MIT’S NEW CONCRETE SUSTAINABILITY HUB (CSH)
Concrete is the most widely used building material on the planet; however, the production of some of its component materials account for up to five percent of global carbon dioxide emissions annually.
To address the sustainability and environmental implications of the use of concrete as the backbone of our housing, schools, hospitals and other built infrastructure, including highways, tunnels, airports and rail systems, MIT announced the creation of the Concrete Sustainability Hub, a research center established at MIT in collaboration with the Portland Cement Association (PCA) and Ready Mixed Concrete (RMC) Research & Education Foundation.
The Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSH), established with the goal of accelerating emerging breakthroughs in concrete science and engineering and transferring that science into practice, will provide $10 million of sponsored research funding during the next five years. Researchers from MIT’s School of Engineering, School of Architecture and Planning and Sloan School of Management are expected to participate in the CSH’s research activities.
The launch of CSH incidentally coincides with last week’s announcement that the EPA is moving to enact rules that would curtail greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and large industrial manufacturers. If enacted, these rules would likely impose regulations on all 118 cement plants in the United States.
The RMC and PCA leaders are hopeful that research results emerging from CSH projects will help ease the way for the industry to meet any changes that would be required by those new regulations.
CSH research will initially be organized around three focus areas: concrete materials science, building technology and the econometrics of sustainable development. The first two projects, “Green Concrete Science,” and “The Edge of Concrete: A Life-Cycle Investigation of Concrete and Concrete Structures” are already underway. Franz-Josef Ulm, the Macomber Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, will serve as the CSH’s inaugural director and is the lead investigator on the Green Concrete Science project.
The CSH will be co-directed by John Ochsendorf, Class of 1942 Career Development Associate Professor of Building Technology in the Department of Architecture and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Source: MIT, PCA, RMC
WHEN WILL IT END?
We are still suffering through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. While there is some good news trickling in there is also plenty of bad news to go around. A small increase in housing starts sound great until you realize that the small increase is on a figure that already off well over 50% over the past two years. The residential market seems to have bottomed out but the non-residential sector is looking at its worst year in 2010 and another slightly down year in 2011 (according to economic forecasters).
Just who are these forecasters of doom and what exactly are they saying? I tend to shy away from the politically motivated economists. The left-wing forecasters say that the recovery is just around the corner (what corner are they talking about). The right wing forecasters say we are doomed and we should all move to our mountain shacks. The answer, as always, lays somewhere in between. I have found the information we receive from Ed Sullivan (No, this is not the Ed Sullivan of old with a really, really big forecast), the PCA Economist, to be down-to-earth and practical with no false optimism. He has no political agenda – he’s simply trying to provide his best analysis so that people involved in the cement industry can make informed decisions. I listened to his forecast a couple of years and he said unemployment would top out at over 10%. He was too close.
So what are Ed and his fellow economists saying about 2010 and beyond. First, the good news: The residential market. The total residential market in the U.S (single family, multi-family, and improvements) was down 25.1% and 29.1% respectively in 2008 and 2009. Within that figure, the single-family new construction market (the one most of you are involved with) was down 36.8% and 44.5% respectively for the period. Ed and his compatriots forecast a 9.5% total residential market increase in 2010 (28.2% in new single family construction) followed by a 43.1% increase (84.4% increase in new single family construction) in 2011 and continued double digit expansion through 2013. Perhaps a recovery for the residential market is, just around the corner.
The bad news: Everything non-residential except Public Buildings. The non-residential building market is projected to be off by 22.4% in 2010 following a 18.5% decline this year. Virtually every sector aside from public buildings, highways & streets, military construction, and conservation is projected to decline led by the industrial, office, and lodging sectors. 2011 is projected to be off by another 3.3% with recovery delayed until 2012.
Economic are forecasts based on a assessments from a multitude of facts and figures. It’s a lot like weather forecasting. Two different weathermen can come up with different forecasts from exactly the same sets of data. The predictions are not rock (make that concrete) solid but they are the best assessment of trained individuals without political overtones. Unforeseen things can happen that could critically alter these predictions (i.e. a serious terrorist attack) but by and large, this paints a picture of better times to come in the near future for the residential markets and beginning in 2012 for the non-residential markets.
If you would like a pdf copy of the PCA Forecast Report, Fall 2009, email me, esauter@cfawalls.org at CFA headquarters and I’ll send it off and will include the next one when I get it. Hang in there, better times are just around the corner, right next to your mountain shack.
Ed Sauter, Executive Director, CFA esauter@cfawalls.org
A ‘ FIXED’ FIGHT: A PEEK INSIDE ONE CONSRUCTION
Expert’s Campaign to Make Fixed-Price Contracts and Cost Containment the Industry’s New Normal
Huge cost overruns and missed deadlines have long been the accepted norm for construction project operations. But as the economy struggles to fully recover, construction expert Barry LePatner stresses that these precepts can no longer define the nation’s most inefficient industry. He provides a proposal for hardwiring construction cost containment into future projects.
