Masonry Magazine May 1971 Page. 29
Pilferage Plagues Construction Industry
"Building contractors in the $90 billion construction industry are now increasing their bids as much as 8 percent, to offset anticipated losses due to dishonesty," declared Norman Jaspan, president of the international management engineering firm bearing his name, to the Middle Atlantic Wholesalers Association, plumbing and heating supplies, on May 3.
These losses are causing prices to skyrocket and are adversely affecting efforts to revive the economy.
Jaspan observed that the opportunity for dishonesty pervades every aspect of the building industry and takes many forms: falsification of accounting records; padding of payroll; theft of tools, supplies and equipment; kickbacks; sabotage; substituting substandard items; feather-bedding: fictitious invoices for material not delivered and work performed.
Also notoriously prevalent are conflicts of interest, including the revelation of bid prices to competitors; conspiracy on bids, including prearranged change orders; and collusion between the employees of wholesalers and their customers, particularly on over the counter sales and exchanges.
Many craftsmen with full time jobs, are conducting a prosperous business of their own, on company time, using their employer's tools and equipment.
Jaspan further cited instances of a 23 ton payloader, used for excavating and valued at $46,000, spirited away: an air conditioner weighing over 400 pounds, stolen from a job site; a large supply of aluminum windows, stored on the 8th floor of an incompleted high rise apartment house, trucked away as scrap.
Oil burners, plumbing fixtures, cabinets, washers, and driers in warehouses and on construction sites, even furniture displayed in model homes, are being appropriated at an unprecedented rate.
Dishonesty thrives, asserted the consultant, despite extensive use of sophisticated electronic devices, polygraph tests, closed circuit TV and guard saturation. demonstrating that you can't run a business as an armed camp and on fear. Management must face up to the realization that its strategy has been fundamentally deficient and singularly ineffective.
"Right now there is a better than a 50% chance of sizeable dishonesty in any firm and a 75% chance of harmful malpractice" said Jaspan. "Consequently, insurance companies are refusing to cover many industries, or the insured find that the premiums have become prohibitive. Furthermore, recent court decisions have held executives and directors, as well as public accounting firms, responsible for failing to aggressively pursue evidence of dishonesty."
The need for business executives to know what is really going on beneath the surface, emphasized the consultant, is highlighted when his management engineers undertake performance audits, systems surveys and inventory control projects. In more than half of these cases with no prior indication of dishonesty-sizeable losses have been uncovered. "Generally," he emphasized, "fraud in a company is a good barometer of the quality and integrity of its supervisors."
New Construction Block
A new type of concrete construction block with a four-hour fire rating is being placed on the Dade County building market.
The new block exceeds the usual concrete block fire rating by about one and a half hours for withstanding temperatures of 1,600 to 2,000° F.
Monnah Park Block Company representative Tom Frazier explained that while the block will cost a bit more than the standard block, the contractor will be able to eliminate the standard process of plastering over in order to achieve a longer fire resistance.
"In the long run," Frazier said, "this will reduce some of the construction costs."
The new block is different in appearance, too. Cores, or holes in the center of the block, have been filled and the outer walls are thicker. The block weighs around 38 pounds.
George Miller, of the Miami Masonry Guild, lauded the new product as "yet another advance in masonry technology."
Brazil Plant for Case
Construction equipment products will be manufactured by J. I. Case Company in a new facility in Brazil. Establishment of the operation was announced by Richard D. Saunders, senior vice president-International.
Initially, Model 580 Construction King backhoe/loaders, four-wheel-drive rigid-type loaders and skid-steer Uni-Loaders will be built at the plant which is located in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest industrial city. Its products will be sold through J. I. Case do Brasil Comercio e Industria Ltda.
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