Category Archives: Construction

Importance of the construction signs in a job site

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In the current era, construction is one of the most important aspects of growth. With more and more buildings, roads and other constructions, the civilization will grow stronger. Over the years, the style and type of construction have hugely changed. Along with the regular constructions, large scale constructions of huge buildings, bridges, roads and highways are also being constructed every day.

In such construction sites, you will often come across the usage of heavy equipment and tools such as the cranes, the haulers, the bulldozers etc. However, there is yet another thing that is very important in a construction site and must be used by the workers. These are the construction signs.

What are the construction signs?

When you pass by a site of construction, building or repairing of an existing property, road or construction, you will often find sign boards that indicate or warn you about something. They are signs that consist of certain images or certain text information that helps you to understand

  • What is going on in an area
  • Whether there is any danger or hazard that needs to be avoided
  • The instruction that one has to follow.

Importance of using the signs in a construction site:

Whether a building is being renovated, whether a new building is being constructed, whether some repair works are taking place, there are always certain possibilities of danger. The danger lurks not only on the passers-by, but also for the employees. The construction signs can be of great help in such a case.

Safety measure – following the laws:

For every construction site, it is a law to use safety signs. Whether there is any danger in a particular area or site, whether an employee or a visitor has to follow a certain instruction, must be mentioned in that sign. The signs should be –

  • Concise
  • Clear to understand
  • Eye-catching with use of bright colours
  • Durable, so that it can be visible and last long during a project.

Anybody should understand the signs and follow the instructions, if any.

Types of construction signs:

Usually, the construction signs are made up of bright orange coloured, diamond shaped sign boards with black coloured texts and images for clear reading. In some cases, roll-up signs are also used that are spread on the roads to give warning or instruction and once the construction task is complete, the sign is rolled up and removed. The colour of the sign boards may greatly vary from time to time, depending on the type of sign that is used. It can be yellow or even white in colour.

Common signs that are used in a construction site:

  • Danger – Construction Area – Keep Out
  • Danger – Construction Area – Authorized Personnel Only
  • Danger – Hard Hat Area
  • Warning – Do Not Enter
  • Caution – Men Working Above
  • Danger – Open Pit
  • Danger – Open Hole.

Though these are the most commonly used and found construction signs, you will also find many other signs in a job site. At times, simple instructions like parking area, entry and exit also used in these sites. Choose the one that is required for your job site.

Hurdles one faces while setting up a construction company

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Starting up any new business is a tough task. It becomes tougher for the ones who do not have much or any experience in handling the business thus making the entire process extremely painful. In addition to this, it become arduous to keep the present business running as there are chances of facing severe ups and downs in every phase and leap that you take. Like any other business, setting up of a construction company is filled with risk and hard work. You also need to be foresighted and got to assume things appropriately so that if you see a threat you can counter it in advance.

Hurdles are plenty in the construction industry. However, it also gives you a ray of hope which is more than enough to sustain in a dynamic industry like this. So the crux of the matter is how well you can adapt to the ever changing phenomena of this industry and how quickly you can recognize the internal as well as the external threats that may destroy your dream of owning a construction business.

Legal concerns:-

While setting up a company, there are a lot of legal formalities that one needs to complete without which it will not be possible to run a business in US. These legal formalities can be lengthy at times and therefore you need to know the right way to get your work done at the shortest possible time. You might want to take help of an attorney who will guide you with every step and get things done for you. Getting sanctions from the government may not be a huge hurdle but it definitely takes some time of yours to get you started.

Setting up an office and a small team:-

Once you have received the sanctions, the next step will be to set up an office and also have a small team in place. You got to hunt down for a place that you can use it as an office and also recruit few men who have worked in the construction industry. If you have little experience in this domain, you will be able to pick the right guys but if you are a newbie then things might get really complicated.

Buying heavy equipment:-

In order to get a small project, you need to have a couple of heavy equipment. Now you have the choice of either buying them or taking it on rent. If you plan to buy them you have to shell out good chunk of money but if you take it on rent you need to ensure that you have sufficient reserves every month to pay the rental amount. Other than this, buying the right machine is always a challenge especially if you are going for second hand ones.

Running the office:-

You got to pay salary to your team and also meet the office expenses that will recur month after month. This means that you got to have ample reserves in hand. It is to be noted that you do not get a project the next day you set up your office. It takes lot of time to get some small work. So maintain your business becomes a big hurdle.

