Industrial & Manufacturing Blog
If you are the manager of a small town, you likely have limited resources to take care of all your community's needs. When you have to put up a civil structure such as a bridge, things can be especially taxing. To help you figure out the most effective ways to manage your project, take a look at these ideas:
1. See If You Can Cover the Cost With Highway Funds
Generally, counties, parishes or land districts receive money from the state government to maintain highways. However, as you know, these communities are charged with maintaining their own local roads. To get funding from the state, you may want to argue that your bridge is critical for highway traffic and try to get those funds to cover it.
2. Apply for Grants
If the above argument doesn't work, there may be grants or other blocks of money that you can access. Consider applying for as many of those funding opportunities as possible. To increase your chances, you may even want to work with a professional.
The right consultant can help research funds for civil structures and write compelling grant proposals.
3. Pool Money With Nearby Communities
Are the citizens of nearby communities going to be using the bridge? Are there strata, a homeowner's association or another private group whose members are going to be more reliant on the bridge than other people in town? If so, you may want to find ways to get those individuals involved in funding the project.
Depending on the structure of other municipalities or organisations, they may be able to pool resources with you or make donations to the project.
4. Hold a Fundraiser
In addition to applying for grants, you may host a fundraiser. You could ask community members for donations and auction them off. You could buy a bunch of flour, make crepes and get volunteers to sell them. There are a lot of fundraising ideas that could help your community to raise the money it needs for the bridge.
5. Accept Bids From Multiple Companies
Once you have some or most of the money for your project, you should start taking bids from companies that build civil structures. Consider throwing your net over a wide area and asking for companies in remote locations to submit bids.
Although they have to set up a worker's camp, they may still be able to offer lower bids. Getting as many bids as possible from various companies that design and build civil structures can help to drive down costs.
Share19 August 2017
Factories are amongst our most underrated buildings, but they not only have a style and design sense all of their own--they also hold important clues to the history of the areas they're in, and each one can tell a fascinating story. In this blog I'll be highlighting some of my favourite factories around the world to discuss their architecture, what they produce, their history and what they tell us about their local areas and communities. I'll also be getting into the nitty-gritty from time to time, as it turns out that the inside world of industry is more riveting than you might imagine!