Notes from the Trenches (25)

Article source: ConstructConnect

• OxBlue is a company that sells live-feed cameras for construction sites, to monitor worker movements and equipment flows, to guard against theft, and to record daily progress for contractors and owners ‒ sometimes letting the public in on the spectacle as well, by means of an Internet link ‒ as structures take shape.

• With the onset of the coronavirus crisis, many construction projects are being shunted onto sidetracks. Based on algorithms tied to what its cameras are seeing, OxBlue has calculated an index of ongoing construction activity levels across America. Presently, according to OxBlue, the six states with the sharpest declines in onsite work are: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Massachusetts, Washington, New York and Ohio.

• In some ways reminiscent of 2008-2009, but without the legacy pension issues, the motor vehicle sector is trying its best not to veer off the road. Realizing that jobs and incomes are under stress throughout the economy, automakers are offering never-seen-before deals, including zero percent financing for as long as seven years, and an option to postpone first payment for three-to-four months. The value of your vehicle will drop below what you still owe at some point, but that’s a worry for then, not now.

• Insurance companies are also playing the rewards game, promising cash back on premium payments already made, at a time when vehicular traffic is only a fraction of what it once was, thereby reducing the risk of roadway accidents.

• Saying someone’s been around the block once or twice used to suggest they had acquired some experience along the way. Now it simply means that during a half-hour breakaway from indoors isolation, and with the sidewalks and streets so clear, they took the only available course of action still open to them.

Tags: banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, COVID-19, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders

Category: ConstructConnect

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 7th, 2020 at 5:48 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.