Tag Archives: Construction Domain

Vision and determination are facets important to achieve success in the construction domain

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

If you think that having all the heavy equipment in the world can help you achieve success in the construction domain, then you perhaps need to rethink because there is something more important than a machine that is required to sustain in the construction domain and to defeat your competitors from taking away your business. You need to have a vision in your career and the determination to pursue it. If you fail to have either of them, then you and your business might come into big trouble someday or the other.

We often consider that having a sound financial backing is the most important thing after having the right set of heavy equipment but that is not the case. A person who does not know where he wants to take his business is walking in the dark and he may soon begin to face hurdles in his life and may also experience severe financial crunches which may even lead to the closure of the business. There are numerous examples where entrepreneurs who lacked focus were not able to sustain and were forced to shut their shops. Therefore, being focus should be our first priority. We often get help from institutions if we lack sound financial backing but no one can help a person who lacks vision in his career. A person with no goal can lead his business to dangerous paths and will eventually result in the demise of the business. Construction sector in particular is one of the most difficult sectors for people who lack vision.

Stay focused and always have a strategy in mind:-

Remaining focused to your job does not imply that you do not stop thinking about work but it means that you know where your business is heading. You keep a close watch on the ground realities and make sure that things go as per the plan chalked out by you. In case, if there is any deviation then that needs to be brought under control by chalking out a separate strategy that works more on the ground to keep things in your control. A business without a proper strategy is like sailing in a wrecked ship which has all the possibilities of getting drowned.

Know your project well before drawing a plan:-

You may have more than one project in hand and the requirements of both the projects may be different. You need to make sure that you know which project of yours require what. For this you need to do a thorough study of your projects and then draw a road map that takes to the completion of it.

Be determined of your success:-

Life in the construction domain is not a bed of roses and you do not get things that easily. You will come upon lot of hindrances from various corners that you may not even expect. In this situation, it is just your determination that will help you taste success. If you are determined in achieving something then there is no stopping you.

Is civil engineering a good major for a future in the construction domain

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

To hold a crucial designation in a business that is quite a thriving one is certainly important for the growth of one’s career. We talk about any industry for that matter and each of them will have few very crucial designations without which the likelihood of the survival of that industry is nil. It has been observed that people usually eye for those crucial positions but it is not at all simple to achieve them. The sole reason is it is too hard to get there. You need to acquire lot of knowledge and experience to reach somewhere closer to it. We consider the construction domain to be a highly rewarding one. Right from the bottom level people to the guys sitting at the management level, they all make good money at the end of the day. So why not attain a place for yourself without which the sector will find it to be incapable to perform.

Engineers are given a special place in the construction sector. It is because of them that the industry can go out and execute the plans. As a matter of fact the engineers are the one who designs the plan and then work on it to give it an ultimate shape. It is because of the important role that they play in this sector that they are paid so handsomely. Apparently, it is also expected that the engineers do not do things incorrectly as it will hamper the making of the entire project. This means that they got to do their work with complete accuracy and there is no chance of any sort of error.

To become a civil engineer is quite a tough business. It takes 4 years of education in Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in order to become a civil engineer. From thereon, the person needs to strive harder to make his position first in the company and then in the industry. For guys/gals who do not wish to study for 4 years, they can pursue a 2 year associate degree in civil engineering and then work as an assistant to an engineer. After working for few years he/she can then pursue another course to become a complete civil engineer. In both the courses, one has to go through both classroom training as well as practical field work. This is done so that students can have a better understanding of the subject and can develop into able and competent engineers.

If a person is aiming to become a civil engineer, he/she got to be good in math and physics. The entire civil engineering thing revolves in and around these two subjects and therefore someone who do not see much interest in these subjects should never make civil engineering as its goal. Another attribute that is required is that they need to be good team worker as civil engineers are required to work in a team. Overall civil engineering is a good stream that one can pursue and see a rewarding career.

Buy Now on eBay [ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”” items=”2″]

Machines that matter the most in the construction domain

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Heavy equipments are considered as the most important element of the construction industry and each machine has its specific role to play. So whenever you go out to shop for heavy equipment, you must know which machine you need to buy. There are few heavy equipments that are mostly required irrespective of which sphere of the industry you are in. For instance, if you are into landscaping you may need a grader, an excavator and at times a dozer. However, if you are into building bridges, you may need more heavy equipments than for building a landscape.

So the genre of business you are in defines what kind of construction machines are needed by you. It is quite imperative for a construction business owner to understand the functions of heavy equipments in his business. He can’t go for every type of heavy equipment that is available under the sun. He needs to understand the role of the heavy equipments in his line of business and thereby make necessary purchases.

