معلومــة

By Travis White , Strategy & Operations Advisor, Zweig Group Effective corporate strategy requires defining a direction, fostering collaboration, and leveraging strengths for diversification. At Zweig Group, our goal  as strategic planning consultants  is to ask the right questions to help identify existing strengths that can be leveraged to present new opportunities. In other words, we help to facilitate a plan for strategic growth/diversification. We want to determine how we can grow to further leverage our existing strengths. If your firm works in multiple business domains, this happens through separate corporate and business level strategies. Business level strategies refer to activities a firm undertakes within its specific business units to gain an advantage over competitors in the marketplace. Typically, these take the form of multiple strategies determined by organizational structure. In the AEC industry, these are commonly based on market sector or geography. F...

Reston, Va.  –  ASCE’s newest standard,  Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) for Pultruded Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Structures , ASCE/SEI 74-23, is intended for use in the design of new buildings and other structures constructed of pultruded fiber–reinforced polymer (FRP) composite structural shapes, connections, and prefabricated building products. It addresses pultruded FRP structural shapes that have symmetric and balanced glass reinforcement and fiber architecture combined with a polymeric matrix.    This standard is limited in its applicability to pultruded FRP composite shapes that utilize glass fiber reinforcement. The provisions were developed to apply to buildings and other structures; thus, the scope of the provisions resembles the scope of ASCE 7,  Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures . FRP structural systems, members, and components are corrosion resistant but may be sensitive to cer...

By gaining a true understanding of key demographics and their implications, retailers can create more engaging and holistic shopping experiences BENTONVILLE, Ark.   —  Design best practices from the hospitality sector can help retailers drive traffic, extend dwell times and keep customers coming back for more, said veteran architects and designers from HFA Architecture + Engineering . Bringing more than eight decades of experience to a recent webinar, the veteran hospitality and retail architects and designers stressed the importance of crafting experiences that appeal to core customer segments and demographic groups. “Most stores are now recognizing that different shoppers have different needs. For instance, some stores are reducing noise and bright lighting at certain hours of the day to better cater to shoppers who are highly sensitive to visual and auditory stimuli,” explained HFA Vice President  Bo Ebbrecht  (AIA, NCARB).“Retailers need to be thinking ab...

By Jannet Walker-Ford First, the good news. Trust in infrastructure is generally solid, and rightly so. Designers, engineers and planners have long created modern marvels that withstand the unthinkable and make daily life immeasurably better. The bad news is it might not be enough to sustain trust in today’s era of misinformation, disengagement, and plummeting levels of trust across all aspects of society. It’s an issue we ignore at our peril.  Gallup has recorded near-record lows in public confidence in the majority of institutions it tracks, including big business, unions and newspapers–among the groups that build infrastructure and report on its progress. The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer found that government isn’t trusted, either. What’s more, “a shared media environment has given way to echo chambers, making it harder to collaboratively solve problems.”  Some businesses are addressing these issues head-on, creating strategies to build and sustain trust. Yet, as Ele...

San Antonio, Texas – Alfred Vitela III, PE, has joined planning, engineering and program management firm Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam, Inc. (LAN) as Program Manager. Vitela will support LAN’s program management business, including the building improvements to campuses within the Alamo Colleges District located in San Antonio, Texas. Vitela brings over 15 years of experience in engineering, project management and program management to this role. Vitela has worked as a Senior Mechanical Engineer for UT Health in San Antonio, Texas for the past six years. Before that, Vitela worked as a Project Manager and Mechanical Engineer for Northside Independent School District. His career is distinguished by several notable achievements during his tenure with UT Health including the Excellence Award (2022), Extraordinary Impact Award (2021) and Employee of the Year (2019). Vitela’s responsibilities at LAN will include overseeing various project types ranging from new construction to renovation...

WSP provided project management and design services to Orange County Transportation Authority for a new system, customer service and walk-in center for Interstate 405 motorists. ORANGE, CALIFORNIA  — WSP, a leading engineering and professional services consultancy, collaborated with Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) to provide project management and design services for the 405 Customer Service and Walk-in Center, as well as its systems and operations. OCTA opened the new 20,000 square-foot facility customer service and walk-in center in Costa Mesa late November for motorists traveling on the Interstate 405 (I-405) Express Lanes in Orange County, California. Designed in collaboration with OCTA, the center can support up to 100 employees performing customer service, information technology (IT), finance, management and other operational services. “This facility provides reliable systems and services to create an enhanced experience for toll cus...

PISA, Italy – IDS GeoRadar, part of Hexagon, today announced its latest concrete scanning solutions at World of Concrete in Las Vegas.  IDS GeoRadar, a leading provider of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Interferometric Radar solutions, launched the  C-thrue XS , a handheld, dual polarisation GPR scanner for hassle-free concrete inspection, and  NDT Reveal , an integrated software solution for analysing and managing subsurface data. The new solutions empower construction teams to scan concrete structures efficiently, detect elements deeper beneath the surface, and make informed decisions about where to cut or drill safely. C-thrue XS — flexible scanner for small spaces  Building on the success of the C-thrue, launched in 2018, the smaller C-thrue XS is designed for use in hard-to-reach areas where construction professionals can easily manoeuvre the compact device. Its ergonomic and lightweight design of less than half a kilogram makes the scanning process a mo...