Construction Equipment Owner

There has been a lot of talk about what 2008 will bring in terms of construction spending. From the chatter I’ve heard, the response has been reluctant to positive about the upcoming year. On the high end, I have not seen anyone calling for a record year and I don’t think anyone in their right mind would expect this. On the flip side, the good news is that I’ve yet to hear anyone calling for doom and gloom (As a note, I must say I am generally speaking towards non-residential construction as is the focus of this website).

I spoke with Ed Sullivan, Chief Economist for the Portland Cement Association at the 2008 World of Concrete and he is more on the reluctant side of the fence. Overall for the concrete industry, he believes the residential side of the industry will still be down with a possible turn-around in sight. He also sees some hot non-residential segments for 2008 such as the hotel industry.

Speaking of a more positive outlook is Ken Simonson, chief economist for the Associated General Contractors. He notes that employment and spending in non-residential continues to rise despite a slowdown in other construction markets.

So what’s going to happen? I can’t say for sure. The buzz has continually gotten louder about the industry finally hitting a decline. Yet I’ve seen spending on non-residential construction continually buck predictions of decline over the past few months and there are strong indicators that public construction and other non-residential segments will continue to stay strong. I’m going to stay on the positive side of this discussion and expect the industry to continue to prosper.

The ink was barely dry on my post about Ron Roberts and his Filthy Rich Contractor Blog when I was made aware of another blog that I want to bring to your attention - The RentalMetrics blog.

The RentalMetrics blog is written by Doug Mitchell, founder and Chief Deliverer of Results of RentalMetrics. The blog is full of “red meat” for the heroes that rent iron and move dirt.

There is a lot of good information and resources here for those in the construction equipment rental industry. I encourage our rental audience to check out the blog as I’m sure you’ll find it a valuable read and worth exploring.

Thanks to Kelly for bringing this blog to my attention. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to turn into a blog about other blogs you should read. I only plan on highlighting the better ones and will make sure this blog is also at top of your must-read list.

I want to take this opportunity to welcome Ron Roberts and the Filthy Rich Contractor Blog to the construction blogging community.

Ron, for those who don’t know, is a contributor to the ForConstructionPros.com website and other Cygnus Business Media publications. That’s not the only reason I’m highlighting his blog though. From reading his articles, it easy to see that he is a wealth of information and should have a lot of great things to share on his blog. So I would recommend subscribing to it, just like I know you’ve done with this blog.

Again, welcome. In my opinion, the more discussion that is created about the construction industry, the better.

With a growing population of Spanish-speaking employees in the construction industry the importance of effectively communicating with these employees also grows. For those looking for help in this area without having to completely learn a new language, there is a new book that is aimed at those in construction. “Spanish for the Construction Trade,” authored by William C. Harvey and published by Barron’s Educational Series, this 313 page reference book provides essential words and phrases in chapters on specific construction situations. Additional information contained in the book includes pronunciation, greetings, numbers and time, and common verbs. A vocabulary for general topics such as health, clothing, the weather, tools and materials, and measurements is also provided. In addition there are also segments on Latino traditions, beliefs and general ways of life.

A google search of the book title will bring up several websites where you can find this book priced less than its $14.99 retail price.

Caterpillar made a very intriguing announcement the other day. It plans on equipping most of its new core, mining and industrial machines with EquipmentManager and Product Link - a remote asset management solution developed by Caterpillar.

The remote tracking and management system will be a standard feature on equipment in the United States and Canadian markets. Remote asset management has been available as an option prior to this since 1998. Those machines that Product Link does not come standard will have it as an option.

Wheeled hydraulic excvators and articulated trucks will be the first units that will have EquipmentManager/Product Link phased in.

Technologies such as these are becoming ever-popular on construction equipment and are of great benefit to users. Fleet managers will find great value when utilizing these technologies and having them be a standard feature on equipment is ideal.

In an unexpected turn from the 0.5% decline economists expected, overall construction spending rose by 0.1% in November. Lead by a 2.5% increase in spending on state and local projects and overall public construction. This was more than double their paces from October.

