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Once Upon a Time In Construction, The Impossible Hotel Completion: When Miracles Come At A High Price
Our client attentively listened to the project review regarding the challenges and delays associated with the forty-story hotel and shopping center. After some time, they expressed their confusion, stating, “I do not understand how this happened! I thought we were in...
Once Upon A Time In Construction: When Promises Fall Apart
Our client was distraught and blurted out “ they said it would work” and now we have to demolish it. How did this happen? During the mid-90’s it was feared by the EPA that landfills would soon be at capacity to accept sewage sluge and the EPA had recently banned ocean...
MDCSystems® Taking Off with Commercial Drones
MDCSystems® has recently entered the commercial drone industry with its drone for various inspection and engineering evaluation services. The future for the commercial drone industry looks very bright. In 2015 the U.S. commercial drone market size was an estimated...
Change Orders: Maximizing Benefits for Owners
Ronald F. Parisi, P.E.
Former MDC Systems® Project Director
Owners involved in ongoing construction projects are virtually unanimous in recognizing the need to minimize the number and amount of change orders as a way to keep the project costs within budget. In viewing change orders with only this in mind, however, owners may tend to overlook the benefits that the change order process offers to owners. The primary benefits afforded by the change order process are that it allows owners the flexibility to respond quickly, to capitalize upon opportunities and to mitigate problems — both of which frequently arise during the course of construction.
Privatization of American Water Utilities
Donald R. Keer, P.E., Esq. MDCSystems® Consulting Engineer The pressure is growing on local municipalities to consider privatization of their water and wastewater systems. Both the EPA and the Bush Administration favor privatization as a way for local municipalities...
Building Information Modeling – Boon or Bane?
MDC Systems® has recently become aware of a number of large projects exhibiting major problems despite the ‘spectacular’ abilities of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and other project technologies. Some of these projects have been highlighted in recent industry publications and legal filings. These issues often fall into several common areas which are summarized below.
Shipyard Contracts: New Construction vs. Ship Repair
Contracts for the construction of new ships have many key differences from contracts for ship repair. The most obvious difference concerns the type of work (new versus repair) but other important differences exist concerning the nature and extent of changes, scheduling, engineering and contract claims. Attorneys and others involved in contract administration and dispute resolution need to understand these important differences.
Why is there a Labor Overrun?
On a large multi-million dollar project, it shows up in the cost reports. On a smaller project, the schedule may start to show specific activity schedule slippage. The same estimator developed the bid, the project scope has not changed and your most trusted foreman says he has excellent crews. You might be experiencing labor inefficiencies and probably don’t know it. The cost reports and schedules might tell you that it occurred, but it will require additional data / analysis to determine why it has occurred and who has caused it to prove entitlement and to calculate your recovery costs.
Avoiding Death by a Thousand Cuts
Cost and Schedule Issues
You are a month and a half into construction of a planned one year project. It’s a new client and if you do well, you are in line to construct his future projects. However, the Engineers’ drawings don’t quite match the existing site conditions; there is already an inordinate amount of Requests for Information (RFIs), and the Client is very involved with your construction means and methods. No change orders have been written because 1: You “worked-around” the site layout problems; 2: There is still time to resolve the unanswered RFIs and 3: The finish milestone on the project has not been affected because you used float in the schedule. In any event, you don’t want to “nickel and dime” the new client.
Sustainability – Un-Definable Success in a Defined World
E. Mitchell Swann, P.E.
MDCSystems®
Consulting Engineer
This paper was originally presented at the CIBSE/ASHRAE International Conference on Building Sustainability, Value and Profit, held in Edinburgh. It has been updated slightly since that presentation.
Modeling of a Residential Photovoltaic System and Model Validation Using Measured Data
Incident Solar Radiation The south facing roof gets the maximum exposure of sun during the day, so this is where the solar panels can be mounted. The incident solar radiation (KW/m2) that the roof will get changes with the time of the day and the month of the year and...
Time Impact Analysis (TIA®)
Robert C. McCue, P.E., Consulting Engineertia-graphic
Stephen M. Rymal, P.E., Esq., Consulting Engineer
MDC Systems®
Critical Path Method (CPM) schedules and formalized methods of analyzing schedule impacts started to enter mainstream construction management practice in the early 1980’s. At that time, the industry recognized a need to accurately and scientifically measure schedule delays and conversely the affects of acceleration in real time during construction and also retrospectively after the work was completed. The ability to determine which party ultimately bore responsibility for schedule delays became the main focus on many projects as the assessment of liquidated damages or granting compensable time extensions became critically important to both owners and contractors. Just as the Rosetta Stone provided scholars with a means to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics into Greek text, Time Impact Analysis (TIA®) provides users with the means to translate Critical Path Method (CPM) activities into understandable schedule impacts.
