The Ontario Construction Report – May 2009 – PAGE OCR B3
The President’s Panel: Industry leaders’ perspectives
“Look at a $25 or $30 their value to bid. “For a result of BIM (Building In- who will have to discover a
STAFF WRITER – The OCR Construction Report Special Feature
million, or an $80 million $200 million project, you formation Modelling). “I niche or specialize if they
Leaders of four general your key subtrades can project,” he said. “(The peo- are looking at two million see this causing more design are to remain in business.
contractors, representing make you look good, or ple in charge of the project) just to put it together.” build arrangements – we He said the common
different regions and busi- make you look bad; they can are literally running a small DeCaria says bundling have to create ourselves a business model in past years
ness sizes, offered their per- be your friends or your ene- business. They have staff, might on the surface be ra- little to prepare for that.” has been built on growth,
spectives of the industry and mies,” Burnside said. “Rep- they can deal with the tional for 3P projects, but the Dolyn also said issues and maybe this needs to
their business at the OGCA utation is very important. It owner, architect, trade con- practice cuts out middle-size like LEED, Green Build- change to focus on maintain-
Symposium, with a common travels around and can be tractors, and the building de- contractors and reduces the ings, and possibly self-suffi- ing and stability.
theme and perspective: Re- spun against you.” partment. Look at the competitive pool. “This cient buildings generating “I think the growth
lationships and communica- Meanwhile, Matt Ainley, people skills you have and isn’t just impacting us,” he their own power, will create we’ve enjoyed will slow
tion between employees, executive vice president of they are phenomenal.” said. “It’s impacting archi- both challenges and oppor- down,” Ainley said. “It
clients and subtrades is cru- Vanbots, recently acquired The panelists suggested tects and subtrades.” Cer- tunities for general contrac- won’t be as it has been for
cial for success as a general by Carillion Construction, the industry will evolve with tainly, smaller contractors tors in the future. the past 25 years. I think it
contractor. said as he rose through the increasing challenges for and professional services Matt Ainley at Vanbots is going to be very differ-
“Some partners are more ranks to lead the $600 mil- middle-sized contractors as can co-ordinate resources in said he sees the evolution of ent.”
difficult to work with than lion annual volume busi- projects are bundled and joint ventures, but the com- 3P will put pressure on mid-
others, and some are next to ness, he learned how complex financial require- plexity and cost of setting dle-size general contractors,
impossible,” said Tom important relations and peo- ments need to be met for these up may be prohibitive
Kemp, president of James ple are to the business. new large-scale 3P projects. to many industry partici-
Kemp Construction Ltd. in “The biggest thing I “They are breathtakingly ex- pants.
Hamilton. “Your ability to learned is how to delegate, pensive to bid,” said Ainley Looking to the future,
form partnerships with the to trust people. You can’t of Vanbots. DeCaria from Doug Burnside of Dolyn
people you work for and work and be on the issues all Eastern Construction Com- Developments said that he
particularly to work through the time. You need to start pany Ltd. said 3P projects sees project delivery meth-
their problems will be the to build systems.” cost one to 1.5 per cent of ods are going to change as a
key to your success.”
Meanwhile, Frank De-
Caria, president of Eastern
Construction Company Ltd.
in Toronto, said he learned
through his experience on
site – before he moved into
the office and ultimately be-
came the company’s presi-
dent – that success in the
business “comes down to re-
lationships and working
with people.” He cited the
example of when his com-
pany had the task of adding
the third level to Bayshore
Shopping Centre in Ottawa,
while the centre remained
open for business. Schedul-
ing had to be co-ordinated
with tenants, trades, and the
mall owner, and he needed
to find creative solutions to
keep everyone happy.
Doug Burnside of Dolyn
Developments Ltd. in Ot-
tawa, said he has faced chal-
lenges in trusting people and
making mistakes. In one
case, he worked with an es-
timator who asked for more
responsibility. Following
the motto and advice of
“working on the business
not in it” Burnside gave the
estimator responsibility for
the project, asking for
monthly progress reports.
They never arrived on
schedule. Finally, when he
intervened and retook con-
trol of the project, he discov-
ered the ill-fated employee
had “lost so far on the proj-
ect.”
“For subtrades, it’s im-
portant that you (know) that
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