Robots Break New Ground in Construction Industry
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Diversity in Action Published by SBE certified SBE/DBE/MBE Vol 33, Edition 123 Daily Publication March 27, 2018 Robots break new ground in construction industry Bichen Wu, center, and Ed Walker use a laptop to determine what a In this photo taken Jan. 26, 2018, Mike Moy, an assistant plant autonomous bulldozer is seeing at Built Robotics Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018, manager for Lehigh Hanson Cement Group, inspects a Kespry drone in San Francisco. Backed by Silicon Valley money, tech startups are developing he uses to survey inventories of rock, sand and other building self-driving bulldozers, drones to inspect work sites and robot bricklayers that materials at a mining plant in Sunol, California. (AP Photo/Terry Chea) can lay bricks faster than human and work without lunch breaks. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) By Terence Chea, struggling to find enough skilled workers SBE OUTREACH SERVICES As a teenager working for his dad’s construc- while facing a backlog of building projects. tion business, Noah Ready-Campbell dreamed “We need all of the robots we can get, plus With 1.5 million businesses in our database, SBE is that robots could take over the dirty, tedious all of the workers working, in order to have California’s #1 source for diversity outreach. parts of his job, such as digging and leveling economic growth,” said Michael Chui, a part- Advertisements soil for building projects. ner at McKinsey Global Institute in San Fran- Placed in the Small Business Exchange newspaper, Now the former Google engineer is turning cisco. “As machines do some of the work that SBE Today newsletter, and online at www.sbeinc.com that dream into a reality with Built Robotics, a people used to do, the people have to migrate Faxed and Eblast Solicitations startup that’s developing technology to allow and transition to other forms of work, which Targeted mailings sent to businesses per your means lots of retraining.” bulldozers, excavators and other construction criteria. vehicles to operate themselves. Workers at Berich Masonry in Englewood, Telemarketing “The idea behind Built Robotics is to use au- Colorado, recently spent several weeks learn- Telephone follow-up calls that follow a script of tomation technology make construction safer, ing how to operate a bricklaying robot known as 5 questions you create. faster and cheaper,” said Ready-Campbell, SAM. That’s short for Semi-Automated Mason, Computer Generated Reports a $400,000 machine which is made by Victor, standing in a dirt lot where a small bulldozer Will fit right into your proposal, along with a list of New York-based Construction Robotics. moved mounds of earth without a human op- interested firms to contact. erator. The machine can lay about 3,000 bricks in an Contact Info: The San Francisco startup is part of a wave of eight-hour shift - several times more than a 795 Folsom Street, 1st Flr, Room 1124 automation that’s transforming the construc- mason working by hand. San Francisco, CA 94107 tion industry, which has lagged behind other SAM’s mechanical arm picked up bricks, cov- sectors in technological innovation. ered them with mortar and carefully placed Email: [email protected] them to form the outside wall of a new elemen- Website: www.sbeinc.com Backed by venture capital, tech startups are Phone: (415) 778-6250, (800) 800-8534 developing robots, drones, software and other tary school. Working on a scaffold, workers Fax: (415) 778-6255 technologies to help the construction industry loaded the machine with bricks and scraped off excess mortar left behind by the robot. to boost speed, safety and productivity. Publisher of Autonomous machines are changing the na- Small Business Exchange ture of construction work in an industry that’s g Continued on page 2 weekly newspaper 2 SBE TODAY E-NEWSLETTER WWW.SBEINC.COM MARCH 27, 2018 Public Legal Notices UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Construction Co., Inc., Irvine, CA 92618, (949) genetic information; marital status; gender iden- MEDICAL CENTER 453-8300. tity; pregnancy; service in the uniformed services; ANNOUNCEMENT TO or citizenship within the limits imposed by law or License Requirement: Current and active “B” University’s policy. PREQUALIFIED BIDDERS General Contractor CA contractor’s license. The work described in the contract is a public work UC Irvine invites sealed bids for a lump sum con- Bid Submittal Requirements: Sealed Bids due tract for the University of California, Irvine subject to section 1771 of the California Labor 2:00 pm, Monday, April 23, 2018 at: UCIMC Code. Medical Center (UCIMC) B1A, 1st Floor, ED Planning Administration, Building 27, Room 136, Renovations – Increment 2 project at UC Irvine UCI Medical Center, 101 The City Drive South, No contractor or