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The Real Estate Roundtable’s Second Quarter 2012 Sentiment Index, which surveys real estate executives, indicated that “market conditions have improved since a year ago, but signaled a lack of confidence in the outlook for the coming year, citing global economic risks, doubts about Washington’s ability to deal with looming budget and tax issues, ongoing Euro zone turmoil, and the vast amount of commercial mortgages maturing in 2012 and beyond.”

Lean is a philosophy and tool set that is as important to trade partners as it is for general contractors.  This webinar - hosted on July 17, 2012, at 2pm ET - looks at the Lean journey for TDIndustries over the past 17 years.  Reflecting on how TD's vision for Lean has changed, the presentation will explore Lean as it is applied in a pre-fab shop and at the project site.  This includes the 5 areas of focus: 5S, Pull Planning, Constraint Analysis, 6 Week Planning, and Essential Conversations.  At the conclusion, speaker Tim McNew will provide some insight into the challenges faced and what is next for TD.

�۽�ֱ�� of America and FMI recently released the �۽�ֱ��-FMI 2012 Business Development Survey report.  The two organizations surveyed both general and specialty contractors in Fall 2011 to better understand how these firms utilize business development within their companies and throughout their business.  There were a total of 305 responses to the survey.  The result is a 28 page report that provides valuable insight on business development trends and practices throughout the construction industry.  The report is free and can be accessed by clicking here.

Doing public work for federal, state and local agencies has become riskier and more challenging each year. Even small mistakes made while working to meet complex requirements can have enormous consequences. Only contractors working for federal agencies are required by law to implement an ethics and compliance program, but all government contractors are at risk of costly suspension or debarment if violations occur, and all contractors have a reputation to protect.

To develop the tools needed to build lean, �۽�ֱ�� has developed the Lean Construction Education Program. Construction professionals at all experience levels will learn the building blocks necessary to transform their projects and companies into a lean operating system.

The 2012 �۽�ֱ�� Building Contractors Conference will be held September 12-15, 2012 at the Charleston Place Hotel in Charleston, SC.  The theme for this year is "Make Your Firm a Top Performer: Learn the Industry's Best Practices for Success."  More information will be made available soon.  Contact Mike Stark at starkm@agc.org with any questions.

The 3rd Annual LEAN Construction Summit, jointly presented by CURT, �۽�ֱ�� of America, LCI and AIA, is set to take place June 13th at the Ameristar Casino in St. Louis, MO. This year’s Summit, Optimizing the Project, Not the Pieces, will offer attendees the opportunity to explore why and how owners are implementing LEAN construction principles to improve the delivery of their capital projects.

There is a better way to build, and ConsensusDocs is transforming contractual negotiations in the design and construction industry with the launch of a new open and collaborative technology platform. Technology has long been harnessed to improve safety, efficiency and quality in construction – now ConsensusDocs has utilized the advantages of technology to simplify project cooperation for improved and expedited contract negotiations that will speed the time to construction and fairly allocate risk, while reducing costly contingencies and adversarial negotiations. 

The Architecture Billings Index, a leading indicator of U.S. construction activity nine to 12 months into the future, fell 2 points to 48.4 in April. Any reading above 50 is said to indicate expansion, while any reading below 50 is said to indicate a decline in the demand for design services. This drop into negative terrain came after 5 consecutive months of positive readings. According to AIA chief economist Kermit Baker, the decline in demand for design services isn’t too surprising, considering the overall volatility of current economic conditions and a slow recovery.

In a recent study conducted by McGraw-Hill, 46% of organizations surveyed report using BIM on their infrastructure projects, up from only 27% two years prior. Furthermore, McGraw-Hill’s report concludes that once these organizations adopt BIM, level of use rises rapidly, with more than half of the organizations currently using BIM expected to be using it on more than 50 percent of their infrastructure projects by 2014.