MDC Systems® 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 $400 million, and by the year 2022 it is projected to grow to over $1 billion.
Articles
Protecting Profitability
In construction projects there are three main areas of importance to a successful project – scope, schedule, and budget. It is vital to have a clear definition of the scope of work, a defined schedule including milestones, and the cost of performance based on the scope and schedule. These “Big Three” must be in balance at bid submission time, remain in balance when the actual work starts, and continue to be balanced until project completion.
Change Orders: Maximizing Benefits for Owners
Ronald F. Parisi, P.E.
Former MDC Systems® Project Director
August 2002
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.
MDC Systems®
Consulting Engineer
Fall 2005
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 to meet ever tightening regulations. These systems are critical to public health and economic development. Despite the critical nature of these systems maintenance and upgrades have lagged as the quality standards have increased.
Construction Critical Path Method (CPM) Conference
Date: 1/12/2011 to 1/15/2011
Location: Walt Disney World Swan Hotel – Orlando, FL
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.
• Implementation of the Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology
• Development of the base BIM model
• Failure to maintain the BIM model as work progresses
• The “irrational exuberance” of ‘computer-world’ accuracy (aka “false precision”)
• Insufficient data development (thin content or ‘dumb light’ models)
• Real to virtual drift – failure to as-built the model (reduces the effectiveness of the BIM model for life cycle asset management)
Shipyard Contracts: New Construction vs. Ship Repair
August 2002
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.
Managing Capital Projects for Competitive Advantage
Thomas Hundertmark, Andre Olinto do Valle Silva, and Jeff A. Shulman
June 2008
Why is there a Labor Overrun?
Daniel J. Sporer
MDC Systems®
Consultant
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
Daniel J. Sporer
MDC Systems®
Consultant
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.
