Category Archives: Construction

Safety trainings

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Acquiring trainings on subject that is connected to your line of business is crucial towards the overall growth of a person. Trainings can bring the best in you and that will help the business to grow. You get to learn so many things that you were not aware of prior to the training and then you only need to bring it in practice so that it gets inculcated in your daily routine. Different industries conduct different types of training to see that their men can become efficient asset to their company.

Well those trainings are certainly important but there is one more thing that is not done on a continuous basis and that is safety trainings. Businesses should also ensure that they provide their men with enough training on safety and explain the importance of safety during work. These trainings play an important role in keeping the employees safe and for averting an accident that could have taken place due to sheer negligence.

There has been enormous change observed in people post training sessions. They prefer to work safely and with patience. People who did not care much about safety do take it more seriously than ever post the trainings. They begin to value their life and also lives of others. These safety trainings are so important in industries where there are numerous accidents reported annually. Industries such as construction should give special training to their men.

Men in such occupation are always posed to internal and external safety threats and they should be trained on how to remain safe while they are working on the jobsite. Training sessions should be conducted in a phased manner where people doing a particular kind of work (for instance laborers) should be given safety training pertaining to their line of business. They do not have to learn or understand the safety techniques that need to be given to an operator. They will not learn anything from such training and therefore segregating people based on their job is crucial.

Once that is done, the trainer needs to keep the training materials handy so that without losing anytime he can straight away start with the sessions. Try to keep the training short and crisp. It actually helps people to understand the content easily. Long training sessions can become tiresome and many may lose their interest while the trainer is on an important topic. You can also split the sessions into parts. Nevertheless, one needs to ensure that all the people who attended the previous session are also present for this one.

Use pictures, diagrams to explain things. It has been noticed that people understand things easily that is represented through means of diagrams and pictures. Also get the guys to give live demo. Keep a situation in front of the people and ask their reaction. That will let you know if they are able to grasp anything. It also makes the session interactive and fun loving. You must be training them on an important stuff but always do that by setting a lighter mood.

Love your job to grow quickly in the construction business

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The only way to grow as a person in the field that you are working is by working hard. You can’t adopt any short-cut measures to learn a thing. You have to devote yourself completely for the purpose and then you will see positive results coming your way. The most important criteria to be hardworking is to love your job. You got to have the curiosity and anxiety within your heart to learn a thing failing which you will never be able to compete with the best in the zone. This curiosity to learn something develops only if you love to learn it. When you get the urge to learn something from deep within your heart that is when you go for it and you get the urge only when you love to do it. This urge to learn new things about your business and ask questions to people who can answer them is quite important for your personal growth and development.

In the construction sector, it is all about learning new things and updating oneself with the ongoing events of the business. Other than that, the industry in itself is so vast that it is apparently not possible to anybody to learn the whole of it. You have different types of construction business and each business is run differently. There are rules for each business and one needs to understand those rules in order to play them with full potential. Right from heavy equipment to running an office to managing the clients to taking care of the business needs, there is immense opportunity for one to learn from every sphere of this sector. There are industry experts who have become experts after being in the industry for more than 3-4 decades. It is pretty obvious that a person has to sacrifice a lot of things to get his place in the business and you will not be ready to sacrifice your happiness if you do not have love for it.

Work for extra hours:-

We generally do not like to work for extra hours even if we are paid for it. People work overtime only when they are in some sort of financial distress and need money badly. This is what compels them to work hard and work for extra hours to earn that little additional income. However, if you work hours without even thinking a bit of what you will get in return is what signifies your love for your work. This will certainly be observed if you are working for a construction company and will be given more opportunities. That will eventually help you to develop yourself and will also keep you abreast in the industry.

Make yourself available to opportunities:-

In the construction sector, you will come across infinite opportunities that will come your way. You got to make yourself ready to grab them and that is possible only when you can generate the confidence in others that you are competent enough to take up any challenge and will complete any given assignment with utter sincerity.

