I spent almost 10 months working with two energy companies (Engie & Ecosystem Energy) that primarily work with Ohio State on their heating, cooling, steam, systems and power plants.
Here are my takeaways after working in the companies primarily in the construction industry:
- Construction in the USA is expensive: I primarily worked in mechanical rooms across my college campus mostly working on energy conservation measures by changing the building systems from steam to heating and cooling water systems. Even a tiny project that involved demolishing existing pipes, replacing them with new ones, installing a couple of valves, and running conduits in a lecture hall cost upwards of $400K. Ohio State’s Chiller Plant which supplies cooling during the summer, costs over $22M to construct the base only, with many more installations and operations costs adding up. Ecosystem has been very open about its entire financials, and looking at them showed me that high costs are the norm and multimillion project backlogs are common.
- Profit Margins suck in construction: While we deal with ridiculous costs associated with construction, you might think profits must be through the roof. Well, you’re wrong. Revenues from projects equal 10-15% of the project size, and a really good company has profit margins of at most 6% of revenue. More than 90% of construction across the US goes over budget or beyond schedule. While the additional costs and time are pretty minor the majority of the time, this just shows how lean it is to operate in the construction industry.
- Plenty of women in STEM, very few in construction: Being at Ohio State, I see a ton of women getting their STEM degrees, and this number only seems to be getting higher. But there seems to be a huge disparity within the industry. Focusing on engineering itself, most of my female friends are Computer Science majors with less than 5 in other majors. While CS provides a huge advantage in both pay and work experience, I think construction just does a terrible job of marketing itself. Only 14% of people working in construction are women. By construction, I don’t mean only mean welding and installation, there are so many other jobs within the industry (designers, project engineers, consultants, etc.) that get overlooked. At Ecosystem, we have over 200 employees across offices but with very few women, and with over 100+ contractors we have worked with, I came across one woman. However, our CEO is a woman and is probably one of the smartest people I’ve met. Construction must do a better job at marketing themselves and getting more women into the industry.
- Union employees and their work ethic: Every pipe-fitter, electrician, and foreman I have worked with has the greatest work ethic ever. I have seen several mechanical contractors coming in from the Kentucky border to Columbus, Ohio every morning. This is a 2-hour drive each way, meaning they are up by 3:30 AM and on-site by 7 AM. There is often more work in a metropolitan city and plenty of workers willing to make the travel. Absolutely respect the hustle.
- Opportunity for innovation in construction: The biggest challenge in building software or products for construction, is that it is so diverse, it is hard to find a ‘one model fits all’.
- Plans & Layout Management: While I see the advantage of companies using OneDrive because of the Microsoft convenience, it is an absolute hassle to go through the files to search up for a diagram. There has to be a better alternative only to find layouts and plans.
- Innovation in Safety: Analysis of worksites, VR safety guides, and advanced threat detection systems would be a game-changer for the safety within construction and OSHA would be very happy to hear this.
- Advanced 3D Printing: As we move into a new world of manufacturing, we are soon going to see 3D-printed products in every aspect of our lives, primarily construction. Metal 3D printing, once becoming advanced is going to be used to design and manufacture a ton of custom fixtures for various problems in different industries.