Monthly Archives: July 2016

Take the right call when it comes to heavy equipment

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In many situations, life gives you a second chance but there are few instances where you do not get a second chance and you got to ensure that you do it right the first time or else you consider that to be the end. Same goes with your business. In many situations that you encounter in your business, you do get a second chance but there also comes a point where the chance you have is the only one and you are not given any more chances. So you got to be ultra-careful and analyze the situation well before you make a decision. Taking important decisions is an art. You got to be absolutely sure of what you are doing as you know that you will get plenty of time to repent later if it goes against you. So do your calculations well and work on the graphs to understand the scenario and then take the decision.

In the construction business, one of the most important decisions that need a lot of pondering is buying heavy equipment. A construction company buys heavy equipment keeping the needs of his current project into consideration but the story does not ends there. He can’t throw away the machines once the project is completed. He has to use them for future projects as well. So in case he buys a machine whose utility is limited to his existing project and does not have any relevance to future projects, it does not make any sense for him to buy the equipment. Buying machines incurs good deal of money to the construction company and therefore taking a decision to buy machines that has its relevance for just one project does not sound to be a sane idea.

It is often advised by industry experts to take the right call when it comes to procuring heavy equipment. Renting machines for a short while can be a good idea but purchasing it for a short term project may not be a wiser one. Even if you rent heavy equipment before analyzing the need of the project can turn out to be a big waste of money. So if you feel that by renting heavy equipment you will not incur heavy loss, you may have to think all over again.

Getting your project studied by an expert in this domain makes lot of sense. The person will be liable to give you suggestions that will not be limited to procurement of heavy equipment but will also contain a gamut of other advices that will benefit you in every possible way. Their suggestions will be based on the facts that you will put across to them. Facts about your financial standing and the number of projects you have in hand and also that you are likely to acquire in the future. After doing a thorough research, they will guide you with the types of heavy equipment you should be using and if at all you should buy them or take them on rent or make use of some other modes so that you have them to complete your project. Overall, it will help you to take a sound decision.

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Heavy Equipment Technician Jobs

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In our competitive world where it is so difficult to find a job and people are running out of options when it comes to high paid jobs, there is one work that can fetch them good money once they become pretty experienced with it. Becoming a heavy equipment technician can make all their dreams come true of having a well settled life with enough money to live a decent standard of living. It has been witnessed that good heavy equipment technicians are rare to find. They are usually absorbed by big construction houses at a handsome salary while others move abroad where they get paid higher than what they can expect in their homeland. Many Gulf countries are hiring heavy equipment technicians from US, UK, Canada and from other western countries as they feel that technicians from these countries know their job well and will also do justice to their work.

The only problem that the technicians from the non-Gulf countries experience is that they tend to get homesick as they do not find any resemblance of their culture in those countries and eventually come back home after having worked there for few years. This means that the technicians are always in demand in such countries and the ones who want to make good money in a period of 3-5 years can make it to such countries.

Back in US, there are many institutions that are into coaching young minds to become able technicians and teach them all they can about heavy equipment. Though it takes immense practice on the part of the newbie technicians to learn things and they go to have enough patience to understand the various complexities that is involved in the subject. Heavy equipment is a complex subject and especially with the advent of new machines that is hitting the market every other day, it has become all the more difficult for the young technicians to keep themselves abreast of every updates. This is where they got to be patient and understand that it is not going to happen in days but will take years of hard work and dedication for them to become ace technicians.

It is imperative for the students to first get themselves enrolled with a reputed institution. They have several training programs that one can initiate and one needs to first understand which program they would want to go for. Ideally one should go for the entire course which is a 2 or 3 years program. They will get the basic understanding of different kinds of heavy equipment during the first 6 months of their training and then they might get to see and experience to lay their hands on some machines. Once they complete the training program they can approach different companies as a technician or can even start up their own business. However, it is advised that one should gain enough experience before they start a workshop of their own. Once you have your business, you should be able to handle all sorts of problems pertaining to the machine and for this you should be highly skilled and experienced.

