Arctic Construction Methods

Arctic Construction Methods

Dear Mom and Dad, Please Send Money!

I'm so broke that it ain't funny.

Me and about a million (literally) other construction professionals are so broke that we can't even afford to hear a new cut off the Sugarland album from a local jukebox.

The previously mentioned song - "Baby Girl" was actually released in 2004 on Sugarland's debut album "Twice the Speed of Life". I can't believe she's been around that long.

And we certainly can't afford the live concert ticket prices that can get upwards of $100. Who does she think she is - Kenny Chesney?

Anyway, it's getting uglier and uglier and I really don't think there is anything we can do about it. However, I was at a networking event last week for the Design and Construction LinkedIn group and many of the architects and civil engineering firm representatives mentioned some slight uptick in the calls and requests for proposals coming in the door. There could be some hope left. Architecture and other design work will of course precede any uptick in construction.

This sentiment is shared by Jim Haughey, chief economist with Reed Construction Data in a recent market insights webcast. But he warns that it may be until 2011 until the construction industry sees a "good" year. Haughey is predicting no gain in construction spending in 2010 and an 8% gain in 2011. This is after an 11.4% decline in 2009.

So if things aren't going to improve until 2011 - what the &*%$ are we supposed to do until then? Buy a guitar and start cutting a country album? It works for Sugarland. (By the way, her name is actually Jennifer Nettles.)

Well, we could, and it would probably be fun for a while, but the reality is that it wouldn't work out and we would be left in the same situation we are now - No job, no nothin'.

If you are one of those that doesn't want to venture out on your own and start up a company and try to undercut and outperform the bastards that aren't hiring anybody, I suggest you enhance your skill set with training and certifications. The LEED professional accreditation is always a good one to get and if you can get certified, excuse me - accredited in LEED version 3 you could perhaps be of more value than a version 2 LEED AP.

Training in three dimensional CAD programs is another great place to go. If you can whip up drawings in Revit and at least understand the process of Building Information Modeling, you could be at a huge advantage in the marketplace.

Local community colleges are great places to look for courses on this kind of stuff. I once took a leadership class at a community college taught by a Harvard grad and retired CEO of several Fortune 500 companies.

So my suggestion, get training in the growing areas of the field and try to get hired before things start to improve in 2011. And if a year goes by and you still don't have anything? Well, you better tune up that acoustic guitar.

Dear Mom and Dad, Please Send Money!

We've Heard About Mentors, but Have Never Really Seen Them

Mentors in the construction industry are kind of like the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot - there are plenty of stories, but when it comes to actual sightings, the list becomes short and very questionable.

However, unlike Bigfoot and the Lock Ness Monster, mentors in the construction industry did, in fact exist at one time. This is according to Don L. Short II, a blogger for the Engineering News Record website. Mr. Short wrote an excel piece titled, The Gradual Decline of Mentoring, In Every Area of Construction. He discusses the phasing out of mentoring programs in construction organizations due to an effort to cut cost and increase profits all in the short term - shocking, I know.

Note: After an exhaustive fifteen minute research session on Wikipedia, I'm afraid that Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are both myths. I'm very sorry for this, but I think it's time we all move on.

Don says"

"One of these days the industry will need to go back to the 1960’s (my experience basis) to learn profit is not a dirty word. Profit is needed to provide for the “cost” of mentoring and training craft, staff and management. This provides better employees.Better employees provide better productivity. Better productivity leads to better projects. Better projects lead to profits. This would seem to be a winning proposition for anyone involved in the construction industry – owners, architects, vendors and contractors alike."

Don, I don't think companies today think profit is a dirty word, but it's more the investment of profits on human resources that makes them cringe.

Nowadays, going to work for a construction company is like joining a new series of Survivor, except everyone else has been on the island for twenty years and you don't know jack about how to do any of the physical challenges that could give you immunity for another episode.

So you scratch and claw and build every alliance possible, preferably with higher-ups, so you may be able to survive until the end of the project. At which time, you may or may not be granted permission to return for the next season due to budget cuts by the producers in the main office.