We will be discussing about some heavy equipment which are commonly used in almost every construction site.

Rollers:-

Rollers are ideally used to construct roads but they are not restricted to just road construction. They are used for leveling the paths on the construction site as well. One can understand how difficult it is to walk on crooked paths and that too when you are working in a perilous ambience. You need to have proper ways that are properly leveled and also smooth enough to move without any hindrance. This will allow people to move with comfort causing almost 0 injuries while walking on the site. In this way rollers also provide good deal of safety to the workers.

Excavators:-

Almost every construction site requires some amount of digging work and the most convenient and suitable construction machine that can be used for this purpose is an excavator. Its huge sharp claws can dig deep inside the ground and remove the mud out. You only need to change its attachment to make it multi-functional. This is perhaps the most sought after heavy equipment in the entire construction domain. You will hardly see any construction project without an excavator. Though there are now alternatives in place but the old players still want to work with this piece of metal.

Dozers:-

Let us now talk about the unbreakable or the one that has the potential to break anything. Well, a dozer is heavy duty equipment that is known for its capability to mow down the toughest structure. While bringing down a building, a wrecking ball is attached to the front of it and then the ball is moved in full force and it bangs the object. Doing this continuously brings the structure down. This form of equipment is used during the initial stage where a permanent structure needs to be pulled down and will be replaced by something new.

These are perhaps few construction machines that matter the most in the construction domain and have also earned its reputation for the right reasons.

Buy Now on eBay [ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”” items=”5″]

Related articles across the web

Knowledge transfer is a must in the construction domain

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Keeping your experience with you and not sharing it with anybody does not make sense in any form of industry. When you learn something new, you should let others know about it and this is how others will get to know about your experience and derive a conclusion from it. Your experience must be a good one or a bad one but it always has a message for the people who hear it. This is one of the way by which you transfer your knowledge to the people around you and help them learn through your experience. You be a part of whatever industry, you learn most of the things from the experiences of others. Our lives are too short to experience everything and therefore we hear out stories of others and take lessons from it. This phenomenon is known as transfer of knowledge.

Knowledge transfer is a must in every industry and especially when it comes to the construction sector, it becomes all the more important. The reason why we consider knowledge transfer to be so important in the construction domain is because this industry is quite vast and it is virtually not possible for anybody to work in all the spheres and learn everything from it. You need men who specialize in one particular stream to inform you about how things function in his line of business.

For instance, a welder can at times know more about a machine than an operator who has been constantly working on it. It is because the welder or the mechanic for that matter fixes the machine whenever it breaks down and thus can inform the operator of some specific issues with the machine and ask him to be cautious while operating it. This is also one form of knowledge transfer where the mechanic is transferring the knowledge about the machine to the next person so that the equipment will be dealt in the right manner.

In a nutshell, the entire construction site primarily works on knowledge transfer. Here the site engineer needs to pass on the information to the next guy who will arrange for the things the engineer has asked for and once it is there in place, it will move to the next person with the specific instruction on what he needs to do. When we have new recruits joining the company, the importance of knowledge transfer is felt the most. The new guys do not know anything about how things work in the company and they need to be informed about every minute activity. So the message passes from the veterans to the newbie.

Another form of knowledge transfer is through articles and blogs. In this scenario, the writer who is pretty experienced and an expert on the subject writes about heavy equipment and gives an insight to the people at large. It indeed helps people to take informed decisions about their heavy equipment. Internet is a powerful tool and its use to transfer knowledge across various domains in widely appreciated by everybody.

[ebayfeedsforwordpress feed=”” items=”5″]

Related articles across the web

Youths making their way in the construction domain

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

We all have the wish to set up a company of our own and be our own boss but very few are indeed able to fulfill this dream of theirs. It is often the level of competition that weeds out the new talent and also the lack of preparedness on the part of the youngsters before they begin with setting up their business. One such industry that has given the wings to fly is the construction sector but the sort of competition one gets to experience in this industry is enormous. There is a rat race that exists in this sector. People are expected to do everything to just get a deal. It is not that getting work is way harder. It is just that people for some reason do not have the patience to wait for the right deal to come by.

Youths in particular who aim to become a part of this industry needs to take care of many things. Firstly they should work on their knowledge on this industry. This sector is pretty vast and involves lot many things that affects it on an everyday basis. So having a fair amount of idea often helps while taking the right decision. You should not want to see yourself lost when you get to know some common stuff about the industry that you are a part of. Therefore keeping your eyes and ears open and accepting new things from others should be your mantra to learn things.

