2011 AGC Building Contractor Year in Review

AGC of America represents approximately 30,000 firms throughout the construction industry, including more than 7,000 general contractors—a majority of whom perform some form of building construction as part of their business. Whether through the AGC Building Division, advocacy, safety and health, environment, labor and workforce, education and training or contract documents…AGC is focused on protecting your interests, helping your business, and improving your industry. The following are some of the major AGC of America activities of the past year on behalf of Building Contractors. Please visit www.agc.org regularly for updated information about AGC activities, products, and services. For information about the AGC Building Division visit www.agc.org/building or contact Mike Stark, Senior Director, Building Division at starkm@agc.org. Legislative Advocacy: Led by the Three Percent Withholding victory, AGC is very active on Capitol Hill and with the Administration representing its members. Read the “Looking Back at 2011, Looking Forward to 2012” article below for details about AGC’s advocacy efforts. AGC IPD & Lean Construction Conference: The AGC IPD and Lean Construction Building Conference was held in September 2011 in San Antonio, Texas with a record attendance of more than 230 participants. Attendees came together to hear from an excellent line-up of industry experts about the impact of Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and Lean Construction on the construction industry and enjoyed numerous networking opportunities. Environmental Advocacy: From National Air Standards to Stormwater Discharge Limits to Lead Paint ‘Clearance’ Testing, AGC of America is engaged in the environmental issues that impact your business. Take a look at AGC’s Environmental Victories and its Environment page for the latest information. AIA-AGC Sustainability and Risk Summit: AGC of America and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) released an executive summary of the industry summit on sustainability and risk the organizations jointly held in 2011. Initiated from a discussion by the AIA-AGC Joint Committee, the summit brought together representatives from various industry stakeholder groups to explore the rapidly shifting legal landscape in the building industry. Click here for more details. Lean Construction: The AGC Lean Construction Forum is focused on both creating a community where those interested in Lean can engage in a dialogue and developing education resources and learning opportunities on the use of Lean principles. In 2011, the Forum led a session at the Annual Convention, hosted a webinar titled “Three Lean Tools to Help Your Company Be More Competitive,” created a Citation Database, and worked to develop much of the content for the IPD and Lean Construction Building Conference held in San Antonio. AGC is also developing a comprehensive Lean Construction Education Program intended to help organizations develop the tools and processes needed to transform their projects and companies using Lean processes. In September, AGC and the Lean Construction Institute agreed to a formal partnership designed to educate the construction community about the lean construction process. Both groups will now be able to work together to create additional resources and learning opportunities for contractors about lean construction. Project Delivery: The AGC Project Delivery Forum works to educate and serve as a construction industry resource for information related to construction project delivery. In 2011, the Forum led a series of excellent sessions at the IPD and Lean Construction Building Conference held in San Antonio. A major initiative was the completion of the Project Delivery Systems for Construction-3rd Edition textbook, which is already one of AGC’s cornerstone resources. Additional project delivery-related activities include completion of the AIA-AGC Primer on Project Delivery-2nd Edition, as well as a collaborative effort on the Airport Owners’ Guide to Project Delivery Systems-2^nd Edition that is nearly complete. The CM At-Risk State-By-State Map was just updated following the annual update to AGC's Construction State Law Matrix™. An AGC task force is working on developing model CM At-Risk legislation that owners could use as a guide in developing or improving their own enabling statutes. The Team Selection Guidelines Task Force just completed development of a workshop intended to train individuals charged with selecting design and construction teams how to do so in a fair and transparent manner. The workshop will be made available soon. Airport Project Delivery Systems Summit: Held in June 2011, the Sixth Annual Airport Project Delivery Systems Summit offered first-hand experiences in delivering airport projects. Sponsored by AGC, the Airports Council International-NA, and the Airport Consultants Council, the goal of these annual summits is improved airport project delivery. Summit topics focused on financing and funding opportunities and pitfalls, effective contracting, responsibilities and risks for project participants and emerging trends in the industry.   Construction Marketing: The AGC Construction Marketing Forum brings together marketing professionals, follows trends and opportunities in the construction market, and tracks the latest techniques and tools of marketing. In 2011, the Forum partnered on two webinars with the Society of Marketing Professional Services (SMPS), led a session at the Annual Convention titled “Moving the Conversation Away from Price,” and is finalizing a business development survey report with FMI that will be released in the first quarter of 2012. Building Information Modeling: AGC is a leader in the promotion of and education of BIM. AGC's efforts are focused through the AGC BIMForum, whose mission is to facilitate and accelerate the adoption of BIM in the AEC industry, and the BIM Education Program BIM Education Program, which is the first of its kind, compressive training program for the BIM process. AGC recently released the Certificate of Management—Building Information Modeling (CM-BIM), an assessment-based certificate credential that denotes knowledge and understanding of concepts related to BIM adoption, practice and process transformation outlined in the AGC BIM Education Program. Successful candidates will carry the CM-BIM designation. Contract Documents: In 2011, ConsensusDOCS released 11 updated and 2 new documents. The Coalition has now grown to 35 members (a 70+% increase since initial publication) and usership and market share have grown to more than 4,000 office locations. In addition to the six educational webinars that covered construction law or particular aspects of the ConsensusDOCS contracts that were offered throughout the year, thousands of people participated in the more than 150 industry conferences and other educational events across the nation involving ConsensusDOCS. ConsensusDOCS expanded its reach with a new agreement that was created with Paskr Project Management software in which purchased ConsensusDOCS documents can be integrated within the Paskr software. Significantly, a beta version of an entirely new technology platform to deliver ConsensusDOCS contracts that will empower users to collaboratively develop, negotiate, and store contracts through the Internet and cloud services has been developed, and will be publically released in the first quarter of 2012. Building Material Newsletter: Delivered to your Inbox on the third Monday of every month, this electronic newsletter provides brief, timely news and information of interest to Building Contractors. Visit Building News for the latest articles.