Cost overruns have long been the norm in the construction industry. Just consider the litany of projects across our nation that have been plagued by cost overruns. For example, Boston’s $22-billion-dollar Big Dig, which continues to drain Massachusetts’ economy, or the sports arenas and stadiums such as he newly built stadiums for New York’s Mets and Yankees, both of which have exceeded projected costs by hundreds of millions. Not to mention the smaller projects such as the schools, hospitals, and office and residential projects going up around the nation, which encounter overruns on a daily basis.
No one has ever been happy about the cost overruns or the missed deadlines that accompany projects like those mentioned above, but most have accepted them as a necessary evil. But in our stagnant economy, faced with the stark reality of dried-up financing, and a construction industry that has lost over 1.5 million workers, tightly budgeted developers and project owners are facing a budgetary quagmire from contractors who bid at or below cost to secure contracts that will inevitably result in massive cost overruns.
However, a new paradigm is on the horizon that promises to alleviate these problems—and Barry LePatner says construction cost containment is the number one goal of developers, corporations, lenders, and public owners alike.
“Construction cost overruns have run rampant for decades,” says LePatner, author of Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets: How to Fix America’s Trillion-Dollar Construction Industry and the upcoming book Roadblock: America’s Failing Infrastructure and the Way Forward. “It’s hard to believe that the construction industry was allowed to waste upwards of $120 billion each year even in the best of times. It is an industry that has seen per-worker productivity fall by nearly 25 percent over the past 40 years. But in these difficult times, the status quo can no longer stand.”
The problem, well-known to most people who deal with the construction industry, is that the low-bid process allows contractors to win projects—followed, of course, by change orders and delay claims that gradually escalate the final price and enable them to make a profit.
LePatner’s solution? Over the past two years, his law firm has developed The LePatner C3 Model™, a new fixed-price approach to designing and building complex capital projects that enables all project team members to operate with confidence that their project will be completed on time and on budget. It does this while also assuring a fair profit to the construction team without the need for unwarranted claims and delays. NOTE: For details, see LePatner’s new white paper, The LePatner C3 Model: Construction Cost Certainty, which is available for download at www.BarryLePatner.com.
“If you’re scoffng at the mention of a ‘fixed-price approach,’ you’re certainly not alone,” admits LePatner. “Many in the construction industry believe fixed-priced contracts simply aren’t possible. And given the way the industry currently operates, they are correct. “But when you ensure that contracts are based on fully complete and coordinated drawings, perform a proper risk allocation to adjust for anticipatable problems during the construction process, and involve intermediaries to act on the owner’s behalf in the negotiation process—as The LePatner C3 Model does on all accounts—you create a world in which owners—public and private—can, for the first time, feel secure that cost certainty will be achieved.”
And as seen by the results of FMI and CMAA’s recent 2009 Tenth Annual Survey of Owners, LePatner’s fixed-price model is coming at just the right time. As we move into the next decade, owners, too, are expecting change.
According to the survey’s findings, owners want to see more claims avoidance, better project leadership, and better alignment of “project delivery system selection to project characteristics and conditions.”
The survey also found that from 2009-2014, owners will place greater importance on the following factors. Here they are as excerpted from the survey:
- Selecting the most effective project delivery system
- Maintenance management support in both processes and technologies
- Proactive strategies to avoid claims and disputes
- Development and use of a construction management plan
- Effective documentation and processes designed to support facility commissioning or turnover.
LePatner has been proposing this kind of change within the industry since the release of his book Broken Buildings, Busted Budgets in 2007, which sparked a long-overdue debate among owners, design professionals, and contractors on the mutual benefits of construction industry reform, specifically the need for widespread adoption of true fixed-price contracts. The LePatner C3 Model, which makes fixed-price contracts a prerequisite for new construction, ensures that borrowers and their lenders will no longer be held captive to the well-documented inefficiencies of the U.S. construction industry. And stakeholders will no longer be exposed to existing construction methodologies that allow all risks of completion to be passed along to owners and lenders.
Here’s a look at the construction industry inefficiencies LePatner hopes to end for good with the use of The LePatner C3 Model:
Incomplete drawings. Incomplete drawings allow contractors to bid low in order to win projects, and also prevent them from providing an owner with a true fixed price for all work required to complete the project. Here’s what happens: To “expedite” construction, construction managers routinely require the owner’s architects and engineers to issue incomplete drawings and specifications to contractors as the basis for the project contract. Lacking complete scope information, the contractors must infer and make cost assumptions on the “missing” design elements since they are not provided with detailed information on the project design.