Heavy equipment play a pivotal role in the construction segment. It is said that the companies who have the best machines and backed with a better workforce can stand tall at all times. So just having modern heavy equipment is not going to help you. You also need to back it up with efficient workforce who knows well how to work on those machines or else it is futile to have them in the first place. Simultaneously, not all machines that have the modern look over it should be purchased. You may never need that stuff in your entire project work and hence there is no need to possess that in your arsenal. The better way to work it out is first know your requirements and then go for the purchase. Also, purchase of heavy equipment should be done after thoroughly scrutinizing your finances. Heavy equipment are expensive metals and you may not want to spend your money on something that you may not use for the time being.

Last but not the least; keep a tab on your finances. If you do not do that, then you will not know when you have exhausted all your resources in the spree of buying heavy equipment and stuff that you feel is important but now you do not have any money left to run the business. Many young entrepreneurs have gone through this situation and they have to ultimately take loans to run the business or simply give away the idea to continue any longer.

Related articles across the web

Retiring from military, go into the construction domain

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

People leaving the military are ideally absorbed in any other industry without much hassle. The only condition is they need to have the required expertise to do the job. So if a person who has served the military for years and now wants to lead a civilian life can get ample of opportunities and can make a bright career in any industry that he find himself to apt with his abilities. Mostly men after leaving the military join the construction industry. The reason is that they have been operating heavy equipment while they were there in the military and since they are so used to working on construction equipment that they can’t see themselves anywhere else other than this sector. At the same time, this industry really pays well to its employees. An operator can earn real god money if he is experienced and has worked on quite a number of machines.

Discipline is in their instinct:-

While serving in the military they learn one thing on a daily basis and that is being disciplined. So when a person is a disciplined, rest everything falls in place. He will understand the importance of his work and will never take anything casually. He will remain focused in his job and will have the determination to complete the job within the prescribed timeframe. A person lacking these skills becomes a burden on the company and therefore the construction companies also look for operators who have served the military so that they can give priority to their work and complete it within the given deadline.

Experience in working with more machines:-

People in the military work on different kinds of construction machines. Some of the machines are not used in the construction industry by private construction companies. It could be because the military give orders to produce customized machines that are meant to serve their specific requirements. So the men who have worked on construction machines have undoubtedly worked on the best of machines in its class and therefore have experience in handling them in rough terrain, sliding zones, mountainous region and places where ideally operators find it difficult to work with machines. Just because they are so used to working in such hazardous terrains, they become the first choice of the construction companies.

Can open their own construction company:-

A person after retiring from the military can even start his own venture in the construction domain. If he has hands-on knowledge of working with machines, he has won half the battle. Since he has retired from the military, getting loans sanctioned will not be a difficult task for him. All he needs to do is get the necessary documentation done and start the business. Clients will also have more faith on him knowing that he is an ex-military officer and will have high regards for him for having served the nation. Therefore getting work will not be much of an issue. Moreover, jobs like demolitions are somewhat easy to get. So if you have the right equipment with you and know how to operate it, you can make it big in this form of a business.

Related articles across the web

Mid range crawler dozers are widely accepted by customers in the construction domain

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Working in a small space will not allow huge equipment and you have to restrict the use to either mid-range or small equipment. When we talk about heavy equipment, it is not only about those big machines that you often see at construction sites but it is also about equipment that you see in your backyard clearing the garden or clearing the snow off the road. You do not always need a big dozer to clear the snow from the road. Imagine if the road is not that big to accommodate a big dozer, it will not be able to complete the work. In such a situation what you need the most is a mid range crawler dozer.

The demand for the mid range crawler dozer has increased over the last few years. People have begun to realize that it is not all about big machines but at times we also need something smaller in size to get the work done. This is how people have understood the importance of such machines and has led to the growing acceptability of it. Before we speak further on this, we need to understand what category of machine come under mid range and what goes above that. Machines that have horsepower between 130 to 200 hp are in the mid-range category. Anything falling short of that is a small machine and machines that have more than 200-300 hp fall in the higher range of machines.

A reports also suggest that the mid-range machines play a dominant role in the construction industry which was not the case few decades ago. However, not everybody likes to purchase high range equipment and keep themselves content with the lower version. Irrespective of the construction company being a big one or just a newbie, they all prefer mid range machines. The maneuverability of such machines are simpler and faster and are therefore considered potent for work that is meant for small range as well as high range equipment. Caterpillar’s Dave Cusac feels that though some companies want mid range machines to have hp more than 300 but due to certain technical alignment, it has been limited to the range of 150 to 215 hp.