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Importance of backhoe loader in the construction business

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We all know the importance of heavy equipment in the construction sector and to what degree it can help the construction workers to ease their work but there are some heavy equipment that are by large considered as the most efficient and most preferred by all construction companies. Heavy equipment like dozers, scrapers, rollers etc. all have a specific role to play but there are some that can be used for multi-purpose activity. Heavy equipment like excavators and backhoe loaders are machines that have the capability to perform activities for which you require another set of heavy machines. So you need not buy any other set of machine and can only depend on these heavy equipment to do most of your work. All you need to do is change the attachment as per your needs and it should be able to take it from there.

A backhoe loader is one such heavy equipment that can do 2 things at one time. It can use the backhoe to dig the dirt from the ground and with the help of the loader it can gather all the dirt and load them on the truck. So this means that the construction house does not need to deploy 2 different machines to do this activity. Backhoe loaders in general are quite powerful, efficient and completely reliable. Not just for constructing big buildings but also for constructing roads, these powerful machines make a huge difference. It has the potential to work on rough terrains and does not give a nightmare to the operator when he gets to know that he has to work on a mountain slope or a muddy piece of land.

The cabin for the operator working inside the backhoe is spacious enough to accommodate him and few of his belongings easily. It also has good leg space allowing the operator to stretch his legs after working for long hours. The most important part of this machine is its engine which is super tough. However, the quality also depends from companies to companies and therefore someone who buys the loader from a reputed brand will always find his money worth the machine. It is also much preferred heavy equipment with most of the mining companies. With the help of the backhoe it can easily break down the toughest rock and the loader can then carry it all. This gives it an edge over all other heavy equipment in its class.

The operator of a backhoe loader should be pretty experienced with having worked with such machines in the past. They may then know how to maneuver the machine with ease. A newbie might find it a bit difficult and may need guidance to deal with it. It is crucial for the operator to know the gears well as it is also used during the digging process. So the person working on it should be aware of the gears and understand its significance. Overall, it is a machine that most of the small construction companies look forward to as it helps them to fulfill dual activity by just switching over the attachments.

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Innovation in the construction industry

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It is said that necessity is the mother of all inventions. When we feel the need of a thing we start working out to find new solutions and alternatives. This is perhaps the reason why we are able to evolve as a human being and the urge to bring something new has given rise to a new dimension. Human wants compels us to bring creativity into picture. We always want something new and this want of us compels the provider to think out of the box and come out with something that no one else has ever thought before. It is something that has been envisaged for the first time and now the people have the final product in front of them. The practice to keep innovating and experimenting with things will take any industry further and so it is considered one of the most important factors in today’s’ times.

Construction business is a huge one and the need of innovation has been frequently felt in this industry as well. This is the reason why there are so many construction companies trying to compete with each other by coming up with a new idea and executing it on the ground. Right from raw materials to architectural designs all play a significant role in executing innovative ideas? The architect has to come up with new designs that will give a new shape and life to the construction. In order to work on the design, you may need special type of materials. The old traditional ones may not be of much use if you want to work on the new designs. Other than that we today make use to high end technology in the construction industry to check the work-in-progress. For instance, we use statistical data to study the deficiency or drawbacks in materials and then we can work on our shortcomings to put back things in place.

Similarly, we have different sort of equipment to ensure the safety of workers on the site. Right from heavy equipment operator to the construction worker all are instructed to follow the safety guidelines and use safety accessories that are prepared by keeping into consideration the innovative equipment the company has for its workers. The construction workers by wearing the safety accessories have minimized the risk to their lives to a greater extent. Special gloves, glasses and boots are given to the operators so that they can have better control on the machine and do not end up in an accident. Heavy equipment operators have to be extra careful while they are on the machine. A single mistake can have huge repercussion on the company as well as on the project.

Heavy equipment are been installed with GPS to prevent heavy equipment thefts. There are numerous incidents where heavy equipment were getting stolen overnight and no one had a clue who was doing it. This has given rise to purchase of GPS and cameras that can be installed on the site. The moment the system identifies any suspicious activity with the heavy equipment, it will start alerting. This has definitely brought down the number of heavy equipment thefts to a larger extent.

