5 ms·

The NYT article inadvertently addresses the problem: dozens of workers were at the site. Dozens. Not hundreds or thousands. Dozens. With all that capital eq

The NYT article inadvertently addresses the problem: dozens of workers were at the site. Dozens. Not hundreds or thousands. Dozens. With all that capital equipment laying around and all the opportunity costs being ignored. There's a road project near my home that's been going on for more than 90 days now. Many days nobody is on the site at all, even though all the cranes and other equipment are left on site at all times. When the site is being worked it's by at most half a dozen people, five of whom are watching the sixth guy work. You'd think that lowest-bid contracting would have fixed this but for some reason it hasn't.

bwilliams18 10y ago
Labor while cheap is still hard to find, especially on public-works projects where everyones papers need to be in tip top shape. The work is hard, the pay is shit, nobody wants to do it if they have even a slightly better option.
- rhizome 10y ago
  Well since it's not cheap, don't let projects go any slower than necessary or can be predicted (supply chain, equipment, bureaucracy).
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  The pay legally cannot be shit. If it was allowed to be shit, contractors would lower wages and hire more people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Bacon_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Bacon_Act (Back in the day, contractors were hiring black workers and bypassing the more expensive white-only unions. Davis Bacon was passed to fix the "problem" of free markets overcoming racism.)
  - tedmiston 10y ago
    From the CityLab link above: > Thus it has, according to a study from the conservative Heartland Institute, calculated prevailing wages at 22 percent above BLS figures, forcing higher prices. Well shit is relative, I guess.
- briandear 10y ago
  The pay isn't shit. Have a look at a NYC union contract. Skilled construction workers make a very good amount of money. The problem is that unions create a monopoly of labor thus not allowing the free market to determine wages (I am speaking specifically to union projects in places such as NYC.)
ehnto 10y ago
It reminds me of a story my father told me recently about a mining company and a plastic dinghy. They had a job to complete that required access to a caustic pond, so they organised a small plastic dinghy to get out and take their measurements. Even though it was just a dinghy, they still required a certified skipper on board, plus a saftey officer and then the technicians to take the measurement. They had estimated an 8 day job, not realising that the pond had shrunk by half since the original satellite imagery. So the technicians fly out and get prepared, but the mining company hadn't organised half the things they needed to. So for the next 8 days the technicians are waiting for saftey and job approvals and twiddling their thumbs. Meanwhile the skipper and saftey officer are back at the port awaiting the technicians go ahead. Now the dinghy, it was sitting on the grass at the boatyard. These resources are all charged per day, and while they're booked for the job they are on standby. At this point, the dinghy on the grass and it's hardy crew had cost the mining company $16000 just for standby costs. Eventually the job goes ahead, it only takes 4 days because the pond had shrunk so much, and the dinghy is only used for 2 days. Total cost for the little plastic dinghy and crew was $25000. The mining company was fine with this.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  I work as a consultant/developer in the B2B software space. Part of my job involves documenting clients' existing processes and converting them to requirements. The type of inefficiencies you describe are EXTREMELY common. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of American companies are simply stuck in the 70s/80s (sometimes the 60s) when it comes to how things are done. Most of their business processes are manual and paper-based and communication is archaic, usually relying on many single points of failure, who happen to be human operators. As a result, stuff falls through the cracks all the damn time. I've been thinking about how companies can manage to stay in business even when they're run so poorly. I've come to the conclusion that it's because many of them, especially the larger ones, face no real competition. All the other companies in their space are run similarly. As long as a decent amount of revenue keeps coming in, the leaders (many of whom are approaching comfortable retirement) simply don't care. I've also realized that, at the aggregate level, the primary reason the American economy is so ahead of other economies today is due to the head-start it enjoyed following World War 2, when most of the developed world had been devastated while America was virtually untouched. If there had been any sort of real competition, things would be very different today - and we're starting to see that as other economies are starting to catch up.
Arnt 10y ago
If you want a short outage you have to ask for it. 1: Publish a request for bids, stipulate that price and outage duration be specified. 2: Wait. 3: Take the bids that are within 30% of the lowest bid, 4: Sort by outage duration. 5: Sign the contract. Or another variation. Just don't expect bidders to optimise for something that isn't mentioned in the spec.
smackfu 10y ago
The biggest problem is usually that they have to work at night, due to requirements to keep roads available during normal usage hours. That really slows things down and raises costs.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  I wish. That would be the sane way to do it. The way it seems to be done around here is they don't start until 10AM because of rush hour, then they come in, uncover the trenches, work for an hour, cover the trenches back up, and kick off at 3PM because of rush hour again. There seems to be only 2 hours of real work done in the day. If the cities were willing to just close the road these projects would be done in a day or two.

