PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE This Is Gonna Be Big! E verything seems to be getting bigger these days — bigger machines, bigger projects, bigger contracts! Exciting for sure because there can be bigger opportunities. But bigger also brings more complexity, bigger risks and higher stakes. How do we navigate ourselves, our companies and our DFI organization through a bigger world? Maybe worth a thoughtful reflection. Our recent conferences have even been bigger, and the central theme of our recent joint DFI-EFFC International Conference in Rome was “Megaprojects.” If you were not able to attend, I hope you get a chance to review some of the papers and projects that were described (see page 23). It reminded me that the challenges of today’s large, complex projects in dense urban environments require us all to think of the “Big Picture,” beyond our own particular role. There were some great lessons about dealing effectively with constraints, risks and expectations. If you get a chance, locate the panel discussion on risks from the Rome Conference that was broadcast and recorded as a webinar (available on DFI’s YouTube Channel), which includes owners’ representatives from several major projects and large organizations. We can’t work in a vacuum these days, and we need to develop skills to be able to communicate effectively and contribute to the collaborative team effort needed to make these complex projects (and ourselves) successful. Lots of DFI committee and task force activities reflect this environment. For example, the Working Platforms Industry- Wide Working Group reflects the need for all parties to collaborate to ensure that the subcontractor has a safe and stable environment for our “big” machines. The newly-published EFFC-DFI Guide to Tremie Concrete for Deep Foundations from the joint EFFC-DFI Concrete Task Group can help educate all members of the team about the special requirements for success in this part of the work. The initiative on risk can help facilitate a better recognition of subsurface risks so that risks can be assessed intel- ligently, mitigated more effectively and allocated appropriately to the parties best able to manage them. The enormous (big!) amount of information technology (IT) that can be generated these days can be overwhelming, including construction records, per- formance data, measurements nearby the site and on critical structures, etc. IT is transforming the way that project data are collected and reviewed so that better Dan Brown, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE. President [email protected] informed decisions can be made in a timely manner. The new DFI committees on Building Information Modeling (BIM)/ Digitalisation and Project Information Management Systems reflect the need of our members and industry to be informed of and involved in the changing ways that information can be managed. Certainly, DFI is working to help our members be informed and engaged in the evolution of our industry. Through our publications and by attending our conferences, we can learn from experiences on a similar project or ground condition, or from a new technology that was imple- mented in a related field. Whether from a project nearby or half way around the world, you may hear about it at a DFI meeting. Probably even more important is the interactions with colleagues; and there is no better way for that to happen than via participation in a technical committee, task force or other DFI activity. Let’s go BIG! P.S. It was great to do a little sightseeing in Rome: wow, the Coliseum (Big!), and all the infrastructure that was planned and built thousands of years ago (Really Big!). Those ancient Romans really thought big and executed big (in more ways than one). DEEP FOUNDATIONS • JULY/AUG 2018 • 7