Construction companies kind of have a "you take care of your own" mentality. Meaning, the folks that have formed relationships on past projects look out for each other down the road. And I imagine that mentors look out for their mentees, but I wouldn't know for sure because, you know, I've never had one.

But honestly, at this point, I think the mentoring philosophy may be a little outdated. I would like it to instead be a mutual understanding relationship between older and younger folks in an organization. Because not only does a younger person have a lot to learn from the older, but the opposite is true as well. This is not a question of authority or an attempt at pushing the older folk out before their time, but rather an effort at becoming a more educated and cohesive organization.

But of course, this would take time, which would cost money, which would eat into short-term profits. So perhaps we'll have to wait.

We've Heard About Mentors, but Have Never Really Seen Them

In The Eyes of an Employer, Is it Better to be Single or Married?

The issue of marital status is always a very touchy one in the interview room. Construction companies are particularly interested in this topic for some reason, but it's not always an easy thing to just come out and ask. I'm not sure if it is necessarily illegal to ask, but as an interviewer, it's probably safer to in the least, dance around the subject.

I've never been asked directly if I was married, but I have been asked, "So you may be married, I don't know." I took the bait on this one and said that I was not married. I was hired for a position seventy miles away from the home office in a place to where someone who was married to a working spouse with intentions of starting a family would probably not move.

The geographical challenges facing the staffing of construction projects make marital status a topic of interest when hiring. However, once you work for the company I'm pretty sure that they want you married. I was at a company meeting once where new people to the organization were being introduced to the rest of the company. The person doing the introductions mentioned my name and the fact that I was single, but looking to change that.

Uhh, I don't remember discussing my marital goals with this person, so it left me a bit curious about him taking the liberty to make this assumption in front of the entire company.

In my experience, construction companies want you married and preferably to someone who doesn't work and is willing to move anywhere and everywhere the company sends them. Despite the conservative nature of the construction industry, by now, this is not only difficult to achieve, but is darn near impossible.

So what do you do if you really want to know if someone is married in a job interview? You need to ask questions like, "Is there anything that would keep you from travelling or potentially moving with this company?" Regardless of whether it is legal or not to ask about marital status, it is certainly in poor taste.

And what if you are being interviewed? Well, this is completely up to you. My personal opinion is that marital status should be kept free and clear of the workplace and I'm not going lean one way or the other.

Hell, if I think it will help, I may even throw a ring on my finger for the day.

In The Eyes of an Employer, Is it Better to be Single or Married?

Did You Get Laid Off, Or Did You Get Fired?

There is always a very thin line between getting laid off due to lack of work and getting fired, similar to the thin line between genius and insanity I suppose. I know a ton of people at the moment who are laid off (including myself), but my question is: were they really laid off, or did they get fired?

In order to answer this question, we need to put ourselves in the position of the business owner or executive. We must also keep in mind that these folks have one goal: make more money. They're like squirrels who are running around right before winter hits with one thought on their mind, "Gotta get more nuts, gotta get more nuts."

"Gotta make more money, gotta make more money."

So suppose this sharp witted business owner, manager, or executive is faced with a situation where they need to downsize their staff, perhaps it is because of lack of work, or perhaps it's because of lack of budget, or perhaps they just feel like getting rid of somebody. In any case, they are going to target the person or persons who make them the least amount of money. And I'm not talking about long term, sustainable profits, I'm talking about short term, money in front of their face now.

So they've got their prey in the cross-hairs like a crocodile would before attacking a zebra as it tries to cross an African river (I actually just saw a Discovery channel bit on this and it was absolutely wild). They circle the soon to be victim for a while and then attack with a call into the office. But in surprising contrast to the manager's typically ruthless personality, instead of saying, "You're fired", he says, "You're laid off due to lack of work." Interesting.

Are they doing this out of the goodness of their heart so you can collect unemployment and not have to tell a future employer that you got fired? Well, perhaps, but they are also doing this so the unemployment check may dissuade you from suing them for wrongful termination. If you get fired or quit, it becomes much more difficult to collect unemployment.