bwilliams18 10y ago

Labor while cheap is still hard to find, especially on public-works projects where everyones papers need to be in tip top shape. The work is hard, the pay is shit, nobody wants to do it if they have even a slightly better option.

rhizome 10y ago
Well since it's not cheap, don't let projects go any slower than necessary or can be predicted (supply chain, equipment, bureaucracy).
yummyfajitas 10y ago
The pay legally cannot be shit. If it was allowed to be shit, contractors would lower wages and hire more people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Bacon_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Bacon_Act (Back in the day, contractors were hiring black workers and bypassing the more expensive white-only unions. Davis Bacon was passed to fix the "problem" of free markets overcoming racism.)
- tedmiston 10y ago
  From the CityLab link above: > Thus it has, according to a study from the conservative Heartland Institute, calculated prevailing wages at 22 percent above BLS figures, forcing higher prices. Well shit is relative, I guess.
briandear 10y ago
The pay isn't shit. Have a look at a NYC union contract. Skilled construction workers make a very good amount of money. The problem is that unions create a monopoly of labor thus not allowing the free market to determine wages (I am speaking specifically to union projects in places such as NYC.)

ehnto 10y ago

It reminds me of a story my father told me recently about a mining company and a plastic dinghy. They had a job to complete that required access to a caustic pond, so they organised a small plastic dinghy to get out and take their measurements. Even though it was just a dinghy, they still required a certified skipper on board, plus a saftey officer and then the technicians to take the measurement. They had estimated an 8 day job, not realising that the pond had shrunk by half since the original satellite imagery. So the technicians fly out and get prepared, but the mining company hadn't organised half the things they needed to. So for the next 8 days the technicians are waiting for saftey and job approvals and twiddling their thumbs. Meanwhile the skipper and saftey officer are back at the port awaiting the technicians go ahead. Now the dinghy, it was sitting on the grass at the boatyard. These resources are all charged per day, and while they're booked for the job they are on standby. At this point, the dinghy on the grass and it's hardy crew had cost the mining company $16000 just for standby costs. Eventually the job goes ahead, it only takes 4 days because the pond had shrunk so much, and the dinghy is only used for 2 days. Total cost for the little plastic dinghy and crew was $25000. The mining company was fine with this.

enraged_camel 10y ago
I work as a consultant/developer in the B2B software space. Part of my job involves documenting clients' existing processes and converting them to requirements. The type of inefficiencies you describe are EXTREMELY common. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of American companies are simply stuck in the 70s/80s (sometimes the 60s) when it comes to how things are done. Most of their business processes are manual and paper-based and communication is archaic, usually relying on many single points of failure, who happen to be human operators. As a result, stuff falls through the cracks all the damn time. I've been thinking about how companies can manage to stay in business even when they're run so poorly. I've come to the conclusion that it's because many of them, especially the larger ones, face no real competition. All the other companies in their space are run similarly. As long as a decent amount of revenue keeps coming in, the leaders (many of whom are approaching comfortable retirement) simply don't care. I've also realized that, at the aggregate level, the primary reason the American economy is so ahead of other economies today is due to the head-start it enjoyed following World War 2, when most of the developed world had been devastated while America was virtually untouched. If there had been any sort of real competition, things would be very different today - and we're starting to see that as other economies are starting to catch up.

Arnt 10y ago

If you want a short outage you have to ask for it. 1: Publish a request for bids, stipulate that price and outage duration be specified. 2: Wait. 3: Take the bids that are within 30% of the lowest bid, 4: Sort by outage duration. 5: Sign the contract. Or another variation. Just don't expect bidders to optimise for something that isn't mentioned in the spec.

smackfu 10y ago

The biggest problem is usually that they have to work at night, due to requirements to keep roads available during normal usage hours. That really slows things down and raises costs.

honkhonkpants 10y ago
I wish. That would be the sane way to do it. The way it seems to be done around here is they don't start until 10AM because of rush hour, then they come in, uncover the trenches, work for an hour, cover the trenches back up, and kick off at 3PM because of rush hour again. There seems to be only 2 hours of real work done in the day. If the cities were willing to just close the road these projects would be done in a day or two.