ENERGY

ENERGY The Road To 2040:

What’s Fueling Transportation Growth

By Subcontractors USA News Provider

Projections that the global middle class will increase by 1.7 billion people over the next two decades means a lot more energy will be needed in the years ahead to move planes, trains and automobiles.

Specifically, the energy demand of global transport, which includes deliveries of goods and services, should increase by about 25% by 2040, according to ExxonMobil’s Outlook for Energy. And the connection between a larger middle class and the growth in transportation isn’t just about more people commuting to work or finding the time to take a leisurely weekend drive.

Economic opportunity means that more people around the world – especially in developing countries – are able to buy personal vehicles, travel, shop for products delivered from faraway countries and expand their businesses.

As that demand grows, so too do the new technologies that improve energy efficiency.

Vehicles hitting the road can drive more miles on less fuel as auto manufacturers produce cars and light trucks with better fuel economy. Those new vehicles use lighter plastic parts and better lubricants to enable them to travel longer on less.

The International Energy Agency also projects that innovative battery technologies will help power more efficient electric vehicles.

It’s all part of the complex landscape that makes up the daily buzz of transportation fuel consumption. Learn more about the factors driving these future energy demands.

ENERGY Entergy Creates COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund to Help Customers in Need

By Subcontractors USA News Provider

In an effort to help working families experiencing financial hardships as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the Entergy Charitable Foundation has established the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund.

“The health and safety of our customers, employees and communities is Entergy’s top priority,” said Leo Denault, chairman and CEO of Entergy Corporation. “For more than 100 years, Entergy has never wavered in our commitment to supporting our customers and the communities we serve. This pandemic is no different. During this challenging time, we are helping lessen the impact of this crisis on the most vulnerable in our communities. I strongly encourage our business partners to join us in this effort.”

As devastating and disruptive as this crisis is for everyone, we know from past experience that those most heavily impacted are ALICE households (lowwage working families) and low-income elderly and disabled customers – roughly 40%-50% of Entergy’s customer base.

“We know from experience that working families and low-income elderly and disabled customers are hardest hit during times of crisis,” said Patty Riddlebarger, vice president of Entergy’s corporate social responsibility. “We are working quickly to make funds available to community partners that serve vulnerable households to lessen the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis and ensure that families have the resources they need to get by during this time of uncertainty.”

To support our most vulnerable customers, Entergy shareholders are committing $700,000 to the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund to help qualifying customers with basic needs such as food and nutrition, rent and mortgage assistance, and other critical needs until financial situations become more stable. Grants from the fund will be provided to United Way organizations and other nonprofit partners across Entergy’s service area that are providing services to impacted households.

Company shareholders will also match employee contributions to the COVID-19 relief efforts of local United Way organizations up to $100,000 to maximize impact.

In addition to establishing the COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund, Entergy is taking additional steps to support and protect our customers during this crisis, including: • With support from our regulators, we are temporarily suspending customer disconnects as we continue to monitor the situation. • We are working with our network of community advocates to request a funding increase of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program to help alleviate financial hardships caused by COVID-19 on vulnerable households. • We are developing bill payment solutions and tools to help customers pay their accumulated balances once the disconnect moratorium is lifted.

Already in place to support vulnerable customers is Entergy’s The Power to Care program, which provides emergency bill payment assistance to seniors and disabled individuals. To mark the 20th anniversary of Entergy’s low-income customer initiative, the limit of shareholders’ dollar for dollar match of customer donations was increased from $500,000 to $1 million per year. Shareholders continue to match employee donations dollar for dollar with no limit.

Dealing Data Construction in the with Industry

By Subcontractors USA News Provider

The exponential growth of big data has had a profound effect on the heavy building materials industry. Per Techjury, every person this year will generate 1.7 megabytes of data in just a second. In 2019, internet users generate about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day.

In addition:

• Large infrastructure projects are voluminous — requiring an average of 130 million emails, 55 million documents, and 12 million workflows • 95.5 percent of all data captured goes unused • 13 percent of construction teams’ working hours are spent looking for project data and information • 30 percent of engineering and construction (E&C) companies are using applications that don’t integrate with one another

The correct use and analysis of the vast amount of data available to a business has the potential to transform supply chains as we know them, but also the power to disrupt. Without the appropriate tools and expertise to manage large amounts of data, organizations can become overwhelmed and unable to gain valuable insights, causing issues across the supply chain and wider business functions.