In Delaware, the highest amount you can collect from unemployment is $355 per week which includes a $25 addition from the federal government. So this amounts to $18,460 per year. The income level at the poverty line in the US in 2009 for a family of four is $22,050 per year.

So they tell a lie about why you're getting let go, banking that a poverty level income will keep you from suing them - and it works. However, I honestly don't know why they do this. A company can let go of employees as much as they like for any reason especially if this is written in the offer letter. Plus, how many people without a job can afford a team of lawyers to take down an established company? Not me.

I just really wish people would tell the truth - it's tough to come by nowadays. If I'm getting fired, for God's sake fire me! You can keep your poverty level income; I've got bigger problems.

Did You Get Laid Off, Or Did You Get Fired?

What Are Derivatives Anyway, And How Did They Screw Up Our Country?

I always liked Calculus for some reason. Not really sure why, but I felt like it was a very abstract method of thinking that was kind of cool. I even ended up tutoring Calculus while in college - it was quite a hoot. However, this experience didn't really prepare me for figuring out the financial mess we are now in and how we got there.

One of the first things you learn in Calculus is how to calculate a derivative. This calculation takes a line or curve and determines what the slope of a line tangent would be at any given point. There is evidently some reason you would want to make this calculation that may be of some benefit to somebody somewhere, but regardless, the value of the derivative is, in fact derived from the value of the original curve.

I just saw a tee-shirt advertised bearing the words, "I wish I were a derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves." I'll have to get that one.

This is similarly the case in the lovely world of finance where some sharp witted banker will occasionally take the bold approach of selling a security that is of no real value itself, but it's value is derived from the value of something else. Got it? Now give me all your money, I'll print up some notes derived from the value of my car loan and we'll be on our merry way. I'll call you in a few months with your pay-out.

I'm not sure why, but I spent some significant time trying to learn what a derivative was and how they screwed up our country. And through several hours of reading "derivatives for dummies" websites, I still don't really know, but I will do my best to give a somewhat coherent explanation.

A derivative is a security whose value is derived from the value of something else. They are often used as a method of shifting risk of a volatile item. When you buy the futures of a commodity, the value of that note is derived from the price of the commodity. It's kind of like a bet on where the value of the commodity is going to go.

I was trying to think of an analogy and the best I could come up with was this: suppose I placed a bet that Tiger Woods would shoot under 75 in the first round of the 2010 Master's golf tournament. I somehow roped somebody into giving me ten to one odds that Tiger would not shoot less than 75. So since I was nearly certain that Tiger would shoot less than 75 (he always does), my bet was very valuable in my mind. However I was little nervous. I asked some guy at the bar if I could give him twenty bucks to pay off my $100 bet should Tiger shoot over 75. This guy gladly took the bet because Tiger never shoots over 75.

Or maybe I should sell the value of my bet and then pay the bet and the guy I sold the security to should Tiger shoot over 75. I honestly don't know - this stuff is really confusing.

Not convinced? How about this one. When I worked for the steel company, we would have to bid a job well before we actually bought the steel from the mill. There is some significant risk here because the price of steel will fluctuate significantly. We would buy an insurance policy that locked in the price of the steel at the price it was during our bid. Now, that insurance policy would become very valuable if the price of steel skyrocketed, however, it would be pretty much worthless if the price dropped. So if I were to start trading on the value of that insurance policy, it's value would be derived from the price of steel. I think that's a little closer.

I know those examples kind of suck, so here's a little bit better description that may help.

The confusing nature of derivatives actually works to the advantage of the investment banks because they can falsely report the value of these derivatives to accountants or prospective buyers and nobody will be able to prove them wrong. They probably don't even know what they are worth themselves!

I think Warren Buffet had a funny feeling that we may be headed down the wrong path when in 2002 he said, "Derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are potentially lethal." I'll say.