Heavy equipment mechanic freelancer

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Works that not many can do are paid more than for work that are simple and does not require much know-how. The work of a heavy equipment mechanic is quite complex in many ways and it requires many years of experience for a mechanic to become an expert in his field. This is probably the reason why he earns a lot irrespective of him being associated to any company or not. An established mechanic has the option to work as a freelancer for companies that he has been previously working with. He does not need to work hard on marketing his work in order to obtain clients. He already makes enough of them while he begins his career as a heavy equipment mechanic. This is one of the many positive of becoming a heavy construction equipment mechanic. In order to become heavy equipment mechanic one needs to have the flair towards construction machines. If only you want to know how it works will you be able to understand the various issues that can possibly happen in a machine and also the way out for each of the issue.

Get into a famous heavy equipment institution:-

This is the first and the most important thing that you should do in order to become a competent mechanic. Try to find information of various institutions that imparts knowledge and training to young minds on heavy equipments. There you will come across various segments related to heavy equipments. You can further decide if you want to change your course to something else and if you want to do so you should do it then. For the first year you will be given basic training on heavy equipments where you can strengthen your understanding for heavy equipments. The second year is crucial because that is the year when you will have to pick a stream. If you feel you will become a good mechanic then you should go for it.

Practical lessons are quite important:-

It is important to have some bookish knowledge but the real fun is when you take things in your own hand. Getting practical lessons will hone your skills further and you will develop into a better professional. Do not miss sessions where you will be given practical lessons. Dealing with machines on your own is a separate feeling altogether and especially when you are taken to different heavy equipment companies for site visit you get to see the real professionals working on machines. This is when you get to learn the most. Ask questions to them on things that you do not understand but do not irritate them by asking too many questions. After all they are working and they can’t afford to commit a mistake.

Years of consistency can lead you to become a freelancer:-

We want people to work for us who have consistently done well throughout their career. Therefore you got to be consistent with your work and people should know you for your good work. After spending quite a time working as a mechanic in heavy equipment companies you can set up a workshop and work as a freelancer.

What machines are used in an environmental disaster clean up?

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We often think that heavy equipment are exclusively used for construction related work and it does not have any importance other than that industry. However, the fact is heavy equipment are used in many other areas which does not fall in the construction genre. Construction is probably one of the sectors where we use the machines a lot but this is certainly not the only place where we require these big pieces of metal. Heave equipment are extensively used to clean up the debris after a catastrophe has hit a place. Be it an environmental disaster clean up or a human made catastrophe, these heavy equipment play a significant role when it comes to saving lives of people who are stuck under the debris. There have been a lot of instances in the past where heavy equipment like an excavator are used extensively to pull out debris from a catastrophe hit zone and save the precious lives of people.

Heavy equipment are also used in cases where there has been a manmade catastrophe. For instance, if there is a major accident in one of the chemical industry that causes havoc in the area. In order to contain that from spreading, the authorities take necessary steps so that it does not spread to the other areas. However, once it has been contained the next part is to set things right and this is where the use of heavy equipment come. They need to bring in different types of machines as no one type of heavy equipment will be capable enough to do the entire job. Heavy equipment such as dozers, excavators, backhoe loaders, articulated trucks and other such machines are used to remove the left outs. This is an extremely painful and risky job for the operator as it can also endanger his life. So the guys who are behind the machine should be extremely experienced and need to tactfully complete their job.

When an environmental disaster like earthquake hits a place, it can swallow the entire city and it can be quite a difficult task to set aside the debris and rescue people from it. Floods, heavy winds, hurricane can also cause extreme damage to the people of a city and heavy equipment are used for the rescue work. Not just heavy equipment but also the attachments that are used on machines play an important role in cleaning up the mess in the zone. Therefore, when you are deploying heavy equipment like an excavator in a zone that has been struck by an earthquake, you also need to keep handy all those attachments that are required to remove the debris quickly. After all, you may find many lives inside the wreckage waiting for help to come.

Dozers are used to break open structures that cause hinder to the rescue work. So you can make use of lot of machines on the site at the same time. Each doing their part of work and ensuring that they simply things for the rescue team to pull out lives stuck inside.

New and Looking for Advice in the Construction Industry

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Before you begin any journey you first prepare yourself for that. Your career is also one such journey of life where you got to be pretty sure that you have made all the preparation for a smooth sail. Though you will experience challenges as you move ahead you will also learn to overcome those obstacles and will head for higher in life. The most important part of the preparation to begin your career will be to seek right advices from the right people and follow them. People who choose a career path and are new to that industry will have to go through some bit of hardships but if they seek right advice then things will slowly and steadily fall in place. There are few industries that are quite volatile and one has to be cautious enough when they put their foot inside it. Construction industry is one such sector which is considered to be highly volatile with a lot of ups and downs that might sneak into your business without giving any prior intimation.

