Category: Construction Bond

Design-Build in Construction

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bonding needs. Project Delivery Methods There are three approaches to executing and delivering construction projects: Construction management at risk (CMAR), also known as construction manager at risk Design-bid-build (DBB), also known as design-tender Design-build (DB), also known as design-construct, or single-source responsibility Construction Management at Risk The CMAR approach involves the project owner teaming up with the chosen general contractor at the beginning of the design process. The synergy between the project owner and general contractor (referred to as the construction manager) during the design process improves the accuracy of cost estimates, gives the contractor a good understanding of the project scope and details, and allows time for trust to develop between the two parties prior to starting construction. In this manner, CMAR smooths the transition from design to construction. In most cases, the selection of the CM is based on qualifications, with price as the secondary consideration. Though subcontractors usually are chosen through competitive bidding, the CM commits to delivering...

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Autonomous Construction Equipment Trends

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bonding needs. What is Autonomous Construction Equipment? Driverless vehicles are becoming more prevalent as the technology develops, though fully autonomous vehicles are probably still a couple of years away from being a common sight on the nation’s highways. History has shown that heavy equipment—tractors, bulldozers, dump trucks, cranes, excavators, and the like, tends to be about a decade behind the automotive industry in terms of technology adoption. But autonomous construction equipment is likely the future. Examples from the Mining Industry Experiments with autonomous mining equipment pointed the way for the development of autonomous construction equipment. If autonomous dump trucks could move without a driver, there was no reason to think that construction operations couldn’t use them to a similar advantage in terms of fuel and time efficiency. The use of such vehicles, controlled remotely by an operator much as drones are, maximizes precision and optimizes equipment utilization, while eliminating the possibility of personal injury to human drivers. From Semiautonomous to Fully...

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Nonresidential Construction Outlook for 2022-2023

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your nonresidential construction bond needs. What is Categorized as Nonresidential Construction? Any construction other than putting up single family or multifamily homes and apartment buildings is considered non-residential construction. Nonresidential construction typically is divided into categories: institutional and commercial construction, specialized industrial construction, and infrastructure and heavy construction. Find out the non-residential construction outlook for 2022-2023 below. Institutional and Commercial Construction Institutional and commercial construction involves building new structures such as the ones listed below and repairing and maintaining existing ones. Institutional project owners tend to be government and nonprofit entities while commercial projects typically are commissioned by private companies. Institutional Religious Hospitals/Clinics Nursing/Assisted Living Libraries/Museums Fire/Police/Courthouse/Prison Military Schools/Colleges Commercial Hotel/Motel Retail Parking Garages Amusement Sports stadiums Office Government Offices Laboratories Warehouse Specialized Industrial Construction This category includes structures requiring a high level of specialized knowledge to design, build and maintain. Specialized industrial projects typically are for-profit corporations, such as chemical companies and utility companies. Oil refineries Chemical plants Power plants (nuclear/hydroelectric) Infrastructure...

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Top Construction Management Software

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. Advantages of Software as a Service For most of its history, construction management software was sold on a licensing basis. Once customers purchased a license, they owned the software and installed it on their own devices. The software could be used only on those devices. Most software today is cloud-based, referred to as software as a service, or SaaS. Customers pay a monthly or annual fee to use it, which allows them to access their data from wherever they happen to be, either through a mobile app or by logging in through a browser. Who Needs Construction Management Software? Arguably, every construction contracting firm needs construction management software. But different contractors may have different needs. Some software packages that are fine for small to mid-size contracting businesses may not be sufficient for larger contractors or for specialty subcontractors. The best approach to selecting an appropriate construction management software solution is to identify the functions and features needed, then determine...

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Greenscape Construction Trends

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. What Is Greenscape Construction? Greenscaping is a type of landscaping architecture that aims to create sustainable landscapes that benefit society and the environment while saving money. Greenscape construction projects range in size from small municipal parks and school campuses to sports plexes, industrial parks, and other spaces comprising hundreds of acres. The project owners may be government entities, commercial enterprises, sports complexes, or institutions such as colleges or medical centers that are making a commitment to environmental stewardship. In many municipalities, they have adopted greenscaping as the primary approach for dealing with condemned buildings and vacant lots, turning such spaces into sustainable greenspaces, including gardens, playgrounds, parks, or sports facilities. In the spirit of environmental stewardship, someone should deconstruct rather than demolish unwanted buildings, making it easier to salvage building materials for reuse. What Does Greenscaping Involve? Greenscaping typically involves preservation of existing ecosystems and incorporates sustainable design elements such as green roofs, stormwater collection systems, rain gardens, irrigation...