Not getting buyers for heavy equipment – Try selling online

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Heavy equipment are really expensive items and not everybody has the money to buy it. For instance, a guy who wants to set his foot in the construction industry may have a pretty hard time buying different kinds of heavy equipment. Firstly it will be out of his budget as long as he does not belong from an ultra-rich family and secondly he will have a tough time to get hold of someone who can sell him used equipment. Same goes for sellers as they also experience the problem in hunting down prospective buyers for buying their machine. This issue has been diminished with the advent of internet and online stores to a larger extent.

In today’s time, internet has given both buyer and seller the platform to buy and sell the machines safely. So sellers no longer have to pay huge chunk of money to newspapers to advertise their products. All they have to do is simply list the item on the website by paying a nominal fee and rest is sorted. Buyers will go through the listing and if that interests them, they will establish the contact and may finalize the deal.

We would be focusing on few pointers that stress on what a seller can do to maximize the visibility of his listing.

Try to put sufficient pictures of the machine:-

If you list the equipment without putting sufficient pictures on your post, it is possible that your page will not receive many views from the viewers. It is quite obvious that people will lose their interest the moment they find out that there are no pictures for the listing and therefore will not be in a position to understand what the item is all about. The description at times could be misleading without the actual picture. Putting enough pictures of the machine will always help in receiving more views for the post.

Description should be in detailed format:-

When a person would be looking for your item, he would be obviously wanting to understand the in and out of the machine. Therefore, you should give every possible detail of the equipment. This information will only help the prospect to know more about your product and he may quite possibly find it to be intriguing. This will result in establishing contact with you which will bring you closer to a probable sale.

Use everything the site offers to make the listing look attractive:-

We must have heard this a thousand times. “First impression is the last impression”. This saying goes a long way as far as listing equipment online is concerned. You should make use of hyperlinks or any other feature that the site offers you to make your listing look attractive. This will increase the visibility of your listing and will pull more prospects towards it.

Pay additional fee to maximize the listing:-

Some websites may charge a nominal fee to maximize the visibility of the listing. You can avail the feature by paying that fee.

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Having a clear vision will augment your growth in the construction sector

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The simple formula of a successful career is to stay focused with your work and the determination to remain focused comes from where you want to see yourself in the next few years. Your vision for yourself and for your company matters the most when you are in the mode of accelerating. Many big companies all around the world have stated their visions for others to know what they want to be. Similarly, you should also have a vision in life when it comes to your business and work hard every day to achieve it or at least come a bit near to get it. It certainly helps you to grow your business and keeps you little aggressive while taking business decisions. You may analyze your risks well before taking the final call but a person without any vision for his business might always fear to take risks however calculated it might be.

Speaking about the construction domain, the sector particularly respects and rewards those who have an aim in their life and who want to do something big. Expansion of business is one of them. Constructing tall buildings or building something phenomenal is the need of the construction sector. There are many who are a part of this business but they have small dreams and never try to do anything big. They are content with what they are doing. They may experience hardship particularly when the overall industry is going through a bad phase. However the ones who have moved with a vision for their business will surpass the bad phase. They are also the ones who take control of the situation and never let things go out of their hands. So it is people who are visionaries are able to stay afloat and why is why you will see so many big construction companies are in this business for the last many years. Some even exist for centuries if not less.

What keeps you standing in difficult times is nothing but your will to survive. Others simply give it up when they see turbulent times coming their way. The difference in the attitude of standing firm and giving up is what defines the vision of an individual and overall the vision of the company. Moreover, the one with a vision will want to reach at a point and once they are there, they do their ground work for their next journey. This means that there is eventually no stopping for them. They continue their travel as long as they feel they can go and then they pass on the responsibility to someone they feel share the same vision that they do. So ultimately it is all about where one wants to see the company to go and how dedicated he is to achieve what he wants to.

Though construction industry is a rewarding business but it only rewards people who have the mettle to perform and have also kept an aim in their life.