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Dealing with pressures in the construction sector

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We often find ourselves into some sort of pressure whenever we come across a new challenge in life. This happens because we do not know the correct way to face it and overcome it. We create the pressure by taking stress rather than thinking of countering the issue. This is what we do to mess up everything. On the contrary what needs to be done is we should try to remain as calm as we can and analyze the possibilities we have to get through the challenge. A person with a cool mind can do this but what about others. Companies have deadlines and they need to complete the task on time. Other than that there are other factors that builds up to the pressure. People not coming to work due to a calamity, frequent market ups and downs and many other factors are responsible for adding pressure in a person’s life. But he also got to deal with it and come out safe.

A construction owner at times finds himself/herself under tremendous pressure and he has valid reasons for that. He/she has to take care of many areas and need to ensure that everything is going well. Right from checking the stock of raw materials to the availability of heavy equipment, he/she needs to do it all. If at all he/she assigns people for the job he/she then needs to ensure that the guys are doing their part of job correctly because if they fail to do their job it will have an impact on the company and the boss will be answerable to his investors. So by that one can imagine the kind of pressure a construction owner has on him. Now talking about the solutions, they need to find out ways and means to tackle the pressure. They will not be able to reduce it but can definitely deal with it in such a way that the impact of the pressure lessens and its effect is low.

Assign important works to your trusted men:-

A better way to tackle pressure in the construction segment is to diversify it among the people you believe can do the job for you. You should not keep everything to you and learn to assign important responsibilities to others. This will not only take you off-pressure but will also give others an opportunity to learn to handle business. If someone from your family is interested to learn and run your business, welcome him to your business and teach him the different levels of work. It will be a great exposure for him and you also do not have the fear of losing him. Being a family, there is less chance that once he has learnt the tricks of the trade he will switch loyalties and join some other company.

Take failures as lessons and don’t punish yourself:-

Construction business owners find it difficult to accept failures. They should understand that failures are a part of their profession but it also gives them some lessons to learn and they should accept those lessons positively. Rather than getting depressed or punishing themselves by working for more hours, they should retrospect and focus on new opportunities without committing the old mistakes.

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Making of a mighty construction company

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Construction is a lucrative business. Although many entrepreneurs start this business as, yet it is only 10% who make it very big in terms business to become brand names. These construction companies do not achieve success overnight but they have done diligent business planning to become ‘Mighty’ in this field. Experts have observed some common traits among these super achievers as:

  1. Clear aims and objectives: They know what they want to achieve and have noted it down and hold onto that vision. They are aware of their mission, vision and values. This allows them to maximize resources of time, energy to achieve big monetary returns in future.
  2. Planning: Construction involves a lot of work and it has to be done with a responsibility. They understand the importance of planning, systems, and processes need to be place in business. They plan their work to perform it systematically and they also work according to their plans to be successful.
  3. Updated: They are aware about the market trends in construction and try to adjust themselves as per the situation. They also spend time with people who will support their ideas and from whom they can get suggestions. They participate in healthy discussions to be successful in their ventures.
  4. Well-qualified professionals: They hire excellent staff and managers for smooth and effective functioning of organization. They pay them well, train them in latest technologies and give them good work-life balance. They also hire the right type of people who will perform their work very dedication. They know that hiring of cheap labour will lead to mediocrity and work will suffer and will lead to loss in the future.
  5. Designing Effective Business Strategy: In order to win over rivals in business, they have make appropriate preparations and checklists. They always provide excellent and superior quality service. Further, they know strengths and weakness of their employees. Employees are informed about their weakness and are suggested to be improved.
  6. Defensive business strategy: The costs cover the equipment, vehicle, labor, registration or business licensing, surety bond, and insurance requires a lot of finance. They do not depend on loans abut have saved enough which ensures that this excess money will help them in difficult times.
  7. Effective sales and marketing: Just providing good services is not enough, as its awareness has to be created. Hence, they hire good sales people. In addition, they also get onto social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and sending text messages to get into business leads.
  8. Business Transactions: While performing different transactions, they are diligent and vigilant. They do not sign on any papers to avoid getting them into trouble.
  9. Customer satisfaction: Since they value their customers, they listen to them, reply to their queries and concerns about product. They try to modify or improve their services to please the customers. This increases their customer base. They value professionalism and empathy which makes them customer loyal and successful in business.

Overall while making a mighty construction business they are aware that is a multidimensional business which requires a lot of planning and detailing to ensure success.