subcontractor, regardless of tier, Medical Center in Orange, CA. Orange, CA 92868. Bids will be opened at: 2:05 may be listed on a Bid for, or engage in the perfor- Description of Work: This project will build out pm, Monday, April 23, 2018, Building 27, Room mance of, any portion of this project, unless regis- the enclosed abandoned north ambulance canopy 134, UCI Medical Center. Contract will be awarded tered with the Department of Industrial Relations to provide the ED Department with a new staff to lowest responsive bidder. pursuant to Labor Code section 1725.5 and 1771.1. lounge, restrooms and showers, storage, (7) exam Mandatory Pre-Bid Conference: Friday, April 6, This project is subject to compliance monitoring bays, (1) airborne infection isolation exam room 2018, Pre-Bid Conference and Site Visit promptly and enforcement by the Department of Industrial and a patient toilet. Work includes interior demo- at 9:00 am at UCIMC Building 27, Conf. Room Relations. lition, structural framing, MEP, fire suppression, 116, 101 The City Dr. South, Orange, CA 92868. finishes and equipment installation. ONLY prequalified bidders attending can submit The successful Bidder shall pay all persons provid- Bids. ing construction services and/or any labor on site, Project completion time: 280 calendar days including any University location, no less than Estimated Cost: $1,700,000 Required Bid Security: 10% bid security. Surety the UC Fair Wage (defined as $13 per hour as of issuing bid bond shall be an admitted surety insur- 10/1/15, $14 per hour as of 10/1/16, and $15 per Bid Documents available from UCIMC Planning er (as defined in the CA Code of Civil Procedure hour as of 10/1/17) and shall comply with all ap- Administration at 2 pm on Thursday, March 29, Section 995.120) at bid deadline. plicable federal, state and local working condition 2018. requirements. Additional Requirements: Successful Contractor Prequalified Bidders: 2H Construction, Inc., and subs must follow nondiscrimination require- Contact Elita Dao at (714) 456-8842, ecjohnso@ Signal Hill, CA, (562) 424-5567; C.A. Granger ments in Bid Docs and pay prevailing wages at uci.edu or Kim Kerwin at (714) 456-5735, khau@ Construction, Inc., Orange, CA 92868, (714) 744- location of Work. uci.edu 1626, De La Secura, Inc., dba DLS Builders, Orange, CA, (714) 998-3790; Kemp Bros. Con- Every effort will be made to ensure that all persons For other opportunities, http://www.ucirvine- struction, Inc., Santa Fe Springs, CA (562) 236- shall have equal access to contracts and other busi- health.org/planning-administration 5000; Kitchell Contractors, Inc., San Diego, CA ness opportunities with the University, regardless of: race; color; religion; sex; age; ancestry; na- THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALI- 92121, (858) 947-5144, KPRS Construction Ser- FORNIA University of California, Irvine Medical vices, Inc., Brea, CA, (714) 672-0800 and Layton tional origin; sexual orientation; physical or men- tal disability; veteran’s status; medical condition; Center Robots break new ground in construction industry g Continued from page 1 “To get qualified people to handle a loader or a lot of the industrial work that’s being accom- haul truck or even run a plant, they’re hard to plished today.” The goal, said company president Todd Berich, find right now,” said Mike Moy, a mining plant is to use technology to take on more work and At Built Robotics, Ready-Campbell, the com- manager at Lehigh Hanson. “Nobody wants keep his existing customers happy. “Right now pany’s founder and CEO, envisions the future to get their hands dirty anymore. They want a I have to tell them ‘no’ because we’re at capac- of construction work as a partnership between nice, clean job in an office.” ity,” he said. humans and smart machines. At his company’s mining plant in Sunol, Cali- Bricklayer Michael Walsh says the robot less- “The robots basically do the 80 percent of the fornia, Moy is saving time and money by using ens the load on his body, but he doesn’t think work, which is more repetitive, more danger- a drone to measure the giant piles of rock and it will take his job. “It ain’t going to replace ous, more monotonous,” he said. “And then the sand his company sells for construction. people,” Walsh said. operator does the more skilled work, where you The autonomous quadcopter can survey the en- really need a lot of finesse and experience.” The International Union of Bricklayers and Al- tire 90-acre site in 25 minutes. Previously, the lied Craftworkers isn’t too concerned that ro- Built Robotics recently used its automated bull- company hired a contractor who would take a bots will displace its members anytime soon, dozer - retrofitted with sensors and autonomous whole day to measure the piles with a truck- according to policy director Brian Kennedy. driving technology - to grade the earth on a mounted laser.