While construction is one of the least digitized industries, firms are currently transitioning from paper-based processes to digital workflows. Harnessing the data from these digital processes will result in more valuable insights, better decision making, improvements in efficiencies and business growth.

Need For Proper Tools To Manage Data Need For Proper Tools To Manage Data

This staggering amount of information is hard to manage without the right tools in place. Most companies either simply avoid the issue, or need guidance as they try to sort through their options to properly leverage their data. Getting beyond the big data glut to data-driven decisions requires a fourpronged approach:

1. Get the right talent, tools and processes in place

Big data presents unique challenges for the construction industry. Understanding which data could be useful – and how this data translates into business intelligence – requires a clear understanding of your organization’s overall goals and vision. With clear direction of how you want your data to work for you, your company can extract meaningful insights. But during this period of transition from data glut to data clarity, it’s important to clearly communicate the time frame and rollout process, so you can more easily manage expectations. • Collect and analyze data with an end goal in mind.

Big data can be used to improve performance or processes. But to accomplish these goals, you’ll need personnel who have both worked in the built environment and understand project work but also have critical research and analytical skills. Companies that don’t invest in the right people often experience failures and are slow to realize a return on their investment (ROI). But this important step can help your firm drive performance and generate strategic business insights.

• Move beyond siloed data to data integration.

Like many other industries, construction is notorious for storing data in silos or scattering it across systems, desktops, phones, tables, hard drives, and servers — not to mention cloud locations, other devices, and unstructured data like blueprints, timecards, emails and PDFs. Data integration can be a difficult, but not insurmountable, challenge.

• Leverage internal or external skills to turn data insights into actionable insights.

Data analysis is a highly specialized skill set, and frontline managers and field staff rarely understand how to implement analytical procedures or use analytical tools. Yet to make your data analysis projects effective, you need cultural buy-in. In an industry where 35 percent of total costs can be attributed to waste and remedial work, this approach to using big data in the best possible way just makes sense.

Harnessing Big Data Takes The Right Tools Harnessing Big Data Takes The Right Tools

The E&C industry is making huge strides in harnessing big data to improve business outcomes, gain better visibility into their operations, and streamline their business processes. It’s all done with a little help from better tools and processes: • Data-driven predictive modeling. Some forward-thinking companies are building real-time systems that enable project owners to visualize — and adjust — project design during the early design stages, to speed up the design process, reduce waste and delay, and ensure accurate cost estimates.

• Data capture and usage across the business.

Rather than have construction teams waste hours looking for project data and information — a problem that’s plagued the industry for years — some leading firms are using prefabrication methods, connected jobsites, BIM, virtual reality, wearables, geolocation, and sensors to track employees, equipment and material movement, and further optimize tools, resources and worker productivity. • Better collaboration and efficiency. Given increasing E&C project complexity and growing demand for new E&C projects, industry leaders recognize that collaboration is a key part of achieving project consistency and efficiency across multiple stakeholders. Many firms use big data to create automated workflows between stakeholders on a project and keep all relevant personnel informed with relevant real-time updates.

• Supplier collaboration platform links trading

partners and automates processes. Transactions are executed and information collected to deliver insights with a speed and accuracy that fuels success on the heavy jobsite. The platform business model can gather data from IoT devices, telematics and more, running analytics to inform about a business’ performance. Critical business processes in a company and across its trading partners are automated, whether the processes are for procurement, production, dispatching, selling, tracking or tracing heavy building materials.

Two Ways To Gain Actionable Insights From Two Ways To Gain Actionable Insights

Big Data From Big Data

Good data practices and a solid data strategy will continue to help E&C companies develop and implement sophisticated analytics plans in the years ahead. Companies need to:

1 Take advantage of business intelligence (BI)

tools like dashboards, which store well-defined data in a central location where it can be displayed in a visual format for easier consumption. This enables users to aggregate separate data streams and compare the information within them in a single place and monitor performance in real time.

