Tag Archives: construction Work

Sub-letting the construction project can degrade the quality of work

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We live in the era of outsourcing where every possible business is outsourced in some way or the other. Some businesses are outsourced to foreign countries and some remain inside but are outsourced to parties that are known to do that kind of work. This is also known as sub-letting projects. What typically happens here is the person who is responsible to complete the project hands over the work to a third party who in turn further hands it over to the part who will indeed complete the work.

Now the people involved in the middle does nothing significant other than enjoy the profits that will reap out of the work. This is the modus-operandi that many in today’s business follow. The first party may or may not be aware that the project has changed many hands and therefore are only interested with the quality of work. They know just one thing and that is they want the finished stuff in good shape. Anything less than what they have expected can lead to non-payment and other legal hassles.

In the construction sector, the scope of sub-letting the work is immense; which is why you will find many small and mid-sized construction companies ready to tie up with a mighty enterprise and get involved in the construction of a huge project.

However, the thing that is of great concern is the quality of work may not be at par excellence and this can be a worrying factor for the construction company that has bagged the project. The company that lets the work to other small companies needs to ensure that the quality of work is not compromised by any way and for this purpose it should take corrective measures every time it finds things not in place.

Review the progress of work at regular intervals:-

One of the most important things that is required to be done is to review the progress of work at regular intervals. Once you let-out the project to other companies, your responsibility doubles. You of course let out the project due to lack of infrastructure on your part and by letting it out to other companies you stand the chance to earn more profits. But that does not allow you to have a freehand on the quality of work. You have to make sure that you take some time out and review the work in ground. Visit the site at least once in a month and check the progress report. Try to evaluate the actual with the estimates and see if the work will be completed within the stipulated timeframe.

Do not shy to fire a contractor from their shoddy work:-

When you let out a work to a third party and you find out that the party is not good at it or is not taking your work seriously, you should be ready to take a tough call. Remember, it is your baby and if someone is not taking good care of it, you have every right to kick him out. Start with warnings and if you do not see any improvement then it would be the time to take the call.

Keep a blend of skilled and semi-skilled men for construction work

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Highly skilled men are hard to get. They are mostly absorbed by big companies who are ready to pay them the amount they want. It is a no brainer that to acquire skilled set of people you should be ready to loosen your pocket or else they have other options to go by. It has been observed that even small companies prefer to keep a couple of skilled men who will be responsible to see that the work has been executed without any hiccups. These guys know how to get the work done from semi-skilled or unskilled laborers. This is why a blend of skilled and semi-skilled employees is always positive to any company. Coming to the construction segment, the existence of this blend is all the more important and required more than anything. For construction companies that are into business for the last few years should mandatorily have more semi-skilled men who will be supervised by skilled workforce and on the top you have people from the management level.

You get workarounds from skilled workforce:-

In the construction sector there comes time more often when the labors get stuck with something and they do not see a way out. They probably have not encountered a situation like that before and therefore do not know the possible workaround. In situation like this, the role of a skilled man comes into picture. He with his experience and knowledge will try to get a solution of the problem. Their knowledge about the industry has helped companies on many occasions to get through difficult situations.

Quite instrumental in imparting their knowledge to semi-skilled:-

He semi-skilled workforce gets to learn a lot from the skilled men. As a matter of fact, the construction industry is all about who knows how much. The more you know about the industry the better it is for you to make a thriving career in this sector. The role of the skilled workforce becomes quite handy when it comes to providing necessary support and training to their sub-ordinates. Training can be conducted on large number of issues which the workforce faces on a daily basis. Moreover, they can also give on job training to unskilled laborers so that they can rise a bit from their level.

Valuable suggestion can come from skilled workforce:-

It is the skilled workforce who has their presence in both on field and off-field and therefore can come out with real good suggestion when the management direly requires it. They are the ones who know the things on ground better than anybody else does and can pass their suggestions to the folks who have the authority to make any changes. Construction companies prefer to share their strategy with these men and want to get some inputs from them. Keeping their experience handy, the skilled men can foresee any possible reason to continue or abort a project and will pass it on to the next level who in turn will take the final call.