Dozer vs Excavator: which is more versatile

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Though all heavy equipment are built with a specific purpose to serve the construction industry, but now most of the machines can be used for multi-tasking. Gone are the days when heavy equipment were used for only for specific purpose and companies needed some other machine for the next work. Today with the help of one machine, many tasks can be completed. However, such heavy equipment are also expensive and certainly cost more than the traditional ones but people prefer paying the extra price for the comfort of one machine. At times, there are issues when there is a requirement of the same machine at two places. This is when construction companies make use of the traditional ones but only when it is most needed. If given a subject where we have to pick a dozer or an excavator based on their versatility, it will be quite a difficult one even for the experts to do so.

Both a dozer and an excavator are widely used for activities like demolishing a structure, bringing down a tree and clearing the site debris, grading and excavating. We can’t expect an excavator to do heavy duty land clearing work. It can’t be used to bring down real huge structure but can certainly be used to demolish sizeable structures. At times, when contractors do not have a dozer at his disposal, he makes use of excavators to bring down any structure. It does not matter much to him how big the stuff is and if the excavator can do it. He is ready to give time but can’t deploy one more machine. There the excavator becomes more versatile. Though it does work out of the way but still its versatility remains intact.

Some experts in the construction industry believe that an excavator is more versatile when it comes to performance on the field. It is used extensively for a number of activities and one can simply depend on that piece of metal to complete all his work. They also believe that if given a hoe, the excavator can do everything under the sun. One can’t use a dozer to that extent. However, that does not imply the dozer to be non-efficient equipment. The group of experts who have their patronage for dozers feel otherwise. They see the dozers to be more versatile as it can quite efficiently do all the work which is somewhat not possible by any other genre of heavy equipment. They consider it to be the toughest of all and right from bringing down huge structures to carrying loads of debris, it can do it all.

There are also a bunch of experts who feel that it all matters on what kind of accessories are attached to the machine. You can get the same quality work done from an excavator that you can with a dozer if you gift them with appropriate accessories. These equipment fall in the category where they can be transformed as per their utility.

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Renting a motor grader

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Almost all kind of heavy equipment can be procured on rent. So you need not buy one but still can possess and use it. You have to compensate it by paying a monthly rent but it makes a lot of sense to pay a nominal amount on each and every month rather than spending a bomb on buying a machine and paying interest to the bank. Moreover when your job demands using different types of heavy equipment, it is certainly not feasible for anybody to shell out all their money buying earth moving machines. You may not have any resource left to operate your business and eventually you will be forced to do away with all the heavy equipment that you have bought. Therefore, limiting yourself to using heavy equipment on rent is probably the most viable option you can opt for.

If you are in the construction business you can’t work without a motor grader. For the grading work you will need a grader and buying one during the initial stage of your business may not sound to be the right option. Though a grader cost lesser than other machines but it still costs a fortune when you are new to the business and needs monetary resources to take care of other responsibilities. So you may go with renting a grader. But before you take it on rent there are few things that you should make a note of. The first and the most important thing that you need to check is the health of the grader. Going for a grader that is not much old should be your priority. They may be a bit expensive when it comes to the rental part but you can always keep the negotiation on to make the stuff fit your budget.

Second is the tenure for which you need the equipment. Analyze your project plan and estimate the duration for which you may need the motor grader. You can then accordingly inform the owner of its duration. It may be possible that the owner is ready to lease it for a short period and you may need it for a longer duration. So there will be a conflict in your needs and might give rise to complications in future. Therefore, before you go to sign the deal be clear on the term and if the owner is ready to rent the machine for that period. This should also be documented in an agreement which is the third most important aspect that you need to take care of while you are procuring a motor grader on rent.

An agreement is a written document that speaks about all those aspects that were agreed by both the parties and has now been put on papers for reference. Take help of an attorney who specializes in making rent agreements. He is the person who knows all the points that needs to be mentioned on the agreement. So once your paperwork is in place, you can have the motor grader shipped to your jobsite.