Choose your genre wisely:-

In the construction business one needs to select the genre that he wants to work in. For instance, a person can choose to become an operator of heavy equipment. For this he needs to know how to operate heavy machineries and which machine to be used for what kind of work. The work of an engineer is completely different. They are the ones who design the plan and then check if the implementation is being worked as per the plan. Likewise there are other segments within the industry and one need to first understand the kind of work he wants to get into. If he is confused with it, then he can try working with a construction company for some months and check what genre of work suits his interests and accordingly can take that as his profession.

Upgrade your knowing on the working of the business:-

Once you have identified the line of business that suits your interests you should then try to learn as much as you can about the various functions of the business. There is certainly more than one way to work a work and that is what a person should learn. If for some reason one of the way to work things out is impeded then you know the other way round. It is all about alternatives and how effectively you can apply them in your business is the crux.

Generate confidence amongst the veterans:-

Your work speaks a lot about yourself and your character. It reflects how serious you are when it comes to your career. When you are new you are observed by many and if your work is of high quality then it generates a level of confidence amongst the veterans who in turn will keep you in their good books and will teach you work that not many knows in the industry. This is how you will be able to ultimately shape up your career in the construction industry.

Shortage of Workers a Problem for Construction Company

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For the success of a business, there are a number of factors that need to be taken care of. These factors include loyal and happy employees, good suppliers as well as skilled workers. There are some industries or businesses that are exceptionally dependent on manual labour or workers and one such industry is the construction industry.

If you run a construction business or company, it is a must that you are always equipped with all the necessary construction equipment that can make the work faster and easier, as well as adequate workers. Though construction industry is one of those that have experienced amazing hike over the past few years, due to the constantly growing need for new constructions, worker shortage is also a problem that they have to face.

Causes of labour or worker shortage in construction companies:

There is always a need for skilled workers in every industry. Workers or labour is available in abundance, but skilled ones are really minimal in number. Hence, there is always a shortage of these skilled workers in every industry. However, before you come up with a solution for these, it is a must that you know about the causes behind the worker shortage problem in a construction business.

  • Lack of safety and security:

 

In most cases, the inhibition against the blue-collared works is the lack of safety and security from these construction projects. Young labours fear from joining these construction companies due to the fear of meeting with accidents that are caused by a lack of safety measures.

  • Financial insecurity:

 

Often, the workers consider the college education and a good job prospect as their only way to financial security. Therefore, they do not want to join the construction industries.

  • Cultural inhibitions:

 

Doing construction jobs is still considered by many as “dirty work”. Hence, they are more drawn towards joining a full-time educational course with a huge debt and then end up searching for jobs that would help them in repaying the huge debt.

These are the most common causes behind the worker shortage problem in construction companies.

How to solve the problem?

If you have a construction company and if you too are met with this problem of worker shortage, it is a must that you take care of the problem at once. Otherwise, the performance and functionality of the business will be affected a great deal.

To manage the worker shortage problems, most of the company owners make the mistake of filling the shortage with unskilled labours. However, this only wastes more time in training them, completing the administrative work, giving them high wages without receiving the desired skill and also in providing the drug tests, safety training etc. Hence, increasing the productivity of your existing workers is always a great idea.

The amount of money that you save from this can be invested on uplifting the standard of the existing labours or workers. In case of a construction business, there is the additional facility of depending more on the construction equipment or heavy duty machineries that will save you time and money, as well as increase productivity. This will reduce the necessity or dependence on manual labour to a great extent.

Take every possible step to minimize construction cost

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The moment you set your foot into the construction industry, you got to think like any businessman does. Well, you do not have to think like a miser but need to think like a wiser. Well, you only need to become more matured when it comes to construction costs and sideline things that are not important for your business. People who belonged to the construction industry often advices that one needs to make his choices correct when it comes to spending on construction equipment. But is it only the construction equipment that forms major part of the business spending. There are many other costs that incurs in this segment of business and the owner needs to ensure that he keeps proper control on the spending. There are both recurring and non-recurring expenses that are needed to be met every month and if the company does not minimize its costs on things that are not so important then it will find itself in a comparatively tougher position.