“What results are agreements that ultimately allow for myriad exclusions, allowances, and pricing assumptions based upon the incomplete design,” says LePatner. “It is no surprise that these pricing and scope assumptions rarely bear out once construction starts, the final design is completed, and actual costs are determined. And once a project is under construction, owners have very few good options to dispute these charges because delaying the project to settle these problems will only lead to more delays and costs. The LePatner C3 Model ends this problem because it requires contracts to be based on fully completed designs.
“In addition, The LePatner C3 Model also ensures that the owner has, for the first time, accurate pricing information on the actual costs reflected on the design drawings. Owner representatives and\ their cost estimators will be valuing the design as it proceeds so that, by the time bids from prospective contractors arrive, the owner will know if they are truly competitive and can ensure a fair profit for the construction team to reflect the risks they will take to complete the project on time and on budget.”
Change orders. Change orders are the major reason so many projects go over budget and run behind schedule. They occur because the design documents on every “fast track” project are incomplete. This practice sets in motion all that is wrong with the current methodology of construction and underscores the failure of standardform industry contracts to protect owners. As previously mentioned, contractors use change orders to profit from their low bids.
“Low bids and the change orders that come with them will only be exacerbated by the slow and recovering economy, subsequently driving up project budgets by 20 to 50 percent or more,” says LePatner. “In the past, when cost overruns arose, owners could borrow to meet a shortfall from a mezzanine lender to cover these costs. But in the years ahead, industry leaders expect that few, if any, mezzanine lenders will cover the increased cost of completing such projects. The LePatner C3 Model puts an end to the need for unnecessary change orders because it ensures a built-in, fair profit for contractors when a project is completed on time and on budget.”
Ineffective design and construction agreements. A central problem is that standard design and construction agreements fail to recognize the low-bid process and the known inefficiencies of the construction industry. These form-based agreements are silent on the critical issue of contractor bids based upon incomplete designs and fail to offer any mechanism to anticipate and price “unexpected” conditions.
These are precisely the circumstances in which cost overruns and change order claims run rampant through the construction industry, busting owners’ budgets at every turn. The backbone of The LePatner C3 Model is a set of seamless agreements for the design and construction teams that ensure a true fixed price based on fully completed project designs. It also includes a risk allocation process that helps factor in “unexpected” conditions that are priced during the contracting process and eliminate costly and time-consuming delays.
“As it stands today, on construction projects big and small, project cost is a huge wild card,” says LePatner. “Public and private owners should demand certainty for their capital project costs. In the years ahead, if you are a developer and you do not have a plan in place for cost containment, you will not be able to get the loans you need to build. If you are lucky enough to get the initial loan, you will run the risk of having to pay millions more to cover costs that have soared over budget. For example, if you are a school district and must build 10 new schools with a $40 million budget, cost overruns will prevent you from constructing as many as 20 percent of the intended number of schools.
“The LePatner C3 Model offers reassurance on cost certainty where there currently is none,” he adds. “For lenders, it provides a proven strategy that reduces construction loan risk. And, thanks to the cost certainty it provides, borrowers receive a new level of assurance that actual project costs will not exceed the contract price.
“Having something like The LePatner C3 Model in place is a necessity now,” concludes LePatner. “Our nation will rebound from the current financial downturn. We are in the process of adding 100 million new citizens in the next 30 years, a level of growth that will require our nation to spend over $25 trillion to build new hospitals, schools, offices, roads, and bridges. The LePatner C3 Model will become a new paradigm that will help transform America’s most inefficient industry into one that helps us build our nation’s future efficiently and cost effectively, while protecting owners from that same inefficiency.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Barry B. LePatner is the founder of the New York City-based law firm LePatner & Associates LLP. For three decades, he has been prominent as an advisor on business and legal issues affecting the real estate, design, and construction industries. He is head of the law firm that has grown to become widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading advisors to corporate and institutional clients, real estate owners, and design professionals. Mr. LePatner is widely recognized as a thought leader in the construction industry.
For more information, please visit www.BrokenBuildings.com or www.BarryLePatner.com.
WE NEED CFA
As we start the New Year I would like to make the case of how important your membership in the Concrete Foundation Association is. CFA is the only organization that represents our interest in the poured wall business and has for 34 years. Throughout CFA’s long history it has seen growth in membership and became a nationally recognized trade association.
CFA holds a position on the American Concrete Institute committee that helped developed ACI 332, which has been adopted by the International Residential Code as an alternative prescriptive method. If you are familiar Chapter 4 of the 2006 IRC you know this was a huge victory for our industry – the development of the CFA standard paved the way for ACI 332. The cold weather research report developed by CFA in and its members in 2004 is referenced in ACI 332. This research has been an important tool for our industry that proves what we already know; we can pour walls in cold weather. This kind of research could not have happened without CFA.
The developing program of CFA Certified Contractors and Technicians promises to have positive impact in the future of our business and industry. We have representation in the Concrete Homes Council with partners like NAHB and PCA. The development of the publication Building Homes with Removable Concrete Forms has helped our members expand the poured wall business and has set up potential for future growth especially with the “Going Green” awareness. Programs of this magnitude take time, patients and money. It takes a trade association like CFA to make it happen.