Renting an excavator

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The most used heavy equipment in the construction and mining sector is an excavator. Right from forming a foundation for the building to clearing dirt, it is probably the only machine that is used for various purposes. So you visit a construction site and you will always get to see an operator working on an excavator. Since it is such an important heavy equipment, heavy equipment manufacturing companies are in a mode of producing technologically sound excavators and which is why they come in varying prices.

Other than that, different brands have different prices so if a person who works only on CAT or Komatsu may have to pay slightly more than excavators produced by other brands. But there is a better option for people who work on seasonal basis or may need the machine on a temporary basis. It makes no sense for them to buy an excavator to meet their requirements. On the contrary, they should be borrowing the machine for few months and once the work is done, give it back to the owner.

Such people can go for taking the excavator on rent. Here they have to pay monthly rent to the owner for using the machine and one their work is done they have to give it back to the owner. However, they have to maintain one important thing and that is the machine should be in order. They have to return it the way they got it from the owner. So just in case if there has been any minor dents or some part of the machine has gone faulty, they need to fix it before they hand it over to its owner.

Finding an excavator on rent is no big problem. There are plenty of companies who deal with renting heavy equipment. These agents have tie ups with owners of heavy equipment who do not use their machines and wishes to let it out. All you got to do is get in touch with such companies and check if they can arrange for an excavator. You name the model number and the attachments you need in the machine and they might get that for you. Well attachments are never an issue. You can always modify your excavator as per your needs. You can add a bucket to put the dirt in on simply increase the neck of the machine. What you need to know is if you can add any attachments on the excavator.

So let the renting company work for you and once they give you some options, check which one suits you. No doubt the excavator should be a good one but the owner should not overprice it and make it look expensive for you. So you should make it ample clear to the agency about your budget and the duration that you may need the equipment. Remember that the company will charge you an amount as their fee so you should get the best and your requirements should not be compromised.

Unable to establish a brand name – Big projects are hard to get

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When you are in the construction sector, getting any type of work be it big or small is fruitful. But if you are eying for big projects they are hard to get by if you do not have a brand name. It is difficult to get projects when nobody has heard about you. Therefore establishing a brand name is of utmost importance in order to get some big work. There are few things that you need to focus when you are aiming for big projects. It starts with patience, consistency in your work and definitely a lot of hard work. All this will help you to form a brand which will ultimately decide the future of your company.

What ideally companies look for before they give you a project is your success stories. The number of projects that you have completed and the quality work that you have displayed all plays an important role for others to analyze the characteristics of your company. It though takes a lot of time to set up that reputation but once you make that goodwill, getting businesses will not be a tough deal.

We will be discussing in detail the four pillars of setting a brand value of your company.

Patience is the key:-

We tend to lose out of patience quite easily when we do not see things moving our way. It happens more often when you do not get businesses after striving hard to get one. In order to run your company, you need projects and since you are new to this industry, it is hard to get any work. This is where patience is required the most. You got to continue to strive and be patient and hopeful. If you lose out of it, you move towards quitting the industry which is in no ways a healthy sign for you. If you sit tight and face the music, you’ll also get to see the glorious side of this business.

Consistency:-

You need to be far more consistent when it comes to completion of projects. You can’t afford to dilly dally your work and leave the prospect of your company in jeopardy. You need to ensure that whatever works you get, you complete it in the given deadline come what may. For this, you also need a disciplined workforce and you got to lead from the front. The more disciplined you will be with your business you will have far better control on your workforce and thus will be able to manage to deliver better results.

Hard work:-

Hard work comes with discipline. When you are on a project, you got to be completely engrossed with your work. Keep yourself away from any distraction that may come across a lot in your way. Hard work often pays off. It may take some time to pay off but it most certainly does.

Quality work:-

The quality that you deliver will speak foremost of your company before you do. Therefore ensure that you give the best and it will gradually turn your company into a mighty organization.