• Include some level of machine learning (ML) and

artificial intelligence (AI) to help users gain insight from data and make predictions, discover relationships between data points, identify customer or market segments more intelligently, and identify and learn from patterns hiding in large or unwieldy data sets.

Actionable insights from deep analysis of big data from your heavy building materials operations can lead to improved productivity, streamlined operations and lower costs if dealt with properly.

Source: Associated General Contractor

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University of Houston HUB Vendor Fair

The University of Houston HUB held a Vendor Fair recently. This event was an opportunity to meet and ask questions of HUB vendors who provide products and services identified as needed by College Divisions. Thirty-eight vendors were in attendance, providing information on a multitude of commodity and service categories such chemicals, information technology, medical supplies and more.

*Photos taken before social distancing order

CELEBRATING FIVE YEARS OF CONNECTION: HCC’s Small Business Development Program Presents “Access to HCC Procurement Expo”

By Subcontractors USA News Provider

In the contracting world, the days of doing business solely through email are gone, and instead, have been replaced with the necessity to build relationships face to face. Houston Community College’s Small Business Development Program knows the importance, but also the challenge, of getting small businesses in front of those with business to give.

Celebrating its fifth year, HCC’s Access to HCC Procurement Expo is an annual event that brings vendors together and provides them with the opportunity to network with procurement officers and representatives from different departments and programs at HCC, with the objective of doing business together.

“The small business development programs goal is to spend 35% of the College’s dollars with local small businesses,” Veronica Douglas, Manager of the Small

Business Development Program, said.

“Access to HCC plays an instrumental role in the growth and development of our local businesses. This expo was designed to allow businesses the opportunity to network and connect with HCC stakeholders and community partners.”

In addition to HCC departments and programs, outside agencies are also invited to participate as exhibitors.

Some prominent exhibitors of this year’s expo were METRO SBE Program, HISD SBE Program, Fort Bend

ISD SBE Program, FLUOR, City of

Houston OBO and many more. In total, there were 22 community partner and 21 HCC exhibitors.

This year, Access to HCC started off with greetings from HCC’s Sr.

VC Finance & Administration and Chief Financial Officer, Dr. Janet Wormack and Mr. Joseph Gavin, Executive Director of Procurement

*Photos taken before social distancing order

The small business development programs goal is to spend 35% of the College’s dollars with local small businesses. — Veronica Douglas Manager of the Small Business Development Program

Operations. Dr. Wormack and Mr. Gavin encouraged attendees to take advantage of the abundance of opportunities HCC has to offer and vowed to continue supporting the local business community as well as the efforts and initiatives of the small business development program. Attendees then heard from keynote speaker, Ed Robinson, who spoke on

“growing your business and increasing your bottom line”. Following the keynote, happening concurrently were the expo and breakout session on “Responding to an HCC Request for Proposal”, presented by Christopher Burton, CTPM, C.P.M., CPSM, MBA, CPPO, Director of Procurement Operations for HCC. This year’s breakout session focused on the various sections within the RFP document and the importance of completing the sections accurately while still responding in a responsive and responsible manner. Inside the expo hall, attendees networked with HCC departments and community partners to begin establishing their business relationship.

Despite the world being in the midst of a global pandemic, HCC’s Small Business Development Program was able to host one of its most successful events yet, before large gathering restrictions commenced.

“I was terrified at the thought of cancelling,” Douglas said. “However, we were able to pull through with an amazing turnout.” This year we had over 400 people RSVP. Each year this expo cultivates the relationship between HCC, our local small businesses and our community partners.

As for what is to come for the Small Business Development Program until things return to “normal,” Douglas says she will continue building relationships between HCC stakeholders and the local small businesses by developing new platforms that will highlight and market SBE’s to HCC.

“It’s crucial that we support our local small businesses, especially during a time of uncertainty for so many of them,” Douglas said.

Internally, the Small Business Development Program works closely with the Procurement Operations Team to identify the areas where the local small businesses can participate in procurement and contracting opportunities. Those efforts will continue as well as the rollout of new ones, focusing on which efforts will be

most beneficial to our SBE’s.