It’s extremely important for CFA to grow and maintain its membership. Membership is an investment in the future of your business and the poured wall industry. I have listed some of the ongoing time consuming projects now let’s also consider some of the other benefits we have with CFA; website with company directories, archives, news announcements, the education training and seminars, most with C.E.U.’s available. Publication related to marketing, technical and business. The most important benefit is networking with fellow poured wall contractors.
We need CFA for the improvement and growth of our industry. If you are thinking about not renewing your membership to cut cost, please don’t and invest in the future. If you are considering joining CFA please do, it will be worth it. Personally I know CFA has helped my business grow and survive and I know how important CFA is to the future of my business and our industry as a whole.
Dan Bromley, CFA President, ABI Corporation danb@abi-corp.comTHE UN-COMFORT ZONE
This month we feature another article by the talented author, Robert Wilson. Writer of The Un-comfort Zone, Mr. Wilson is always able to convey a message of focus, growth and sensibility that can be applied to each of our businesses. We are beginning to start a new year. What moves did your company make to educate key individuals? What steps did your company take to educate all personnel? World of Concrete is just around the corner. The CFA Annual Convention for 2009 is by us and we are already looking ahead to next year’s. There are a great many opportunities for you to make a difference in your company through education that is specifically generated to and for your company, you as a residential foundation contractor. The CFA Management Committee this issue encourages you to read this article and think about your commitment to education and continually improving the ability for your company to compete in the elite. Among many other ways this can happen, CFA Company Certification demonstrates and maintains a quality assurance of that commitment to excellence described by Mr. Wilson.
The Examined Life
“Hola!” “Hola. ¿Qué tal?” “Bien. ¿ y tu?” “Bien.”Paul and I were sixteen years old and had taken highschool Spanish for a year. We called each other every night on the phone and spoke to each other in our new language. More than anything we wanted to test our skill with a real Spanish speaking person, but we did not know any. Then we got the idea to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant. For two boys who had never dined out without their parents, this was a big adventure. We were so motivated that when we made reservations, we asked to be seated with a waiter who could not speak English.
What motivated us? Knowledge. We made the same discovery that led Sir Francis Bacon to make his famous quote in 1597, “Knowledge is power.” We were empowered by what we had learned, and it gave us the confidence to take a risk we would never have taken before.
By the end of dinner we found out we didn’t know nearly as much as we thought we did, but the important thing was that our knowledge, albeit meager, moved us to action.
It is the same reason that we find seminars and lectures so motivating — because we acquire new insights in a relatively brief period of time that we can act on right away. If the information is good, we can’t wait to put it to work making our lives better and our jobs easier.
Knowledge also motivates us because it enables us to be more inventive. Many new innovations are the result of two or more existing ideas synthesized into a new one. Creative thinkers regularly expose themselves to new learning experiences, and to different viewpoints. With each new experience, they create new synapses – electrical connections between the nerve cells – in their brains. This gives them more data to draw from when they are looking for solutions.
My son recently asked me why his school required him to learn to play a musical instrument. I explained to him that it was stimulating parts of his brain he would not have used otherwise. I told him that even if he chose not to continue playing the instrument as an adult, that the knowledge he acquired today may serve him in the future in some way that is presently unknown to him.
Innovators are known for their ability to think outside of the box, but more than anything it is their broad-based knowledge that gives them the courage to challenge accepted beliefs. The most successful innovators are those who make the acquisition of knowledge part of their lifestyle.
Greek philosopher Socrates fully understood that learning is a lifelong process. When he was found guilty of teaching his students to question authority, he was given a choice of punishment: death or exile. He chose death, stating, “The unexamined life is not worth living,”
Knowledge, however, is more than just the accumulation of information. It has to be used, applied, and manipulated in some fashion. Automobile manufacturing innovator, Henry Ford, illustrated this point during a civil trial in which he sued a Chicago newspaper for libel. The paper had referred to him as an “ignorant pacifist.” At the trial, the defendant’s lawyer asked Ford a series of questions designed to prove that he was indeed ignorant. Questions such as “When was the American Revolutionary War?” and “How many soldiers did the British employ?”
Eventually Ford became irritated by the questions and remarked, “I can summon to my aid men who can answer any question I desire to ask concerning the business to which I am devoting most of my efforts. Why should I clutter up my mind with general knowledge.”
Seek out knowledge that empowers you, and let it give you the confidence and courage to be more and do more.
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Editor’s Note: Robert Evans Wilson, Jr. is a motivational speaker and humorist. He works with companies that want to be more competitive and with people who want to think like innovators. He can be contacted at robert@jumpstartyourmeeting.com or visit his web site at www.jumpstartyourmeeting.com.
