slightly, carved a littlelonger than earlier planned. AndRoosevelt is tucked away in thecorner of the monument because ofthe solid granite located there.

Still considered by many as anunsurpassed feat of technical skill,nearly 90 percent of Mt. Rushmorewas carved using dynamite. Duringconstruction, most of the workershung over the side of the mountainface in a type of chair with a swing-seat and harness, using their drills, air-hammers, and chisels. They wereraised and lowered from the top of themountain by cables attached to awinch. As workers neared completion,the surface of the rock was honey-combed with holes that weakened thesurface rock, making it easier to knockoff large sections of rock to do thefinal shaping of the monument faceswith hand chisels. Air-hammers andgrinders later helped to make the finalsurface smooth like a sidewalk.

According to original specifica-tions, Mt. Rushmore was to displayfull-bust figures of the four presidents,but when Borglum died unexpectedlyand Lincoln took over the project, itwas decided that future blastingshould be halted to avoid any damageto what already had been carved.Therefore, shortly after Borglum’sdeath in 1941, the monument wasofficially dedicated. And in whatperhaps could be regarded as a finaltribute to Gutzon Borglum and hisengineering prowess, no fatalitieswere incurred while constructing Mt.Rushmore, only a few minor accidentswith no serious injury.

October 1997