Mid range crawler dozers have varied uses. They are not just used for single category of work but are used for several purposes and this is what makes the machine more in demand. Case Construction Equipment brand marketing manager has bifurcated the use of the machine on the basis of the horsepower it possess. According to him, the machine with hp of 130 is used for construction of roads and bridges but not into residential construction. Machines with hp of 150 are also used for building of bridges and roads but they can simultaneously spread their wings into larger jobs. Machines more than 214 hp can be used for mining, overburden clearing and similar operations. Having said this, it does not mean that these machines do not have the capability to perform heavy duty jobs.

Never Give Up Your Hopes Even If You Suffer Loses In the First Few Years of Your Business in the Construction Domain

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

A business is entitled to two very important aspects and they are profits and losses. Either you make money in your business or you lose out. These are the two significant factors that keep your business going. We see another trend in business. Guys who have newly set up their business tend to incur losses than making profits which is kind of demoralizing. This is perhaps the major reason why many of the folks who have started their business thinking of making it big end up completely giving it away. There is perhaps a wrong notion that runs in peoples’ mind that business is the only way to make them rich. Which is why without giving much thought to it, they start doing a business and then all of a sudden realize that this was not their cup of tea and eventually scrap it off.

This was one bunch of folks. There is another bunch of people who no matter what stick to their position even after having incurred huge losses in their business. They are the one who either make it big or get perished completely. They are probably the ones who do not like to give up their hopes and want to continue to see the end of their journey. Well, it is better that we all fall in the second list because you have to give time to your business to grow. If you not financially sound or don’t have much patience, business is not for you.

Incurring losses in the first few years of your business is inevitable:-  When you form a business, you do not have clients, you do not have proper infrastructure, you do not have all the necessary things that is needed to shape up your business. You gather them all in the phase of time and during this time you also do things which an experienced person will not dare to. It is only because you are learning things. You go wrong many times and also do not find anybody to correct you or to guide and show you the right way. In such scenarios, making losses is inevitable. You just can’t expect to get returns from your business because it lacks a lot of things that are important to gain profits in a business. During the troubled times, it is imperative to stick along and not take decisions like to wind it up.

Learn from your mistakes:-  The best way to set your foot in the construction business is to learn from your mistakes and not to repeat it ever. You rarely get people to guide you as folks don’t want competition in business. Many feel that by giving right advices they might give birth to a strong competitor which may pose as a challenge to them in the later years. Therefore, you are on your own and always keep your learning antenna on.

Listen to others but do that you feel is right:-  When you are new, you will come across people who care giving you advices on your business. They may not know much how to deal with situations but always have advices for others. It’s better to give them a hearing ear but use your brains to rationale their advices.

 

 

 

Analyze Your Financial Situation Before You Set Afoot In the Construction Domain

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Over the years, the construction industry has proved to become a lucrative industry which promises to generate high returns given the level of commitment it demands. So what you feel, if this is such a high growth paced industry why not everybody is into it. Who would be running for positions in the government if they can get hooked up something as profitable as this? Well, as every industry has some loopholes in them, so does this one too have a catch. The construction industry is for people who are ready to take risks in life. It is for people who know the art to make money from money. Have said this, it should not at all to be construed that a person from not an elite class can join this industry. If this industry gives good money to people, it also sucks in a lot from them. It demands their time, their dedication, their risk taking capacity, their zest to know more about stuffs pertaining to the construction domain and things alike.

Not everybody is ready to sacrifice so much at a stretch to make a name in this industry. Apart from this, the most important part is the money you are ready to pour in without any assurance of getting it back. There has been incidences where folks have lost all the money they had saved after getting into this industry. It’s not a gambling business but no less than a gamble you play. Therefore, it is instrumental to understand your finances well before you set afoot in the construction domain.

Check your cash flow and follow it stringently:-  Before you think of starting a business, you should do a thorough analysis of the cash flows, i.e. the inflow of funds and your monthly expenses. You got make sure that you are able to pay all your bills in time no matter what goes wrong in your business. Overall, the rise and fall of your business shouldn’t affect the cash flow of your house. Alternatively, you need to make arrangements wherein in no time your monthly outflows should exceed your inflows. You should keep a tight budget for your family’s expenses and make sure that everybody in your family adheres to it.

Keep some contingency reserve:-  You might want to keep some reserve for emergency purposes.  Also ensure that you never utilize that amount for your business needs. You can invest them in mutual funds which allow you to redeem the money at any point in time. Returns are not what you should be looking for and therefore earning very low returns shouldn’t bother you. It would be anytime better than losing out the entire chunk.

Keep a check on your short term as well as long term financial goals:-  While you give your maximum time in setting up your business, you should also keep a check on your short term and long term financial goals. Also weed out the ones which you feel is no longer required. Keep only those goals which can’t be avoided. However, once you set your foot strong in this industry, accomplishing your short term goals would be just a cake walk for you.