Follow a stringent budget:-

Once you have a new project in hand, you tend to make lot of spending on things that you feel will be required for the project. However, the truth is on the total spending you actually require just half of it. The rest remains unutilized. This is not a good sign for any business house whose motto should be to reduce the cost of construction and not over spending on things. Therefore, it is important that the moment you bag a project, you start preparing a plan on things that you need and the amount of money you are ready to spend on it. You need to prepare a solid budget that has to be realistic. Also give proper instructions throughout all departments to strictly adhere to the budget and if they have to overstep the budget, they take prior approval from you. Other than that, under no given circumstance that they should go beyond the amount allocated to them.

Your planning should be absolutely bang-on:-

Before you start working on the project, give some time to plan things up. It is very crucial that you have a proper plan in place and you work according to it. Frame the plan by discussing things with the architect, contractors, the guy who looks after the finance of the company and other important people who can help you in streamlining things and set things right for you. Try to have precise estimates of raw materials and if the price will grow or come down in near future. Have a talk with the trade contractor about it and try to sense the situation of the market. On the basis of these info you should plan out things and while planning, pay stress on minimizing the cost of construction in every possible manner.

Check the actual with the estimates:-

It is important that you match the actual cost with the estimated cost and see if there is any overspending happening. If the actual are slightly on the higher side, it means things are in control but if you find that there is a good difference then you got to take charge of the situation and fix things immediately.

Heavy equipment required for construction of dam

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Dam construction is one of the most important constructions in this world. Channelizing water supply and to store water, as well as to prevent flood, dams play a huge role. Sometimes, the dams are so beautifully structured and constructed that they can afford to bear rails and bridges for communication.

However, many people do not know how the dams are constructed on the rivers. Have you ever thought of the sort of engineering that might be engaged into constructing a dam? Without the support of the heavy construction equipment, it would be extremely difficult for the engineers to make the huge dams that hold such a huge amount of water pressure.

Types of dams:

Before you understand what it takes to build a dam, you need to understand the purposes that a dam might serve. Dams are constructed for various reasons. The most common ones are –

  • Providing protection from flood, by channelizing water supply
  • Reserving water or making water reservoirs at the backwater dams
  • Creating shipping channels as lateral dams
  • Producing hydroelectricity.

Whatever the type of dam may be, the construction equipment that is used is almost the same.

Heavy Construction Equipment Needed for Dam Construction:

  • Excavators:

 

The first step for dam construction is the diversion of the river. For that the excavators are used to dig the ground. Once the river is diverted on another side, the ground on which the dam needs to be made is excavated.

  • Loaders:

 

The debris from the excavated ground needs to be removed from the area. Hence, loaders are used to remove the debris from the ground. It is removed and taken to some other area, so that the area is completely cleared off the debris.

Once the loaders remove the debris, high power pumps are used to remove the water from the area. The entire area that is given a boundary with scaffold is dried up for further construction.

  • Compactors:

 

After the construction of the ground, the compactors help in making the area suitable for further construction. There are different kinds of compactors that can be used for making the site suitable for the construction of dam.

The ground is then filled with the concrete materials. Large volume of concrete is filled into this gap and then let to dry. Ready-mix trucks are used to fill the concrete into the structure of the dam. In case of huge large constructions, sometimes mixing plants are established right at the place of construction. This helps in supplying the concrete mix to the place of the construction.

The engineers make plans for the dam construction in such a way that it can hold the huge pressure of the water from the river. Some dams are smaller in size and some are larger. The gates are installed into the dam, so that water can be passed when needed. As the concrete is dried up entirely, the water path is again channelized into its original flow. It is then ready for storing water, holding water and also for generating hydro-electricity as needed.

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Bonuses can bring cheer on the faces of construction workers

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In every industry, the workers play a very crucial role in the growth of the business. With happy employees and workers, the business will see constant and continuous growth. But, with unhappy workers, there is always the trouble of companies and businesses suddenly being faced by a strike, labour shortage and many other associated problems. Hence, it is a must that you keep your workers always happy.

