Study Plane
Project description
Answer the questions which are on the 3rd page
“OLD UNE FOREMAN” CASE STUDY
The Petry Construction Company was a well-established commercial building and light manu-facturing contractor in a mid-western city. One division of the company specialized in high rise office buildings, hotels, hospitals, and institu-tional buildings. The second division built light manufacturing facilities. The company’s annual volume steadily increased since it was founded in the spring of 1948. Approx-imately $25 million in general construction con-trans were underway at the beginning of 1978. Even though this was a union company, there was considerable loyalty to the firm, and espe-cially to the two principals, Sam and Ted Baxter. Some of the superintendents and foremen have been with the firm for 20 years or more. One par-ticular carpenter foreman, Bob Smith (Smitty) had been with the firm from the beginning. He served his apprenticeship under Sam Baxter and joined the firm when it was founded.
Sam Baxter was initially responsible for field operations, but some of these duties have been delegated to home office project managers and field project superintendents. However, he loved the field operations and continued to spend much of his time on sites working with the field superintendents. He particularly enjoyed being on a 30-story of-fice bui!ding where his son, Jack, a Civil Engi-neering Construction Management graduate, was the project manager. The structure of this project was nearly complete and the precast curtain walls were being erected to enclose the building before the bad weather set in. On o’e. particular day, Sam, Sam’s son, Jack, r–red Mi •er, the superintendent, and Smitty were discussing the formwork requirements for retain-ing walls along the north section of the site. Smitty in ct-arge of all the framework on the project, so the superintendent left the group to supervise a pour on the 29th floor. Srnitty gathered his crew around the drawings and formwork calculations prepared by Jack Baxter.
Jack had spent two days calculating the loads and designing the formwork for the 22′ high and • 18″ thick wall. He paged through the calculations when Sam Baxter stopped him: “Smitty, how would you erect the formwork?” “What spacing is necessary?” In front of the entire crew, owner of the firm, ‘and project manager, Smitty started figuring on a piece of paper. Within a few minutes he indicated plywood thickness, stud size and spacing, wall size and spacing, and tie strength and spacing. He beamed with pride when his figures were nearly the same as Jack Baxter’s design. Smitty had an uncanny ability to erect formwork safely and meet the estimated costs.
Sam Baxter said, “Smitty, what are you waiting for, get that crew going. By the way, I just could not resist showing my son how sharp my best formwork foreman is.” Obviously, the crew was impressed by Smitty’s ability. However, they re-spected Smitty even more for his willingness to grab his tools and work along side them when they were rushed to get ready for a pour. in fact, Smitty was frequently as physically exhausted as the crew at the end of the day. It was a few weeks later when Sam Baxter visited the job again. He came to congratulate Smitty on his 52nd birthday and 30 years with the firm. They reminisced about the tough times, difficult jobs, and what they had accomplished. Sam Baxter dis-cussed their new contract for a 40-story hotel, the largest in the city. It would be coming out of the ground in the worst weather, but the owner still wanted to get started as soon as possible. Smitty was itching to get to the new project as soon as miscellaneous items were finished on the current project. “Who’s your best lead hand?” Sam Baxter asked. “I’ll make him the foreman and he can take most of your crew. I want to promote you to Assistant Superintendent and raise your salary in recogni-tion of your many years of service. You can com-plete the miscellaneous concrete work in the
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