What should I know when hiring someone to do grading work

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Unlike demolition work, grading is considered to be a work of an expertise. It is called the work of an expertise only because if it is not done accurately then the entire work goes for a toss and therefore it is quite important that you hire people who know what they are doing and also have good deal of experience in this form of a job. Experienced graders are hard to get as they are always engaged with some or the other contractors or construction companies. You will never find them out of work.

Also, there are many types of graders. Not everybody does all types of grading work. There are specialized men who do different kinds of grading. So let’s say that if you want to grade your lawn or for that matter a landscape then you need graders who specializes in landscape work but if you are looking for leveling roads and needs graders to cut the uneven land, then you perhaps have to check out some other grader who does that type of work.

Things that you should know when you hire someone for grading work are as follows.

How long he/she is in this business:-

Experience of a person doing a particular kind of job matters a lot. So when you got to do some grading work, you hire guys who have been in this business for years. Not just any guy from the construction background can work for you. You need expert men for this job and therefore hiring people who have loads of experience doing the same kind of job matters a lot. Just by the look of the piece of land, they will be able to estimate the cost attached to it and what heavy equipment they will require to do the job. Getting the same work done from a beginner will lead to some complications and there is a high possibility that you may not like his work once it is done. Similarly, he/she may not understand your requirements and will end it up in a complete mess.

Do not just rely on one vendor:-

There are many contractors who do grading work and they all have different price quotations. You got to select the best one out of them. This does not mean that the one who charges you less gets qualified to do the work. Some contractors may quote very less price but the quality of work will be too shoddy and you may end up regretting your decision to hire him. Therefore, price should not be the only parameter to qualify a person. Check their reviews if they have a website. People must have left their feedback there. You can go as per their review score and take a call. Alternatively, you may also consult someone from your family or friends who must have done a similar job and if they can advise you on this. The bottom line is you hire someone whom you believe can complete the work without letting you to complain on their work.

Using Specific Machine For Specific Work Can Yield Good Results

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Have you ever wondered why there are so many heavy equipment in use in a construction site when the same machine has the potential to do multiple tasks? We see a backhoe loader, dozers, excavators, scrapers etc. and often think why they invest so much of money on heavy equipment when they can easily make use of one of their equipment into multiple purposes and get the work done. Well, the construction companies use so many machines for a specific cause adjoined to with and we would be highlighting on that cause.

Heavy equipment has its own intrinsic capability, though it is also potent enough to perform on other areas, but it makes more sense to use the equipment for the very purpose it was produced. For instance, one primarily uses an excavator to dig earth and remove the dirt and carry them from one place to the other. Now the same excavator can also be used to demolish a structure for which it is very much potent. However, you still use a bulldozer to get that part of the job done. This fact implies that though different heavy equipment has the capacity to do several tasks some which do not fall in their job area, it is better to restrict them from doing such tasks. The reason could be many. One of the important reasons is that it may not be much productive and may not yield desired results.

It becomes a big challenge for newbie to understand the role of heavy equipment in his business. Few are also of the opinion that they can do all the required work with the help of one machine and may not need any other equipment for other tasks.

What is rather advisable to guys new in this industry is that they first make their ground concrete by doing a thorough study on heavy equipment and understand the purpose of heavy equipment in their business. They have to get this pretty clear in their minds that single equipment can’t be used for all kinds of work. They have to invest more on equipment if they want to see their machines work for longer duration and also want to get the desired job done quickly.

They can research on the equipment using internet or joining forums where they can put up their questions and can expect to get expert comments. Those comments would turn out to be very helpful for a person who is new to this sector. Alternatively, if one can get some amount of experience by working in this industry for a span for few years, it would help him a long way. He would know more about machines and also which machine can get the work done faster without compromising the quality of its parts.

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