Best@Selling
In May of this year, the CFA Management Committee brought you two opportunities for plugging in to inexpensive and highly motivational management seminars online and via teleconference. These presentations were made by nationally-renowned author and conference speaker, Maura Shreier-Flemming. Her books include the recent release of Monday Morning Sales Tips and other effective tools to stimulate improvements to your sales approach and client relationships.
The opportunity created with this seminar series was a first for the CFA and although marginally attended by our members, those present had nothing but great things to say about the content from these meetings. One such response was…
I have been implementing the strategies you have taught me. These strategies really work. I am learning to ask the right questions that put me in the “consultative” role not just the sales role. I really appreciate your assistance. I hope you can do more for the CFA in the near future. – John Wilson, Cornerstone Foundations
The many CFA members that did not have the opportunity to attend these conferences can now benefit from them in a different way. CFA has both the presentation files and the audio recordings from these two events and is making them available to companies for download at the price of $25 per event.
Take a look at just some of the content from these sessions:
May 15, 2009 Best@Selling – The Secrets of Persuasion: Your shortcut to close more business
This presentation took participants through a discussion of the selling techniques used in one-on-one sales that dominate our industry. Ms. Schreier-Flemming asked you to consider how and why we can influence and persuade our clients. What techniques do you use to establish rapport and actually increase it? Observation is key in any one-on-one approach. Several exercises were used to improve the recognition of clues that customers frequently give, that when noticed and understood can substantially improve the percentage to which we close on sales.
May 29, 2009 Best@ Selling – Consultative Selling: Strategic Questions that Sell
After understanding the way that one-on-one sales can be influenced by approach, mannerisms and discernment of client visual and audible clues, the participants to this presentation were opened to the most frequent mistakes made in any sales approach. Additionally, Ms. Schreier-Flemming addressed new ways to think of the purpose of selling and provided a consultative selling methodology that is proven to close a higher percentage of the opportunities that are presented by your clients. Much of this surrounded a “pinball question” that most companies avoid but that is essential to really opening up the lines of understanding between your client’s needs and your services that are best for them.
These two great sessions were the first foray the CFA has made into the future of effective conferences that meet you where you are. In order to continue the development of meaningful and important content, we need to better understand your business needs and interests. That starts with your response to the information presented in these conferences and suggestions for future content.
To obtain your copy of either session, contact Jim Baty at jbaty@cfawalls.org or 866-232-9255. This offer is only available to CFA members with active memberships and we are looking into making this available to purchase online and direct download through your online membership account. The Secrets of Persuasion conference purchase will give you the audio recording, the presentation in PowerPoint and Adobe PDF as well as an electronic copy of Maura’s ebook on Persuasion and follow-up questions that you should be asking yourself. The Consultative Questions conference purchase will give you the audio recording and the presentation in both formats accompanied by follow-up questions to stimulate further change in your process.
Codes & Standards Corner
This issue we offer you an update on the codes and standards that continue to evolve in and around the residential and foundation industries. Codes and Standards comprise a significant portion of the energy this Association puts forth and a considerable amount of the sta$ time that is allocated on behalf of the membership.
There are three primary areas for codes and standards development supported by the Concrete Foundations Association. These include the International Residential Code, the ACI 332 Standard and the CFA Standard. All three of these areas have seen a flurry of activity in the last few months that we know you will both benefit from and be interested in learning.
THE INTERNATIONAL RESIDENTIAL CODE
The most used and most recognized resource in our industry, the IRC has recently completed the final stages for the 2012 edition of the code. Since 2006, the IRC has begun to incorporate improved reference and flexibility from a residential foundation perspective. Initially, this came in the form of more sensible direct tables and a simple reference to the then new ACI Standard from 332. That has continued to grow in effect and relevance while adding the significant components of the PCA-100 Standard created by the Portland Cement Association.
In the 2012 edition of the IRC, references to the signi# cance of ACI 332 in its 2010 edition will be found in material requirements (403), footings and foundations (404) and slabs (406). ! is compiles the most flexibility ever seen for concrete foundation contractors and designers since minimum code requirements were established.
Code development, particularly at the IRC level, is a long and arduous process that doesn’t end when the next edition is published. It then begins the review and adoption procedure state by state and jurisdiction jurisdiction. Those of you in Ohio realize this as you are typically three years behind in the code cycle with a state code based off the 2006 IRC as the 2009 ORC while most states are based on the 2009 IRC. It is very important to recognize which edition of the national code any jurisdictional code is based on prior to applying the positions and recommendations you receive from this Association or any other advisor.
ACI 332 STANDARD
Beginning in 2004, ACI began to establish a purposed distinction between residential concrete work and all other concrete construction. This was encouraged due to the separation at the national code level between the IRC and International Building Code (IBC) but facilitated by experienced, knowledgeable and passionate representatives from the residential industry to assure that specific focus occurred on the issues of this industry.
