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In a recent McGraw-Hill Construction survey, 13 percent of those surveyed said project financing was getting easier to obtain, up from 7.2 percent in the first quarter. However, 39 percent of those surveyed said project financing is harder to obtain, versus 50.7 percent in the first quarter. The survey polled about 2,000 U.S.-based contractors and engineers.

The industry is worried about inflationary pressures once the market turns around, according to the survey, but half of respondents said they have seen little or no upward pressure on prices.

When assessing the construction market, 53 percent of respondents said the current construction market is still in decline, 36 percent said it had stabilized, and 11 percent said it was improving. However, survey respondents expect the picture to be different in 12 to 18 months, with 50 percent believing the construction market will improve and another 39 percent believing it will stabilize in 2011.

In his presentation, "2010 Outlook for U.S. Construction Activity – Midyear Update," on June 16 in Arlington, Va., Robert Murray, vice president, Economic Affairs, McGraw-Hill Construction, said, “As far as cost of financing, now and until the end of this year is a great time to go ahead with construction projects.” Tighter lending standards are still a major constraint for 2010, he said. A survey of bank lending officers shows a loosening of lending standards in the commercial and industrial sectors, but it is not visible yet in the commercial real estate sector. The short-term rates are still low and will remain low until the end of this year, he said.

What are you experiencing in the lending market?

—By Sahely Mukerji, senior editor, Glass Magazine

So as of this past Friday, I am no longer in the employment of Arch Aluminum. And as a buddy reminded me today, it’s been like the line from the Grateful Dead: "What a long strange trip it’s been." There is no doubt the past 7+ years had goods, bads, uglies and really uglies, and I wish some things turned out different/better, but it didn’t happen that way. Anyway, it really is what it is, and I am looking forward to my next stop in life.

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Write Perilstein at maxbcat@aol.com.

The opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect those of the National Glass Association, Glass Magazine editors, or other glassblog contributors.

I am a lifelong resident of Nashville. During the first weekend of May this year, Nashville suffered what some have classified as a 500-year flood when 17 inches of rain fell in two days. Our previous two-day rainfall record was less than half of 17 inches. Every stream, creek, tributary, and river in the area rose above flood levels. There was not a person in Nashville that was not impacted in some way. Some lost their lives. Many lost their homes. Some lost their businesses. Others were stranded because they were surrounded by water and couldn’t leave. Many cars were stranded on the interstate because the roads were covered with water. Buildings floated down roads. If we were not affected directly, we were indirectly. I had two employees suffer significant damage. A relative of a competitor’s employee died when swept away by flood waters. The impact was beyond belief.

But Nashville survived. Our community united and, for the most part, unselfishly attacked the challenge of recovering. There was very little looting. Tennessee is the Volunteer State and we demonstrated why. Initially, volunteers helped with the demolition of flooded houses and caring for those individuals who became displaced. Subsequently, the community began looking beyond daily concerns and toward the future restoration of our community. We also had the help and support of many people from around the country. Many non-Nashvillians came to help us. Thank you!

This has been a less than splendid year for many of us. Nashville is no exception. Now, because of the flood, many of our businesses’ suffering increased. The CMA Music Festival is our largest tourism event of the year. It brings huge amounts of money to our community and many small businesses. For some, the CMA Music Festival is a make-or-break annual event. This event took place six weeks after the flood. Much of the area where the festival is held was flooded. A monumental amount of work had to be done in a very short timeframe. You can imagine how concerned all of us were. We wondered whether people would show up.

We did it. I am writing this one week after the CMA Music Festival ended. It set a record for attendance and revenue. Our hotels had a 95 percent occupancy rate for the week. Thank you to all who came. Thank you for all that support and help. We have not fully recovered but we are well on the way.

Often in business we face obstacles beyond our control. The attitude we have toward overcoming those challenges will determine how well we succeed. Character is not made in a crisis; it is just exhibited.

By the way, if you want to see how I am doing toward my goal of running 56 miles to celebrate my 56th birthday, click here.

—Bill Evans, president, Evans Glass Co., Nashville   

A panel of experts talked about Keys to Enhancing productivity at the 4th Annual ENR-CURT Construction Business Forum, June 15-16, at the Sheraton National Hotel in Arlington, Va. Paul Goodrum, associate professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Kentucky, College of Engineering, Lexington, Ky.; Albert Schwarzkopf, senior project engineer, Merck & Co. Whitehouse Station, N.J.; Jim Shoriak, director, Major Projects – Refining Group, Marathon Oil Co., Houston; Steve Toon, CE&T; productivity engineer, Bechtel Group Inc., San Francisco; and Dave Umstot, vice chancellor of facilities management, San Diego Community College District, took part in the panel.

The experts agreed that using technology and best practices were key to improving productivity. “The construction industry is one of the largest manufacturing industries in the U.S., worth about $1 trillion, little lower now, maybe $800k-900k,” Goodrum said. “Construction lags behind other industries [in terms of productivity]. We need a productivity index. The data is there, but how you can begin to accumulate it is the question. We see a lot of variability in project performance. From project to project we’re not necessarily doing what we need to do. We need to ensure what needs to be done is being done. Technology can get you there.” Integrated design processes, such as BIM, allow designers, builders and trade contractors to work in a collaborative 3D environment during design and construction, he said.

There’s a need for workplace productivity analysis, Toon said. “Figure out how much time is spent doing direct work at the work place. All those pieces come together when you do the analysis. We want labor productivity at the back end. We need to embrace technology and need to implement it earlier on. Health and safety issues, HR policies, all need to be in place, and not shot from the hip.”

Doing the right thing in the wrong time is not necessarily productive, the experts agreed. “If not coordinated, productivity’s compromised,” Umstot said. “Timing the project is important. The owners need to put that in place. All of the contractors need to have input in the plan. Measure productivity on key activities, do a selection of the key activities, and roll those up in sector indexes. Theoretically, it can be done, but it’s expensive.”

Contractors who have the motivation, adopt best practices and succeed, the experts said.

“If we all improve productivity best practices, it will benefit the industry as a whole,” Schwarzkopf said. “We need to get better at that as an industry. If we do it, the rest of the world will follow, so we’ll need to keep improving.”

What’s missing now is a metric of best practices, Goodrum said. “We need to measure the practice. That’s the next step.”

Do you agree? What do you do to increase productivity in your company?

—By Sahely Mukerji, senior editor, Glass Magazine