Risk Management: Insuring Continuity of Supply
Over the last several years, supply management professionals have been spending a majority of their time in creating, implementing and managing Business Continuity Planning (BCP) for critical products, materials and services. BCP is a strategic management process that focuses on insuring continuity of supply. The main objective is to identify and minimize or eliminate business interruptions in the event of a catastrophic event or major incidents occurring within the supply chain that can lead to adverse consequences for your business. Ten to twenty years ago, supply disruptions were caused by major snow storms, truck breakdowns, labor strikes, fire or explosions, electrical outages, machine breakdowns or even a truck driver making an unscheduled social visit.
More Than Just Counting Rainy Days: Documenting Weather Delays
by Michelle N. Delehanty, PE, PMP
MDC Systems® Consultant
According to the farmer’s almanac, this upcoming winter is predicted to be more severe than last year, which already seems as if it were one for the record books. For many regions throughout the United States, that means a multitude of storms, extreme cold, and potential closings to schools, offices, and, most problematic, construction sites. These closings of construction projects can lead to schedule delays, change order requests, and ultimately claims. In order for a contractor to justify to the owner that there is indeed a weather-related construction delay, they must demonstrate four specific things: (1) that the delay is within the terms of the contract (2) that the activity delayed had a direct effect on the project end date (was on the critical path), (3) the weather event occurred in excess of the “normal” weather for the season, and (4) there is documentation of which specific activities were delayed on each weather occurrence.
Primavera Scheduling
Robert C. McCue, P.E.
MDC Systems®
Consulting Engineer
Recently, MDC Systems® made the jump from Primavera P3 (version 3.1) to P6. However, the landing was a little rough- initially, erroneous information was received from a Primavera representative and then outside IT consultants had to be brought in to resolve issues with the server installation. If the installation experience is any indicator, it seems likely that P6 will require more IT overhead on an ongoing basis. This is in addition to the learning curve for the new features and capabilities of P6.
Complexity is Often the Culprit in Cost Overruns, Delays
Our long history and experience is that the failure rate for projects in general has remained high. Why haven’t the advances in project management science, computers technology and communications been effectively brought to bear on the engineering and construction business? What about the advertised beneficial impact of 3-D computer-aided design, computerized critical path methods schedules and building information modeling? Are today’s engineers not as good as those who built the mega project of yesteryear like the Panama Canal, Empire State Building or Hoover Dam?
The Standard of Care in a Design Build World
Design-Build Delivery can create new responsibilities for designers where they would not exist in traditional Design-Bid-Builddelivery situations and require new awareness on the part of contractors to the iterative and uncertain world of conceptual design. These new responsibilities require a paradigm shift for both Designers and Contractors as the realities of working together challenge the leadership of the organizations.
For designers the change requires them to abandon their traditionally “client only” focused advice and consent role and adopt a new paradigm of working for, or with, the contractor to deliver an acceptable and profitable product. For the contractor working with and supporting the designer changes the very nature of their previous working relationship. The contractor is now working with and for the people they are all too often at odds with concerning project delivery.
The Surety’s Completion Alternatives for Defaulted Contracts
When faced with a default on their projects, many owners have unrealistic expectations concerning the surety’s obligations under the performance bond. Owners feel frustrated when the surety does not aggressively step in to complete the work. However, under most performance bonds, if the contractor/principal is in default, the surety may discharge its obligations by any one of the following alternatives: (1) finance the contractor/principal to complete the work; (2) obtain a new contractor to complete the work under a direct contract with the owner/obligee; (3) complete the work with a new contractor under a contract with the surety; (4) permit or require the owner/obligee to obtain a new contractor; and…
Project Risk Reduction
Using Project Management Modeling Tools to Quantify, Analyze and Reduce Exposure to Risk
Some project histories are very complex and traditional schedule and damage analysis methods are not able to quantify the impacts of events that have occurred over the life of the project. In these situations MDC&Reg has relied upon more sophisticated mathematical and system based models to attribute impacts to particular events. The usual methods of determining and reducing risk on construction projects include schedule forecast, cost forecasts and change review analysis performed by the project team. However, sometimes these techniques do not allow for an overview that properly adds the effects of many individual events. On these occasions the project team needs more powerful and sophisticated tools that can include multiple project factors including resource availability, site conditions, environmental factors and productivity levels for both planned and actual conditions on the project to date, all factors that cannot be completely comprehended by the project manager without the aid of analysis.
Fukushima Dai-Ichi – Black Swan Event or Engineering Design Error?
By Robert C. McCue, PE MDCSystems® Consulting Engineer Tsunami triggers destruction of nuclear reactors, Japan On the afternoon of March 11, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the coast of Japan triggering a massive tsunami that ravaged the country's northern...