The rewards and benefits from a Construction Business

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You dedicate few years of your life to a particular industry and you are more likely to benefit from it. This is perhaps what every industry does for the people who devote their life to it. There may be few tops and bottoms that one has to encounter and if he manages to sustain those ups and downs and stays put keeping his ground firm, he has a lot to get back from the business. Now there is segregation when we talk about the generosity an industry can be to its people. Not every industry is as generous and payoff well. It is only handful of sectors that pays off really well and construction sector is one amongst them. People belonging to this industry have reached to great heights. The good thing they did with their life is they chose the right career and they continued to be a part of it no matter how tough life became for them.

You get fame for every successful deal:-

Construction business is perhaps the only business after film making industry where a person earns fame with every successful deal and getting deals in more or less dependent on the kind of work he has delivered and if he has maintained the timeframe that was given to him to get the job done. A lot of factors play a crucial role for a person to earn fame in the construction industry. For him to be known by other big players is no child game. He needs to have an exceptional talent which he is able to display at every front. Once he is able to do that then sky is the limit for him. Getting big projects should not be a problem. Other than being exceptionally good in the business, he also needs to be a man with a vision. A person who can dare to dream big can only reach near to the big players of this industry.

Construction business can give you immense wealth:-

Any industry can make you rich. It is a matter of few years of dedication towards the industry and how hardworking you can be. Construction business will test you a million times. You got to show your mettle every time it hits you hard and you got to prove yourself to the industry. Many people do join this business knowing that it is a rewarding industry but when hard times come they are not able to withstand it and finally they wind up the business. So just stick to the industry and you can expect enormous wealth flowing your way.

A sense of security is also attached to the business:-

It may not be wrong to say that the construction business also rewards you with a sense of security. Small construction or forestry jobs are always there. So in times when the market is miserable, you can still take up some small work and stay afloat. Being into any other form of business, if you are not in demand, it is simply the end of you.

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Safety awareness is instrumental across all levels of employees

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Construction laborers are not only engaged in one of the most arduous tasks but also one of the most risky works and their safety should be at top priority to the construction company. They can’t play around with their lives thinking to save some money by not providing them with the safety accessories. Construction companies in US are kept a keen watch by the body who is concerned about the safety of the workers. If these companies flout the law they will be penalized heavily and legal process will also be followed against the company. Companies ideally would not want to go through all this and therefore ensure that they provide their employees with all the necessary safety stuffs and minimize any untoward incidents at the workplace. Now other than providing basic safety infrastructure there is one more thing that is perhaps more important. It is to let the employees know the importance of the safety infrastructure and why they have to wear them all the time they are inside the jobsite.

All employees should understand the importance of safety:-

Before explaining the employees about the safety infrastructure you have for them, it is imperative that you explain them the need to use those accessories. They might be accustomed to a particular way of working and if you introduce something new to them, it may take time for them to acquaint with it. Some may not even want to use it as they may take that as a hindrance to their job. For instance, if you ask your operator to wear some special boots which is a bit heavy but will keep his feet safe he may initially not like to do so unless he is informed how the boots will protect his feet. This awareness needs to be imparted to different section of employees. They need to be informed why they have to wear the safety gears and gadgets. Some may already know about it but there may be few who may not. A collective training in this regard will be very helpful not only from the point of view of the employee but also from the perspective of the construction company.

Wearing of safety gears should be made mandatory:-

Nobody wants things to be shoved down their throat but there are few things which should be mandatory for the betterment of the employees. Wearing safety gears is one of them. The company should appoint few men who are working in supervisory roles to monitor if people doing perilous tasks are following all the safety parameters. If not they can instruct them to wear the gears first and then perform the task. Employees may feel a bit of inconvenience first but it is essential for his safety.

Safety training should be conducted once in three months:-

Safety trainings should be conducted once in three months and all the employees of the construction company right across all the levels should be part of this training. It helps in learning something new every time you attend one and also gets updated of new safety measures that the company is taking for its employees.

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