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Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) Acts

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bonding needs. What Is the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) Act? The Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing program (RRIF) act was first established as part of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century of 1998, and has been revised several times since then. Most recent changes were the result of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act of 2015. The RRIF program authorizes the Department of Transportation to make direct loans and guarantee loans up to $35 billion for the development of railroad infrastructure. Between 1998 and 2015, RRIF loans totaled only about $2.7 billion, and no loan guarantees were made. Consequently, the FAST Act included a number of changes intended to increase utilization of the RRIF program to improve railroad infrastructure. RRIF financing can be used for a number of railroad infrastructure development purposes, such as buying, improving, and upgrading rail equipment or facilities, developing new intermodal or railroad facilities, refinancing outstanding loans for railroad infrastructure projects, and...

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New $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill in Manufacturing, Construction, and Energy

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bonding needs. Benefits Expected from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act People throughout the country are looking forward with high hopes to realizing the promise of the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in November 2021. With $550 billion earmarked for new spending on a wide range of infrastructure projects over the next few years, the construction industry is predicted to boom, adding millions of good, high-paying jobs in the building trades and related industries. Additionally, the Inflation Reduction Act signed in August 2022 added another $369 billion to the total funds allocated for infrastructure-related projects. The manufacturing sector, in particular, is expected to see substantial benefits from the investment in infrastructure. Not only will the demand for building materials and structural components increase, so will the need for buses, trains, and other vehicles and the parts to build and maintain them. The creation of a nationwide network of electric vehicle charging stations, coupled with legislative actions...

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Trends in Construction: Smart Contracts

Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your bonding needs. Read on to learn more about smart contracts. Several potential benefits are driving the move to replace traditional paper construction contracts with smart contracts. Chief among these benefits are the ability to automate contractor payments and the increased security and transparency derived from the fact that once finalized, a smart contract cannot be altered. What Is a Smart Contract? IBM defines smart contracts (also known as chaincode) as “software that you can use to read and update data on the blockchain ledger. Chaincode can turn business logic into an executable program that is agreed to and verified by all members of the blockchain network.” The business logic related to a construction contract includes what each party to the contract is promising to deliver and the terms and conditions of the contract. Capturing this business logic as code on a blockchain yields substantial benefits in terms of streamlining transaction processing and auditing and eliminates a lot of manual processing and paperwork....

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Understanding the Importance of Year-End Statements for Contractors

In this article, we’ll explain how to understand the importance of year-end statements for contractors. Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. Our expert agents are ready to assist with all your contractor bond needs. What Are Year-End Financial Statements? Every business owner needs to prepare year-end statements for many purposes including tax purposes, bonding capacity, banking requirements, among other reasons.  Some businesses may be looking to attract potential investors, to secure financing for capital purchases, or may need to meet regulatory requirements to put together a CPA statement. A year-end financial statement typically consists of: A balance sheet providing a snapshot of the business’s assets, liabilities, and any stockholder’s equity at a particular point in time A profit & loss statement showing revenues and expenses for the year and the net income after subtracting expenses from revenues A cash flow statement measuring the cash generated by the business  These statements can be generated at any point in time, showing a company’s financial performance during that period. Some companies generate monthly internal financial statements, some report performance on a quarterly basis, and nearly all generate financial statements after closing...

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Green and Sustainable Building Construction Is the Future

The green and sustainable building construction market in the United States was vital and growing before the Covid-19 pandemic. During this, it shrank over 7%. It is now recovering and projected to grow by 9.3% from that low point, reaching $103 billion by 2023. According to many sources, the green and sustainable building construction market is one of the fastest-growing industries worldwide. Surety Bond Professionals is a family owned and operated bonding agency with over 30 years of experience. With access to a broad range of surety markets, our expert agents are ready to assist with all of your construction bond needs. Drivers of the Demand for Green and Sustainable Building Construction The growth of the green and sustainable building construction market in the U.S. is being driven by government regulations and initiatives, private sector green building and sustainability initiatives, and consumer preference for eco-friendly homes and workplaces. Government Regulations and Initiatives As the nation’s largest energy consumer, the federal government has taken the lead in the U.S. effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement. The construction industry accounts for more than a third of the nation’s process-related carbon dioxide emissions, so the logical...

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