Home construction spending marked its 21st consecutive month of decline falling 2.5% following an October drop of 2.3%.

Year-over-year construction spending is down 0.1%.

Census Bureau Release available here.

Occasionally this blog will feature useful websites, other than ForConstructionPros.com, that may be of use to you and your business. Today’s featured website is ConstructionCrossing.com. It is a construction job board strictly focusing on construction professionals.

The staff of this website researches, monitors and posts job openings from thousands of employer websites, job boards and trade-organization websites for construction jobs. Employers are also able to post their jobs for free. So this could be a good avenue to find an employee to fill a void in your crew. There is a fee for job seekers to search and browse jobs. For those job seekers interested, they can take advantage of 30 days of free access to the website by entering the promotion code PublicationSubs2008.

ForConstructionPros.com received a comment to a press release we ran entitled “Dodge Continues Commercial Conquest.” The release talks about Dodge’s class 4 - 5 trucks, the 4500 and 5500, its offerings, its features and a lot of other information. But an important piece of information was not included which the comment pointed out and that was the mpg statistics.

These were not included in the original press release and that’s why they did not appear. I did contact Dodge about this lack of information and to see if I could obtain these numbers. It was told to me that fuel performance numbers are not currently available and that Dodge expects complete testing and results to be completed and disseminated early next year.

I apologize for not being able to provide more information, but want you to know we’ll do what we can to help you. If there is anything further you (our audience) want information on, need additional insight to or have general comments about - you can leave a comment in this blog or e-mail me at Sam.Simon@cygnusb2b.com.

In was announced today that GM and Navistar have reached a tentative agreement in which Navistar would would purchase certain assets, intellectual property and distribution rights for GM’s medium-duty truck business.

In the agreement, Navistart would manufacture GMC and Chevrolet brand vehicles in the class 4-8 gross vehicle weight range. It also includes purchase of the related service parts business. Navistar would be selling a competitive line of Chevrolet and GMC vehicles and service parts through GM’s proprietary dealer network in the United States and Canada.

This arrangement further allows GM to narrow their focus on the design, manufacture and selling of cars and light trucks. Navistar will be able to leverage thier commercial truck and engine strength and apply it to the GM medium duty truck line.

Navistar would be adding the GMC TopKick and Chevrolet Kodiak truck brands to its current line which includes International brand trucks and tractors, IC brand buses, Workhorse brand chassis for motor homes and step vans, and MaxxForce brand engines.

The long-awaited Mitchell Report was unleashed on baseball yesterday dropping some major names along the way such as Roger Clemens, David Justice and Eric Gagne. I’m particularly disapointed by the Gagne mention as he just finalized a 1-year, $10 Million contract with my Milwaukee Brewers - in which I am a die-hard fan. Gagne has been garbage the past two years and after being named in this report, he’ll most likely be “clean” and thus continue to be terrible for the Brewers.

My personal rooting aside, what may be one of the biggest findings of this investigation is that there was significant use of anabolic steroids during the past 20 years with owners and MLB essentially turning a blind eye.

So? The NFL has eclipsed baseball in popularity (which pains me to a great extent) and this is a construction blog.

What needs to be taken away from this as a contractor is don’t let a Mitchell Report come out about your business. Or more specifically - there should be no reason for OSHA to do an investigation on any of your sites. There are too many instances on jobsites where unsafe practices are ignored or worse yet, encouraged in order to make deadlines, meet quotas, etc. - which all ultimately come down to incentives of more money.

Just like in baseball, it’s all good while the money is rolling in, jobs are getting completed ahead of task and major incidents have been avoided. Though, all it takes is one time or be on a big enough stage (say eclipsing the all-time home run mark) that prying eyes will be watching you.

Don’t let employees practice and make habit of unsafe practices. Make sure everyone in your crew is doing things the right way, every time. Help instill an environment where not only you or your safety supervisor are the primary person responsible for safety, but the entire crew takes on the responsibility of safety.

But remember, ultimately it comes down to you and its your name on the line. When a report comes out, it will say John Smith Construction and that’s the name that will stick with your current and potential clients.