Construction Equipment Owner

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.

Well, despite bucking the the predictions that construction spending would fall the last two months - only to have construction spending rise - the weak housing market finally had enough negative affect to play a major roll in the decline of overall construction spending in October which sent spending down 0.8 percent to its lowest mark in two years.

Private and non-residential building also finally took a misstep dropping 0.5 percent in October. This is the first decline since September 2006.

Ian Shepherson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, New York was quoted as saying in a recent report “We think a sustained fall in nonresidential spending is now overdue, but one softish month in these volatile data is not conclusive evidence of anything.”

It is not all bad news though. State and federal government spending rose. This is the eight consecutive month for construction spending to rise in this segment. Public construction rose 0.8 percent and marked the all-time high at $295.1 billion for the month.

At Cygnus Business Media, we held our annual “Awards of Excellence” reception yesterday in which top performers in sales, graphics and editorial were recognized. This is merely an opportunity for some pats on the back within our own company, but some of the editors from our Construction Equipment Owner’s Group were recognized for their contributions to our several construction magazines. Because of this, I wanted to say congratulations to them and share with you those articles.

If you may have missed them, I would recommend reading them as they are truly informational and valuable resources.

1st Place in the best Editor’s Column category went to Greg Udelhofen and his “Immigration Reform–Yes!” column that appeared in the July 2006 issue of “Asphalt Contractor.”

Curt Bennink, our Senior Editor on “Equipment Today,” won a pair of awards for articles he wrote in 2006. “CJ-4 Oil Meets Stringent Demands” won 2nd place for Best Product Coverage and “Optimize Earthmover Operations” won 2nd place for Best Technical/How to.

Back when I was in high school at the end of a long week of practice, we occasionally ended Friday’s practice with some sort of fun activity. I don’t see why we can’t apply that to our work life. So every once-and-a-while on Friday I’ll try to come up with something entertaining from the construction industry for Friday Funday. It could be a joke, some sort of quiz or in this case a video - whatever it is, I’ll try to find something amusing and construction-related.

This Friday’s feature, as I mentioned before, is a video I found on YouTube via a Google search - and you thought YouTube was for 13-year olds with mommy’s camera. Excavators are truly versatile pieces of equipment that can perform many tasks. But I’ll have to say, this is probably the first time I’ve seen one used as a paddle. I can’t say they’re designed or approved by the manufacturer for this use, so don’t try at home. Click the link to go to the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9GOJt5mRIg

At least that seems to be the message being delivered by the SmartBrief audience. In a recent poll the audience is asked “Will green design and construction become more prevalent in 2008?” A resounding 91.67% of people say that “Yes, the industry will see an increase.” (Results at the time of publication) Hopefully this comes as no surprise to anyone.
I think the industry knows that green building is only in its infancy and will continue to become more prevalent over the next few years, if not decades. This can be seen in the results of surveys such as this and the increasing coverage in industry articles, news items and other forms of content.
The question then is not are you adapting to the green movement, but what are you doing to get in front of this trend and give your business a competitive advantage?

The second day of the 2007 Trimble Dimensions conference featured a well-attended session that featured a panel of five contractors who had recently implemented grade control technology or been running it for several years. The panel fielded questions from the audience as to their experiences and shared some insights they had learned along the away. Below are some of the general commments offered to the questions that were brought up.

How was employee retention affected with the implementation of grade control?
None of the panel members lost operators. One was actually able to give his operators raises because of the increase in productivity - and more money is always a help with keeping employees happy.

What type of training programs were set up for the operators?
The main type of training that was provided was  done on the field. Either a product representative/dealer came out to inform everyone on how the technology worked or the contractor conducted the field training. One panel member said that he thought the key was to progressively introduce new features. Teach the operator the basics and once he has had a chance to work with those, teach additional features.

What was the length of time it took to adjust to using the grade control technology?
All of the panelists agreed it took a couple of weeks for their operators to become comfortable with the new setup. One contractor noted that one of the biggest hurdles an operator had was becoming comfortable pushing the buttons. They felt like they would break something and had to learn they couldn’t do harm by engaging the in-cab monitors.

What was the productivity increase that was realized after adding the grade control technology?
All of the panelists said that they saw a 20%-30% increase after they added these systems.

The discussion was appropriately wrapped up with the sarcastic final thoughts of the panel saying that their advice to anyone that competes in their market was to not invest in this technology so they could keep their competitive advantage.

I’ve spent the past two days attending the 2007 Trimble Dimensions conference. During the course of the eight classes I attended, and the conversations I had over drinks and meals I came away with a lot of good information and wanted to share some of those insights with you over the next few blog posts.

The first major impression that was made occurred during Monday’s Keynote Presentation. Daniel Burrus, author of “Technotrends” discussed insights into the present and future opportunities made possible by rapid advances in technology. A lot of what he had to say about future trends and emerging technology was interesting, but the one thing that stood out to me was a practice he - and now I - believe should be applied to your business. That is taking the time as an owner to plan for the future.

Burrus challenged the audience to take an hour each week to make a list of the certainties that will affect your business. The issues on the horizon that will become reality and not what may or might happen. This could be employee shortages, rising material prices or anything else you know your business must address. With this list you can begin to plan and prepare to meet and beat these hurdles before they become an immediate deterrence to the growth of your business.

An hour is a significant time to take away from your daily routine, but it is something that must be done. Burrus points out we’re all busy, but if you take a step back and look, many of the reasons we are busy and have our time filled with dealing with today’s problems is that there was a lack of anticipating and planning for the future. We are now treading  water instead of moving towards the goals of your business.

So in the words of Burrus “Take the time to plan. Sometimes you need to put down one dollar to pick up five.” If this situation seems to be describing your business, take the challenge of planning for your business’ future. By identifying the certainties that your business will need to address you will be able to greak free of today’s problems and start building for the future.

The Associated General Contractors of America is holding what looks to be a great audio conference that contractors should seriously consider attending - “Know the State Laws that Impact Your Construction Contracts.”

It is hard keeping up with the laws in just one state and having to keep up with laws if your company crosses state lines can be a daunting task. As contractors continue to grow their businesses, expansion is taking them beyond their own state and by crossing those powerful state lines can have a significant impact on project to project.

Participants in this audio conference will gain

• insight into the topics to investigate when considering any new project,
• techniques to facilitate that process, and
• actual samples of some resources available to help, including
  • summaries on laws that relate to competitive bids, specific contract provisions, immigration, etc.
  • checklists, of topics and issues to address, that assist you in meeting local laws, and
  • a sample summary of current state laws from the AGC State Law Matrix

For more information on this conference visit www.agc.org/StateLaws. The conference is set to begin at 2 p.m. eastern (1 p.m. CST) on November 13.

The panel will consist of Thomas J. Kelleher, Jr. Attorney, Senior Partner Smith, Currie & Hancock LLP; Phil Beck, Attorney, Partner Smith, Currie & Hancock LLP; and Jim Bidgood, Attorney, Partner, Smith, Currie & Hancock LLP.