The Ongoing Concern for Skilled Laborers in the Construction Industry is Getting Worse During the last seven years, the construction market has demonstrated healthy and steady growth.  The recent natural disasters across the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean can only continue to impact the ever increasing gap...

The Federal Government inflation information clearly does not match current Construction industry pricing where everything is rising.  Engineering News Record reported that the year over year growth in prices is 3.4% - significantly higher than the Federal Government inflation rate of 1% (the government continually...

Over the last 40 years, I have found construction cycles to be fairly consistent and a good method for forecasting the construction business trends.  Coupled with leading indicators, they often will provide a clear vision of the future before it arrives. Prices Rising Recent increases in material...

Owners, Developers, Contractors, and Designers are all experiencing the current economic expansion. With project volume up, most parties are enjoying a profitable 2014; however, now is often when management makes the critical mistake that has a long term effect on the company. The key pitfalls...

When starting a construction program owners will take one or two completely different approaches to create the project budget.  Each approach has its hurdles and obstacles.  Without discipline the approach selected by the development team can have significant impact on the project costs. When a design...

Large development programs needed a method of cost control during the design process.  Often these programs are so complicated that tracking design changes becomes a laborious task and feedback on a series of changes can take days or weeks to develop. ASTM Standard E1804 was developed...