The Critical Path

A History of the Arizona Canal Diversion Channel 1. The Hidden Shield: Phoenix’s Unseen Flood Infrastructure The Phoenix metropolitan area represents one of the more complex hydrological challenges in modern civil engineering, defined by a "dual seasonal threat" that few other urban environments must navigate. As a lifelong Arizona Resident, I view the Valley not just as a sun-drenched oasis, but as a landscape of paradox: the very arid warmth that fuels our growth also bakes

Starting the Hoover Dam Bypass - Arizona Side Walk onto any modern road construction site today, and you will notice something peculiar: The wood is gone. For generations of construction workers, surveyors, and heavy equipment operators, the job site was a forest of wooden stakes. These stakes were not just boundary markers; they were the physical coordinates of the project, bearing handwritten "stories" that guided the raw power of bulldozers and graders. To understand how w

Video about construction bidding

Always have a backup plan! From horses to massive diesel tractors, the construction industry has come a long way in automation. Grade control went from optical human input to GPS and Laser. Older projects rarely had photos taken because cameras were scarce and developing the pictures could be expensive. Now your telephone takes pictures, autofocuses, adjusts for the lighting and uploads your picture to the cloud. Technologies like AI and robotics are making a hard press in

The social media feeds are suddenly filled with advisors and experts who want to sell you a technology that is not yet proven, and sometimes it's still a dream. The reality in construction is that accurate and contextual data simply does not exist in most companies. The AI agent doesn't usually have video tape of your complete operation to analyze, nor does it generally have digital access to your records. Contractor's production records are generally vague and often non

Don't let technology swallow your profits or your business!

"What's it going to take to get Heavybid into R.E. Monks?" John Davis, VP at HCSS, asked me in a phone call just a month or so after I had left Sundt and started as chief estimator for R.E. Monks Construction in Arizona. That conversation happened in the summer of 1997 and to understand the background, we need to go back to 1992 when Ken Brunker had been promoted to VP over the estimating group at Sundt Corp. Ken's predecessor had purchased several seats of Hard Dollar with

Let's find your critical path to success!

The basic process of bidding work has not changed, technology has only quickened the pace of making mistakes.