ACI 332 has just released the 2010 edition to Public Review. This is the last major step before recognition as the next published form of the Standard. Those wishing to review and comment during this public review can download the document and the response forms from http://www.concrete.org.
ACI 332-10 is the next generation of a radical approach to minimum requirements for the residential concrete industry. Some of the information is consistent with the basic principles of the IRC. Features such as maximum loads, weathering and basic material properties will be found to mirror the IRC.
However, 332-10 quickly departs from the IRC and offers characteristics of materials, footings, foundations and slabs that are not found in the IRC or addressed at such a basic level that they leave very little room for design interpretation. At the heart of 332-10 remains the design tables offering great variety for concrete and steel strengths, wall heights and thickness and soil conditions. This provides adjustability to partner with the economy that so many projects are forced to consider in today’s market.
Furthermore, 332-10 continues the documentation of core strengths for foundations that are not addressed in the IRC and provide savings to projects based on the full use of monolithic concrete properties. Details such as stepped footings, reduced wall thickness, concrete lintels and interrupted footings are among the key additional features of this document that carries it beyond the provisions of the IRC.
ACI 332, as a committee, is now reaching toward the identification of further growth of the standard and extension of minimum requirements to a much broader application in the residential industry. Thinner walls, taller walls, better performance recognition, two-way action, concrete decks and alternative wall systems are just a few of the issues being considered. If you have a passion for improved performance recognition and practical and sensible development of minimum standards,
I want to encourage you to consider joining this public code committee that does not require ACI membership in which to contribute. Contact me at jbaty@cfawalls.org or at 866-232-9255 for more information on the opportunities and requirements. We would love to see this interest grow from an engineer and contractor involvement perspective.
CFA STANDARD
Perhaps the largest effort in the CFA is the completion of the 2010 CFA Standard. Whether a jurisdiction has an established code of minimum requirements such as the IRC, the use of this document remains an important part of your membership in the CFA. It is represents the guiding principles of the larger residential work that you are involved in. It goes beyond concrete design and construction and affects issues of total building performance that can impact foundations for the long term. This includes such significant issues as waterproofing vs. damp proofing; drainage; tolerances; and backfilling.
This document parallels the 332 Standard in much of the guiding principles of concrete design and construction. It maintains the importance of water/cement ratio, cold weather considerations and the design performance flexibility. It is also written in a document format that parallels both 332 and the IRC so that ease of relation for code review is possible.
The CFA Standard is managed and put forth by the CFA Technical Committee. Moving forward, this document is projected to lead the future development of ACI 332 editions by establishing more aggressive recognition of concrete wall and material behavior. It will be the first to put forth expanded wall heights, thinner walls, and many of the behaviors that are being discussed at the ACI 332 level but will knowingly take much longer to deliberate and bring to consensus. This further evidences the CFA as the leading force in the development of building standards for residential concrete.
In similar fashion to the call for interest in ACI’s 332 Committee, the CFA is always looking for passionate members to play a role in the identification, development and promotion of technical concepts. If you are such a person or know of one in your company, you should be contacting us and finding ways to plug in to the Technical Committee.
Our work in all of this is far from done. Code development is a never-ending process. It is a process that requires patience, diligence and perseverance as well as technical astuteness. Your membership dollars are hard at work shaping the future of residential concrete. You, perhaps, should be too.
CFA Forum
The CFA Board of Directors met recently in Chicago for their fall meeting and preceded the meeting with what amounted to a 2 hours round table discussion on the economy and what steps they were taking with their businesses to survive the current downturn. Summarized below are a few of the points. You may be already have implemented some of these ideas.
1) INVOLVE EMPLOYEES. Most contractors are making across the board cuts in every aspect of their operations. Pay rates, paid vacation days, health insurance, and hours, are but a few of the cuts mentioned for both management and field employees.
These are tough decisions but nowhere is this more apparent, and controversial, than with benefits.
When you are getting this deep into cuts, consider involving your employees in the process. At a minimum, explain the issues and the options you are considering. You don’t need to go into numbers but you can related the obvious in generic terms such as % loss in business, etc. without laying it out for everyone to see.
Outline the cost cutting measures you have been considering including cuts at the management level. They need to know they aren’t the only ones that are suffering. If it boils down to lay-offs or pay cuts versus loss of a company vehicle, they will better understand if they know how much needs to be cut and that everyone must be part of the solution.
2) COMPANY VEHICLES. One of the benefits that employees often cherish is the use of a company truck to drive to and from work – often on company gas.
That can translate into a lot of payments on trucks doing nothing if business is down. Worse yet is that it may be the primary form of transportation for some workers. What to do? Mention the change well in advance of the cut and make certain that everyone knows that this isn’t the only cut and that they aren’t being singled out.
If you need to sell vehicles, consider letting the employee purchase them and offer them good terms. The bank or auto dealer probably isn’t going to do you any favors so let the employee have a good deal on the purchase.
