Let's talk about logistics and planning. Now I mentioned previous, just a few seconds ago about the fact that working in a residential neighborhood and how that affects the operation, and how that affects how you function. How you come up with a building. So here's a sample logistics plan, right? Where do you place the cranes within a building to the point where it doesn't affect the progress of the other trades coming up the building cuz I mentioned previously about the trades being productive, okay. And let's face it, having a crane In the middle of the building, if it's not placed intelligently and strategically, you will not be able to work around that area until, of course, the cranes, especially tower cranes, they're out of the project. A lot of people said to me, well, why can't we just put them in the elevator shaft? Well, you can't. You can't put them in the elevator shaft because elevators take a long time, one of the most critical aspects of a building. One of the key successes to a completion is to make sure you have the vertical transportation, especially on a high rise. So putting a crane there would definitely derail your program. So you have to look at it closely, take a floor plan, right? Where do you put the cranes to the point where it doesn't affect anything? It's just a function that coming in and filling in a slab. You don't wanna put it near mechanical rises. You don't wanna put it near some place where a lot of work, such as kitchens and bathrooms and the core areas areas of a structure and so forth and so on. Figure out how does your hoist affect the exterior of the building? How do you get access to each floor? What components of the floor do you leave out to get access from the hoist into the interior of the building? Where's your loading dock, right? How do you get personnel in and out of the building safely? In the cases in the tail-end of the project when the building's enclosed and you have some marketing going on and you have tenants coming to see the building, how do you get those people access in and out? Where are your utilities coming in from? Where is emergency services? God forbid in case of an accident, how we get people in and out of the building? So these are some of the minor considerations that you have to take into, in planning the logistical aspect of a project. And, believe me, I can talk about that all day long cuz that in itself could be a class that, just talking about logistics and planning. I mentioned to you that I had the opportunity to work in the World Trade Center. One of the most complex sites that I have ever come across. So here's some of the thoughts, some of the sharing, because in my involvement on the 9/11 Memorial, as you can see the 9/11 Memorial kind of touches all the surrounding projects around it. [COUGH] Everything from Tower 1, the transportation hub, Towers 3 and 4, the vehicular security center on the south side. And of course, last but not least, is the streets and infrastructure surrounding the memorial on the east, north and south, and of course, the Route 9A Westside Highway on the West side. So you can imagine all these projects going on simultaneously, a lot of consideration had to take place in how do you get materials and personnel. Personnel was actually easier, but how do you get key materials in and out of the project? So you not only had to coordinate with your environment of getting materials in and out, where do you store your equipment and where do you put the shanties? How do you get material down into your building? How do you get personnel down into your building? Where do you put the hoist? Where do you get your emergency access? But you also have to concern yourself with, let's say, for example, Tower 1 which is just north of the memorial, when they have a 500 yard pour, let's say it's 500 yards, that's 45 to 50 concrete trucks lining up, ready to pour from say crack of dawn, if not earlier, all the way through with an entire day and into the evening. That kind of kills, especially if you're all sharing the same route, the same access, that kinda kills, or could potentially kill, your productivity. So you have to be prepared to plan according with that. So one of the key components of logistics and planning is understanding what is going on around you, what are the needs of the surrounding projects and how do you create a good working relationship with the project's that could potentially impact your progress. So here's a key example and, believe me, it was a masterful, and I give credit to a lot of people who were involved in the coordination because there was a lot of give and take. Yeah, yes. You needed a team to actually go around and understand the schedule. You understand what's coming down the next two weeks and try to overlap all these projects and try to figure out, who's affected what? Whose process is more critical? Who can stall a day? Who can potentially push off their activity to doing it after hours or something to that effect? So the folks Downtown did a masterful job. Cuz just looking at this slide alone, you can see some of the complexities associated with planning the logistical aspects of the project. So what are some of the things you have to take into consideration, okay? And again, my experience tends to be New York-centric. And of course, building in an urban environment. So, some of these concerns that you see here actually concerns that. Might not necessarily apply to where you're building, especially if you're in suburban or urban environment, which I consider to be considerably less demanding than building in the midst of a city as busy as New York, let's say. But some of the things that take into consideration is sidewalk protection. How do you get people around safely around your building? Closing streets. Very difficult in places like New York but, however mandatory when you have to bring in cranes, when you have to make large deliveries. Who's around you? Because who's around you dictates, will tell you how much of a street, what are your chances of closing down a street? If you're in a hospital, if there's a hospital next to you or across the street from you, even down the street from you, let's face it, you're not closing a street because you cannot stop emergency access vehicles from getting to and from that facility. And we're talking about life and death situations, so you have to take into consideration very, very seriously, okay? Where do store your personnel storage shanties? You need a place for the trace people to change, you need a place to store