ConstructConnect Blog

TABLE OF CONTENTS Inadequate Planning Failure to Communicate Scope Creep & Change Orders Productivity Issues & Delays Ignoring Red Flags For commercial contractors, both GCs and subs, a successful project is one completed on time and within budget. The client is happy with the finished product and the contractor walks away with a tidy profit. Everybody wins. When a project fails, it’s typically due to conflicts and issues that cause cost overruns and delays in the schedule.

Putting together a winning bid proposal is a lot more complicated than putting some numbers together and hoping for the best. Good bid preparation requires a lot of time and effort that involves everything from reading and fully understanding the plans and specifications to accurately estimating costs for labor, materials, and equipment. Making even the smallest mistake can mean the difference between having a winning bid proposal and missing out on a coveted project.

Productivity is simply the measurement of the effectiveness of effort. The rate of productivity is measured as total output per unit of input. In construction, an example of output would be something like the square footage of flooring installed or cubic yards of earth excavated with the input typically being measured in man-hours.

As construction projects become more complex, effective collaboration is increasingly becoming a key factor in completing projects on time and within budget while delivering a quality product to the client. Good collaboration leads to many benefits like innovation, time and cost-saving, added value for the client, reduced errors, and unnecessary rework.

Conflicts on the construction site are a common occurrence. Disputes and disagreements are going to arise when you have multiple parties such as general contractors, owners, architects, subcontractors working together to complete a project. These stakeholders have different opinions and interpretations on how things are supposed to be done. Those differing opinions often lead to conflicts.

Construction is one of the largest industries in the world’s economy that generates trillions of dollars every year. However, the industry faces many challenges like tough competition, low profit margins, cost overruns, and tight project delivery deadlines.

Getting a job as a trade professional may seem straightforward, but there are a number of skills that everyone, from plumbers and electricians to HVAC technicians and landscapers, needs to maintain. Most of these jobs are both physically and mentally challenging and require strong personalities to ensure successful work. In addition to the basic skills you’ll need on the job, many of these professionals must also consider their working conditions, navigating hazardous environments, tight spaces, heights, heat, and so much more!

Over the past decade, the world of construction technology has evolved at a breakneck pace. Not long ago, estimators were still calculating numbers by hand and performing 2D takeoffs on pieces of paper. Today, not only are these processes automated but they can even be performed all under the same roof if one wishes.

The proper practice of managing risks is every construction contractor’s road to a successful business. Risks related to the construction industry are vast and varied given the industry’s inherent nature. As such, project success very much rests on how well construction contractors stay on top of the risk-managing game, particularly when it comes to crafting superb risk response strategies.

The commercial construction industry relies on a number of mutually beneficial relationships. This is most evident is the relationship between general contractors and trade contractors. General contractors typically subcontract out work to a variety of subcontractors in order to successfully complete construction projects. In turn, trade contractors rely on general contractors to provide them with work on projects they have been awarded.