Belt Auction

How to understand Construction Business?

I just started working in the office at a construction company. I am totally confused on how it all works. The bidding, the estimating, the forms, permits, even the work itself. I don't understand it at all. It would make my job alot easier if I knew how it all works. Can anyone explain the business to me so that I will understand better? I would appreciate it so much!!

Public Comments

1. I feel for you. I was recently laid off from my administrative assistant position for an HVAC contractor in the Houston, TX area. At this company the bidding and estimating were handled by the designers/draftsmen or the supervisor, not secretarial staff. My responsibilities: Greeting visitors Counter sales Answering phones Creating all company forms that didn't require carbon copies...vacation requests, inspection check off sheets, etc. -- City permits -- That's quite a load all by itself LOL I dealt with Houston and the entire metro area. Before ANY work can be done on a jobsite within city limits a permit must be purchased. And before a permit can be purchased your employer will have to be registered to work within the city. My suggestions for handling all this: 1) Keep everything VERY organized. If you don't it will be 100% chaos. Develop your own filing system if you have to. a) File permits by inspection type and keep new permits in their own folder. b) Keep a copy of the permit application on file until you receive the hardcopy. c) File all permits that have inspections that need scheduling during the current week into a "Current to be scheduled" file and then a "Pending" file for those that have been scheduled. If it fails put it in a "failed inspection" folder. If it passes put in the folder for that inspection type. 2) To figure out whether or not a job was in city limits use the city's GIS map on the internet if available. If not use Mapquest, Key Map, or call city hall. If your employer doesn't use Key Map they might use something similar. My employer had Key Maps in a wall map version and a version in a loose leaf binder carried by all personnel who worked in the field. Key Map website for info: http://www.keymaps.com/ 3) Relay all code enforcement questions to the city's senior inspector. Take good notes so if the same question comes up again you won't have to call the city about it. 4) Add contact information of the permit clerk for each city to your Outlook contacts, even if its just a phone number. 5) Use whatever means you have available to keep track of ordering permits and scheduling upcoming inspections...Outlook calendar, in-house software, Excel, etc. This is of absolute importance. If you fall behind on any of this it causes delays for all contractors on the jobsite. 6) Don't let ANYONE remove anything from the permit files. If a permit is misplaced or lost it will be difficult or impossible to order inspections. When someone needs to see a permit, give them a copy NOT the original. 7) Scan all new permits into a pdf if possible so #6 above won't be much of an issue. 8) Use a separate sheet of paper attached to the back of the permit to list the inspections: date you scheduled it, inspection type, confirmation number, results, and inspector comments. I suggest doing it this way because most cities do not leave room to do this on the permit itself. My other responsibilities: Assisting the scheduler in his work when he was too busy. ...and because I was the company's "computer geek" I provided software and hardware support to both my office location and corporate headquarters, programmed upgrades for the in-house created software, and created new software as requested by my bosses. The programming part of the job was learned on the job...didn't know the language at all when they hired me.