Enhancing financial success among electrical contractors
This paper provides electrical contractors with significant information related to enhancing company financial performance. The methodology involves understanding the determinants of contractor financial success through: (1) an extensive literature review; (2) collection of financial- and management-related data from electrical contractors; and (3) analysis of data to identify management trends that are more prevalent in profitable firms. Ninety-six usable responses were collected from small, medium, and larger electrical contracting companies. General trends reveal that more profitable firms place greater emphasis in the areas of certain management initiatives (higher lines of credit and supporting continuing education), marketing initiatives (involvement in formal alliances and partnering), and technology initiatives related to spending more capital resources on computers and software. Significant differences are revealed with financial ratios as well. A Financial Success Scorecard is created for firms to compare their management inputs to those of successful firms. Findings from this study could provide helpful guidelines for nonelectrical contracting firms. Recommendations for achieving future financial success are also provided.
Predictive modeling of prefabrication feasibility for the United States electrical contracting firms
Electrical contractors have promoted offsite prefabrication after experiencing its potential in improving their operations. However, prefabrication is not a one solution that fits all. Accordingly, there is a need to develop better understanding of prefabrication feasibility for electrical contractors by analyzing its operational requirements and surrounding industry factors. The objective of this paper is to identify and model the determinants of electrical contractors’ prefabrication feasibility within the U.S. industry context, which can be used to predict the viability of prefabrication as a production approach for individual electrical contracting firms. The methodology of this study included four main phases. First, a qualitative analysis was performed to initially understand current prefabrication operations and practices of electrical contractors through a set of semi-structured interviews, site visits of prefabrication facilities, and prefabrication case studies. Second, a quantitative data collection task was performed by: 1) acquiring the internal business variables of a sample of electrical contractors using an online questionnaire; 2) complementing the questionnaire data with location-based economic data to represent external industryrelated variables. Third, the collected data was used to develop and validate a binary logistic regression model that relates the prefabrication feasibility to its significant determinants. Fourth, a sensitivity analysis was performed for the developed model to provide a larger understanding of electrical construction prefabrication feasibility beyond the collected data. The developed predictive model provides useful insights about prefabrication feasibility dependency on union relations, labor conditions, market competition, supply chain relations, and building information modeling.
Managing to survive
Every decade produces fresh challenges for the manager - and the 1990s look set to produce more difficult challenges than most. Sir John Harvey-Jones, who steered ICI through some of its toughest years, here isolates the areas which managers will have to confront in the '90s.