There are some other negatives besides the employee’s attitude. One of those is the loss of advertising from having those trucks on the road. Consider a reduced price or a monthly bonus if the employee will keep your logo on the side of his/her truck.
3) LOAN TERMS. Most bankers don’t want to see you fail. Your assets are worth far less to them than they are to you. Negotiate with your bank. The three most common approaches are to pay interest only for a period of time; extend the length of the note; and, renegotiate a totally new note.
You shouldn’t, however, even go to your banker until you can show him the cuts you have made or are contemplating and a plan of action as to how you will meet the new terms based on current revenue.
If you base everything on a quick return to former times your banker will probably show you the door.
4) OVERTIME. Many workers rely on overtime to boost their regular paychecks. Careful monitoring of overtime by crews on a daily basis can save the extra wages and put more of your crews to work. If you monitor each crews hours you might be able to shuffle them around to avoid overtime and avoid lay-offs. Nothing is worse than one crew working overtime while another sits and collects unemployment.
5) GOOGLE YOURSELF AND YOUR COMPETITION. This isn’t necessarily a recession hint but it is certainly a good idea. Periodically “Google” yourself and your company, your competition, and your key employees to see what is being said about you. You might be surprised. You don’t need a web site to have a web presence.
If you attend a public meeting and make a statement that is picked up by the local paper, you might just be in the “Google” search engine.
Blogs and other public access sites might include someone posting or disseminating incorrect information about your company.
If your company was mentioned in a lawsuit, a newspaper article, a police report, or any form of public communications it will very likely show up on a “Google” search. Give it a try.
6) CUSTOMER BACKGROUND CHECKS. The last thing you need in this day and age is a customer who doesn’t pay. One way to reduce the number of instances of dead-beat customers is to run a credit check on them. This should be obvious for new customers but you might want to run one on someone who has been a good customer for years, in particular if they start to stretch out payments.
You might also consider a criminal background check. You aren’t looking for murderers but all you have to do is look at the headlines nearly every day to see that criminals can also wear suits and ties.
7) DIFFERENT PAY RATES. You are trying to get by with fewer and fewer employees and you are keeping your best men onboard but you probably also have them doing many different jobs, some which don’t necessarily rate foreman pay. Consider a division of jobs so that one employee might be getting paid different pay rates depending on the job they are performing.
8) RECYCLE, REUSE, CUT WASTE. How much material do you haul away after each job? Lumber, reinforcement, chemicals – all can be culprits.
First do a better job of estimating and allocating so there are less unused materials but also consider uses for the pieces that are left. Short rerods can be used for dowels, form anchors and a host of other things.
Make certain you get the maximum number of uses out of lumber – even short pieces. Construct some forms for splash blocks or other precast elements so that any extra concrete can be put to use.
9) DIVERSITY. Jobs are fewer and farther between so do what you can to get more work on each job. Retaining walls, both cast and CMU are possibilities, as are decks over garages, or decks over the basement.
Most forming systems have the equipment to build decks and there are other systems available that don’t require much in the way of special equipment. Consider installing the sewer and water installations from the main to the home or even the under-slab plumbing.
How many times have you had to wait for the plumber or another excavator just so you could do your job.
Performing some of the above tasks (plumbers must make the final connections in most jurisdictions) can make you some extra money and make your life and you builder’s life easier.
How about landscaping. Again, you have most of the equipment on-site. Do the finish grading, the seeding and sod, even plant the trees. You probably do at home, why not do it for your builder and get paid for it.
10) HIRE A MARKETING PERSON! What, hire additional people when I’m laying off workers?
Before you dismiss this suggestion, think seriously. You are probably traveling farther just to get the jobs you have and you are probably giving more quotes. The main thing you need is more opportunities.
There are a lot of qualified sales people who know your industry – they could come from suppliers or your own work force. Consider hiring them on a base plus commission to keep costs at a minimum. You will need to supply them with the tools they need to promote your company and follow-up with quotes when they bring you a customer but your time and cash investment will be minimal.
11) RISK MANAGEMENT. Consider hiring a risk management consultant.
These professionals are experts at looking for patterns, areas, and procedures that are particularly CFA Forum, continued risky.
Their recommendations could result in lower insurance rates, greater productivity, or both. If the CFA decides to pursue the self-insurance concept, the benefits are based almost entirely on risk management and paying only for the risks inherent in your industry instead of a much broader insurance pool.
12) BAD ATTITUDES. A bad attitude can be like a cancer or disease, spreading throughout a crew or the company. It is important to single out people with a bad attitude and work with them to correct it or remove the cancer.
One company, which felt they were offering their employees a fair deal, dealt with individuals with bad attitudes by offering the trouble-maker two week paid to go look for a better opportunity.
Their only requirement was to come back and report their findings. In most cases they found out that they didn’t have it so bad and stopped their disruptive actions.