So now that we know (or in my case, don't know), what derivatives are, we can accurately ascertain how they caused the financial and economic mess we are in. Uhhh, I can't quite nail down that one either. I presume that since the majority of the derivatives sold were tied to mortgages that defaulted, banks started to lose some serious money not only from the defaulted mortgages, but also the lack of value from their derivatives. Once the the cards started to collapse and the banks started failing, people started pulling their money closer and now banks are too scared to loan money which stifles any kind of economic growth.

Anyway, the real sad thing about this was that there were some of the smartest engineers and scientists in this country who were stuffed in cubes calculating derivatives instead of working in a truly productive setting of engineering, construction, or manufacturing. And why were they working for investment banks instead of engineering firms? It's because engineering firms don't pay shit compared to investment banks. So instead of our smartest people actually adding value to our country they were a bunch of crooked thieves stealing money. It's funny how really smart people do really dumb things.

What Are Derivatives Anyway, And How Did They Screw Up Our Country?

What is all this Six Sigma stuff and can it really be applied to construction?

I'm sure most have heard about the Six Sigma method of quality management, but I doubt many know exactly what it is or how it can be implemented. I didn't know either until I did some minor research and my memory of what I studied in school was refreshed, so without making a statistical analysis too boring, I'll attempt to give a brief, but thought provoking explanation of what Six Sigma is and how (if) it can be implemented in a construction setting.

For people in the world of statistics, one of their most inspiring discoveries is that of the bell curve and how it applies to the world in which we live. Basically, everything on earth, and possibly in the universe falls, statistically, into some version of a bell curve. For example, if I were to plot a histogram of my golf scores over the past five years, there would be a mean of the scores which would be the highest number (top of the bell) and then two tails of higher and lower scores.

So everything from the number of cups of coffee you drink each day to the variance of IQ scores will fall into some distribution of a bell curve. Itwould be safe to assume that quality items or as they are called, defects, will also follow this same distribution either in manufacturing or construction.

So what Six Sigma intends to do is take the number of defects in a particular process down to six standard deviations away from the mean (middle of the curve). Basically, this amounts to 3.4 defects per million opportunities (DPMO).

*Note: Six standard deviations from the mean would actually be about two hundred times less than 3.4 DPMO, but there is some theoretical shift of 1.5 sigma that occurs in the calculation that may or may not be legitimate and I don't really understand it. In either case, 3.4 or 0.015 DPMO is pretty damn good for a construction project so for all intents and purposes the difference is negligible.

So this is a nice little goal to set for yourself, but how might one go about reaching this pinnacle of quality? Six Sigma projects follow two project methodologies comprising five phases each with the acronyms DMAIC and DMADV.

DMAIC is used for projects aimed at improving an existing business process.
DMADV is used for projects aimed at creating new product or process design.

The DMAIC project methodology has five phases:
Define high-level project goals and the current process.
Measure key aspects of the current process and collect relevant data.
Analyze the data to verify cause-and-effect relationships. Improve or optimize the process based upon data analysis. Control to ensure that any deviations from target are corrected before they result in defects.

DMADV
Define design goals that are consistent with customer demands and the enterprise strategy.
Measure and identify CTQs (characteristics that are Critical To Quality), product capabilities, production process capability, and risks.
Analyze to develop and design alternatives, create a high-level design and evaluate design capability to select the best design.
Design details, optimize the design, and plan for design verification.
Verify the design, set up pilot runs, implement the production process and hand it over to the process owners.

My keen intuition tells me that construction projects will fall into the DMADV because every construction project is different. Which brings us to the main obstacle of implementing Six Sigma on a construction project: Construction is not manufacturing!

Six Sigma was developed by Motorola to improve quality. Companies like Motorola have the luxury of having design and manufacturing all in house and not to mention the fact that they are building the same thing over and over. Imagine trying to put an automobile together when it is not only a unique design, but every part of the car is installed by a different company! And then implement a quality management system for every unique installation that came down the line.

Construction isn't quite that difficult because you are working on a much bigger scale but we have to realize that implementing manufacturing principles into construction is just not that easy. Plus the whole Six Sigma black belt certification process is a little cheesy. However, a six sigma level of quality is nothing short of a fantastic accomplishment.

What is all this Six Sigma stuff and can it really be applied to construction?