material safely. You need the ability to create office spaces for yourself, as a contractor or as construction manager, as well as your subs. And where do you place these, because keep something in mind, wherever you place these so-called shanties and field offices, areas that you're basically saying, I don't need until the very end of the project. So with that in mind, careful and, by the way, when you're buying a job, typically you might wanna consider saying, okay, you're gonna put your offices or shanties in this location. However, 75% through the project, you have to relocate to this location and, by the way, you're getting less space because we need to complete that floor cuz, let's face it, we have to complete some day. We can't push everything off indefinitely. I mentioned crane and hoist location, where utilities coming in. Temporary toilets, you're gonna laugh and say, okay, of course we know we need bathrooms. The question is how many bathrooms? Cuz let's face it, if you don't have enough bathrooms and you're working in a, let's say, building where you have 300 trays and you have four bathrooms, it's not gonna be pretty, okay? Take into the personal aspect of making a construction person very comfortable, in addition to being safety, in addition to have a safe environment, in addition to have good housekeeping and a clean environment. You also have to have the right facilities for them to be able to function through the day. Where do you locate your loading dock, and how will it affect the street traffic around you to the point where you have to worry about traffic, pedestrians, emergency vehicles, busses, I don't know. What am I leaving out? I'm sure you can figure out whatever I'm leaving out. Site security, of course. Where you place your site, your construction site fencing. How do you get people safely in and out? Do you need a security guard and, of course, signage directing people to all the various locations. So this is minimally some of the things you have to consider. Of course, all these will change and will take a different form of criticality, if you will, depending upon where your building is, the type of building, the size of your site. Going back to the World Trade Center, that's a 16 acre site. Downtown Manhattan, you would think 16 acres, my god. You would have all the room in the world. Well, you really don't cuz if sit back and think about it for a second, how much material was involved in building down at the World Trade Center? The amount of trades, the amount of workers that are needed down, there were, in some cases, over 3 to 4,000 tradesmen working in that site. That's a huge amount, tremendous. And to make sure that they're productive, to make sure that they have the equipment that they need, to make sure that they have material to feed them, to keep them productive, requires a lot of planning, a lot of foresight. And one of the things that you take consideration is the comfort level of each one of the trades people. So, let's talk about scheduling, right? I mentioned before how important a schedule is on your project. And working tightly with a schedule or working tightly with your field staff, especially an experienced superintendent, it will allow you the opportunity to put together a working place that's a schedule that will really identify what you perceive the logic to be. And how you're gonna go forward, okay? And your biggest start to compiling any schedule, in a very simplistic sort of manner, is understand your milestone. What are your due dates? Okay, we all know the completion date. Every project has a completion date, right? So we all know coming to the project, okay, I have 18 months to perform a particular task. However, in order to reach that 18 month completion, what do you have to meet in between, right? Where do you have to be with, say, your elevators? When do your mechanical equipment have to be completed? If it's a new building, what aspect of the schedule is it necessary for you to be totally closed so you can do your interior finishes? At what aspect, what phase of the construction do you need your roof done so the building is at least protected from weather conditions, to an extent, I mean, I realize parts of that are still open. What temporary protection will you need to create a safe, weather-tight environment where you can complete the interior of your building, okay, and that goes into the logic. Right into the logic. And getting the sequencing right is extremely important. Identifying what's critical and developing the critical path method, right? The critical path to your schedule. Because if that critical path slips, unless you re-sequence, all it does is add time to your schedule. Okay? Without the right logic, the right sequencing, having a good understanding and a serious planning process of each activity on the project, then your logic would be wrong. Your logic will be faulty and so will your schedule. By having a faulty schedule, you're eliminating a tool that's available to you, not just as a function of managing the project, it's a function of managing the team. It's a function of managing the contractors, because they all rely on that logic, that schedule, towards the completion, towards being productive, towards being profitable. Couple of things I want to talk about. Just one more thing, actually, I want to talk about, because I mean, let's face it, understanding your working place and any variances to that is one thing. And of course, any of the above not being done correctly will lead to claims. It's changes to project logic. And it could happen, in many instances, it will happen to the point where logic just tends to take, things happen. You have to be able to adapt. And, maybe your logic, you made a mistake. It happens. Maybe something happened, whether it's environmental, whether it's political, whether it's external, just say it's external for now. Needs you to re-sequence, recreate the logic. You have to be prepared to do that. And you have to be prepared to do it in a fashion that's both intelligent, as well as productive to the point it makes sense to the trades, the people around you. That you could still meet the deadline. And if you can't meet the deadline, you better be prepared to explain why you did not meet the deadline. So bullets two and three are extremely critical in the logic and the compilation of a schedule, having the logic correctly, the sequence, logical sequencing. And two is be able to adjust in the event for any unforeseen conditions throughout the progress of your building.