ARE ANY OF THESE IDEAS HELPFUL? Would you consider participating in a regional event where information and ideas such as this are exchanged? If so, give Jim Baty or myself a call or email. We are considering a concept where we would have two or three different round tables of non-competing companies simultaneously exchanging ideas. The cost would be minimal and we would plan it so it could be conducted in a single day. Contact us at 319-895-6940 (866-CFAWALL) or by email at esauter@cfawalls.org and jbaty@cfawalls.org.
Sharing of Ideas
We had a great fall board meeting in Chicago last October. We choose Chicago because it is easy to fly to and the airfare is reasonable. Most people arrived and left the same day. Thank you to Hanley Wood for the generous use for their conference room, with the economy CFA is very grateful for the cost savings.
The board meeting was very productive. The hallmark of CFA has always been networking and sharing ideas. We had a 2 hour round table discussion focusing on the economy, survival strategies, ideas for new revenue and a general discussion on the housing recession. It was one of the best investments of time and travel expense that I have made. Everyone was very open with ideas and strategies and I would like to thank everyone who participated. This is truly what CFA is about. Ed has produced an article that outlines some of the topics discussed for this issue. The round table discussion was so successful that we plan to duplicate it at the spring board meeting and the summer CFA convention.
The #1 benefit has always been about CFA members sharing ideas. Hopefully you can attend one of these round table discussions in the future. If you are unable to attend please call or email Ed or Jim with questions and they can direct you to a fellow CFA member that you can talk with. Especially in these times we need to meet and stick together through CFA.
Dan Bromley, CFA President, ABI Corporation danb@abi-corp.comJoint Sustainability Initiative (JSI)
Concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world. It is used for foundations, roads, walks, beams, columns, pipe, and a host of other critical applications to provide for mankind’s needs. Because it is so widely used, the industries that manufacture and use the concrete are very diverse in nature.
Therein lies a critical problem with the industry. Everyone is “out there” doing their own thing; trying to survive; competing against one another and other building systems such as wood, steel, and asphalt. While this diversity is good in many instances, it is a disadvantage when competing against other materials, most of who present a much more coordinated and coherent message in the marketplace.
Nowhere is this more evident, and nowhere is it more critical at this point in time, than in the realm of sustainability. The concrete and cement-based products industries have made attempts in the past to coordinate a message but it typically falls apart after a period of time.
Wood and steel have their act together. Does anyone refute such inherent attributes as a renewable resource for wood and recyclable for steel? It is because they invested effort to ensure these messages would resonate and stick. They are well-funded, they have a crafted delivery, and they have put their differences aside when it comes to presenting their message. It is now concrete’s turn. The industry must get its story to the public or suffer dire consequences.
I have been party to some of the failed efforts and am a participant in the latest attempt. This is one initiative that must (and I feel it will) succeed.
The newest concrete industry effort is called the JSI (Joint Sustainability Initiative) and it has the backing of nearly all of the cement and concrete related trade associations and industry leaders.
One goal of the JSI is to reach beyond our traditional technical audience to those with the government officials, building owners, green advocates and the general public. This new audience speaks a different language than we are used to, so we must adapt.
It is true that cement is a building material high in embodied energy (energy required to manufacture it) and CO2 emissions, but cement manufacturers are making great strides to increase efficiency and reduce emissions. The real story however, is the value provided in concrete, which excels in nearly every aspect of sustainability – longevity, energy efficiency, low maintenance, use of local materials, recyclability – the list goes on.
The key is to get that message to the public and decision makers. To that end, one of the first tasks of the JSI was to develop a series of presentations that representatives in the industry can use to disseminate a unified message. This phase is nearing completion and there will be eight, fully scripted Power Point presentations that cover a variety of timely topics such as: resource efficiency, by-product reduction, safety and protection, longevity and durability, use of recycled content, and a host of other social values.
These products will be available for industry use by the end of the year. That is only the beginning, however.
While representatives of the trade associations will be involved in delivery of the message, you, as users of concrete, must also become conversant in the topic. There are simply too many people to educate and in this day and age, you must be able to provide answers to the questions posed by developers, owners, politicians, and others who control your destiny at the time they are posed.
There simply isn’t enough time for you to “get back to them” or direct them to a conference or seminar that might be weeks in the future. You need to do your homework, learn the material, and be confident in your facts.
The eight Power Point shows need not all be shown. Use the ones relevant to your audience or the ones you feel comfortable presenting. CFA Management plans to produce an industry specific presentation based on the 8 modules and will provide training in how to deliver the message at next summer’s convention.
In the mean time, get a copy of the presentations, study the narrative, and begin the process of self-education.
If you want a copy of them, contact me by email at esauter@cfawalls.org. In order for us to succeed this must truly be an industry wide effort.
Ed Sauter, Executive Director, CFA esauter@cfawalls.org