The current scenario:

Every single business or industry requires skilled employees. However, despite the high demand, there is a scarcity of availability of skilled labours. Businesses, therefore, often encounter huge losses. But, many company owners are thinking of hiring new set or labours; rather than keeping the existing ones. They consider the cheap wages that they will have to pay for the new and inexperienced labours. However, the fact is that the amount of money that it will cost the companies in training the new labours will be huge. Hence, keeping the skilled and experienced existing workers is always something that one must do.

Having happy workers:

As already mentioned, it is always a good idea to keep the existing and experienced workers with your construction business than hiring new ones; a business owner needs to come up with ideas that will help them in keeping the workers happy. This is because; it is only by providing satisfaction that one can manage to hold the existing staff. And one of the most effective ways of holding existing skilled workers is to give them enough bonuses.

  • Bonus increases performance:

 

Everybody likes a little added bonus. Bonuses bring cheer to the faces of the workers. As you give your construction workers bonus, they will feel encouraged to work even harder and better.

  • Bonus increases loyalty:

 

For a successful business, it is a must that the workers or employees are loyal to your business. Bonuses yield an emotional impact on the workers and become more loyal to your construction company. This results in better performance at work. Moreover, satisfied workers wouldn’t resign from the job, creating a scarcity of workers.

  • Creating a healthy environment:

 

Undoubtedly, construction work is a strenuous one and always requires skill and the extra input to complete a task. When you hand out the bonus to the workers, it is quite likely that the happy and satisfied workers will give their input in the work. During the time, when there is an urgency of workers, your happy construction workers may forfeit their leaves and contribute in completing the task.

Conclusion:

Since bonuses can bring so many benefits for the construction business just for a small amount of investment on the skilled staff and get great returns, it is quite imperative that this factor is paid much attention to. After the successful completion of a project or even yearly or half-yearly, adding bonus to the wages of the workers will only add to the benefits of the construction business. The bonus does not necessarily have to be monetary at all times, it can be other benefits as well that would suit the need of the workers.

Green (Environmental Friendly) Heavy Equipment

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Human progress is nothing if it is not competent enough to save its own race and what is ideally happening in today’s time is we are making living more complicated that what it was few decades ago. Our standard of living and our health has gone for a complete toss and people are suffering from all sorts of health related issues. One of the major reasons why we have to live an unhealthy life is air pollution.

If we feel that eating wrong is causing number of health related issues, we are not wrong in considering that as a big threat. However, that is still manageable as it is entirely in our control. We can change our lifestyle just in case we feel that it is getting out of hand and will result in losing our life but there is not much we can do about the air we breathe. We have to get out of our homes and we have to breathe constantly. We are inhaling poisonous air and making ourselves sick. Heavy equipment have a major role to play when it comes to polluting the environment. They emit huge proportion of toxics in the air causing numerous health related complications. People are becoming prone to diseases like asthma, heart strokes, lung cancer and so on and so forth.

Diesel run heavy equipment are the major source of emitting poisonous gas and make living next to impossible for people living close to a construction site. In such a situation, it becomes very important for heavy equipment manufacturing companies to introduce machines that are eco-friendly. The term eco-friendly denotes to things that does not cause or comparatively cause less harm to the environment. Governments of the developed countries are also taking initiatives by introducing subsidies to land to the construction companies who are using eco-friendly heavy equipment.

Eco-friendly heavy equipment are available in the market. It is just that they are expensive as compared to the conservative form of machines and perhaps has few performance related issues. Well, the equipment manufacturing companies are working hard to fill this gap and manufacture more machines that do not let down their clients one grounds of performance. They understand how important performance is for companies working in the construction domain. The government is also setting up various environmental standards that speaks about the standard of engine equipment manufacturing companies should be producing. They are kind of setting up a regulation and all the equipment producing companies should stringently stick on to those parameters. The sad part of the story is that the regulation is applicable only for the newly built machines and not for the existing ones which are the major contributor of air pollution.

This means that it will take another couple of decades for the non-environmental friendly machines to go obsolete, subsequently causing more harm to the people and claiming more lives. In order to curb this menace, government is urging construction companies to ensure that they conduct regular maintenance of their machines and apply mechanisms to reduce the emission of intoxicants.