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Make this Christmas special for your employees

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In today’s mechanical world, we perhaps do not have much reason to smile, to laugh or to enjoy. Thankfully, we have few festivals that give us the opportunity to enjoy lives, probably the very reason why we are all here. Festivals bring happiness into our dull life that has been saturated by hard work and never ending targets. Well, we all have deadlines and we should complete our work in that time. But at the same time, we should not forget that we are humans and not some machine that are just meant to work. In this time bound culture, we have also forgot to socialize which is why today there is a need of Social Networking Websites which in a way helps us all to remain bonded with each other.

Having said this, social media is again virtual in nature and in order to socialize in real, we need an occasion where we can just shut our shops and get together, meet people, enjoy and have fun. Christmas is one such perfect occasion that let us forget all our miseries, pain and problem and help us to live our lives like humans. But no festival is complete without lavish food, gifts for your dear ones and proportionate money to buy few luxuries at least once in a year.

The workers in a construction company work all day in a relatively risky environment where they always have a probable threat to their life. Still they work for the development of the nation. They are the most important pillars needed for nation building and therefore it becomes the responsibility of the construction companies to ensure that they make their Christmas special. It may be a one-time affair for the companies but the employees will remember it all throughout the year. The companies should as a goodwill gesture provide the employees with bonus so that they can buy gifts for their children, take them out to a restaurant, guys who are not married can have a blast partying out with their friends and people who are looking to go for a vacation can make good use of the bonus money.

If it is a new construction company, then it may not be able to give bonus in the first year as it may not incur much profit to distribute bonus. However, if possible give your employees some gift vouchers or simply buy them some gift which will be of some use to them. You can also commit them of expecting more in the forthcoming year and tell them the reason why you could not give them any bonus. But if the company makes decent profit in the very first year, you should then give some bonus.

Today we all buy stuffs online and therefore you can also give them e-coupons which they can use while making a purchase online. Construction companies do get such coupons from various distributors. In case, if you have lot of e-coupons available with you, you can give it away to your employees. This will definitely make their day and perhaps a Merrier Christmas for them.

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Top 5 Advantages of Construction Safety Vest – Why Wear Them

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If you around, you will find constructions happening everywhere. Be it the construction of a new building, road, flyover, bridge or any other mega structures, or repairing and renovation of an old and existing structure, there is always the requirement of elaborate construction works. And these constructions are always associated with possibility of danger and hazards. The difficulties that can be faced in a job site include –

  • Injuries that might happen due to the fall of big chunks of rocks on the workers
  • Being hit by machineries
  • Being hit by cars or other vehicles while working on the roads
  • Injury caused to civilians or non-workers as they pass by a job site, unaware of a construction going on.

Hence, it is very important that the workers wear a gear or a gadget that makes them highly visible. Visibility helps in avoiding a number of possible accidents. The most useful gear in that respect is a construction safety vest or a high visibility jacket.

What are these?

The high visibility jackets of vests are usually made up of very bright, fluorescent colours such as orange and green. They also have silver reflective tapes striped on the vests, so that even in darkness, when light reflects on their jacket, they are clearly visible. Visibility makes sure that they are not hit by machines or vehicles and even the civilians can identify them as workers and avoid the area that they are working in.

Benefits of wearing construct safety vests:

The construction safety vest comes with a number of benefits. These are –

  1. Visibility:

 

Already mentioned, the colour and the reflective stripes make these vests so highly visible that there is no difficulty on the worker’s part to be visible to the drivers on the road, driving vehicles or the machinery and heavy equipment controllers at a job site. Thus, possibility of accidents is greatly reduced.

2.  Colors:

 

Orange, yellow or fluorescent green are colours that can be seen from quite a distance. Hence, drivers on the road or other workers at a job site can identify the vest wearer from a distance and slow down the speed of a vehicle.

3.  Comfortable:

 

Though these vests are highly useful and effective, often the workers as well as employers wonder, if these would be comfortable for their workers or not. But the fact is that they are highly comfortable and hence, there is no way that the discomfort of these gears will become a hindrance in the performance of the workers.

4.  Waterproof:

 

Along with comfort, another very beneficial aspect of the construction safety vest is that it is absolutely waterproof. Hence, sweat or rain will never be a problem in its performance or purpose.

5.  Low price:

 

These vests are very affordable and there is no way that the price of these vests will become a problem for the employers to buy these for the employees and workers at a job site.

If you are running a construction business, it is a must that you choose this safety gear as a must for your workers.

How to keep your employees happy

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One of the biggest challenges that many construction business owners encounter is massive attrition of employees. Once the employee works with a construction company for a couple of years, they tend to switch companies and move into a company that pays them better remuneration. This means that they have to spend a lot on training new employees every year. The number of people who stays back in a company after having worked for 5 years or more than that is very less and construction business owners have a hard time in dealing with this crisis. Though they manage to recruit experienced men but they also have to pay a higher price for having their services. This does no good to them but is a kind of money drain that they are finding difficult to avoid.

There are some very simple things that one may follow to keep their employees happy and avoid their movement to other companies.

Acknowledge and appreciate their hard work:-

When your employees put their soul and work for you, it becomes your duty to acknowledge and appreciate their work. If you fail to do so then they have plenty of other options where they can expect better employers who will appreciate their work. Appreciating their work also increases their morale and they start feeling that the company belongs to them. This will only add to the fervor of continuing the hard work for the company. It actually works big time to establish the healthy relation between the employer and the employee.

Equip them with state of the art machines:-

You can’t expect your employees to give you quality work without providing them with state of the art earth moving equipment. They need good machines to give solid outcome or else they might not want to work for you. Working on outdated machines means exerting more force on a job which otherwise can be done without having much physical difficulty if they were given the option of using technologically advanced machines.

Speak with them quite often:-

A healthy relationship is generated when you often speak with the other person and ask about his well-being. In the construction business, where most of the business owners are more concerned with profit making, the employee will truly appreciate your effort to reach out to them and speak to them about their family and their wellbeing. In case, if anybody is in a financial mess, then you can try to give them a loan out of company’s reserves and help him out from that crisis. This speaks high volume about the kind of person you carry in front of your employee.

Give gifts and bonuses during Christmas:-

It is a goodwill gesture if you offer your employees with some gifts and bonuses during Christmas. It will make them extremely happy if you give them or to the family of the employees any gifts during this festive season. It does matter a lot to them. Giving such freebies may pinch you a little but will definitely bring a big smile on the face of the people who devote most part of their days’ time working for you.

5 ways to acquire a strong construction team

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The success of any organization is highly dependent on the kind of sync the team member have amongst each other. If the members of the team are cordial and understands each other well then they make the ambience lively and full of energy. This quality is required in every important industry and especially in companies that are aggressive and are looking at every opportunity to grow. If the team performs well, it shows in the progress matrix of the company and the company should also make it a point to reward such teams by giving them gift cards or taking the entire team for a party or on outing all at the expense of the company. Now this definitely boosts the morale of the team and they have more reasons to perform splendidly that before. A strong team can define the future of the company and plays an important role to achieve the goals set by the company.

A construction company has to go through a number to challenges that it gets from the outside. All it needs in such a situation is some support from its team so that they can face the challenges as a team and can get over it with minimum effort. However, a strong team is not formed overnight. There are lots of efforts taken by the management of the construction company and to a larger extent by the owner himself to ensure that he has a strong team that he can rely on during difficult times.

Leadership quality:-

A strong team is formed when you have a strong leader at the center and the team respects him and follows his command out of reverence and not out of fear. The boss should not act like a grumpy old man who can get angry on any silly thing. People usually do not like men who lose their cool in no time. One of the important characteristic of a leader is he/she give more of his time to listen to people and speaks less but when he/she speaks, he/she makes sense and talks to get rid of the core issue.

Have faith in your team:-

If you want to have a strong team then you should first learn to have complete faith on your team. You should have the confidence that the team has the capability to pursue and complete an assignment given to them. This faith of yours will help them to do better in their work.

Problem solver:-

If you are a person who can solve the problems in your team the chances are more that the team will develop strong with every passing day. They may have few hiccups during the course of their project and it becomes your responsibility to ensure that those hurdles are put away.

Offer more support to weak members:-

We are often of the opinion that a weak member in a team can bring down the overall performance of the team and therefore he/she should be chucked out. However, that is a wrong practice and will never lead to a strong team. One should offer more support to a weak member and try to bring him at par.

Monetary incentive:-

Giving monetary incentive can improve the overall performance of a team. They will work harder to meet the targets and ensure that they sit for extra hours to earn the incentive.