For more information, contact:
Jo Ann Nortley, Managing Director
Construction Innovation Forum
734/995-1855 Fax: 734/995-5002
E-mail: info@cif.org, www.cif.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2000
CONSTRUCTION INNOVATION FORUM PRESENTS 2000 NOVA AWARDS
ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 16, 2000 - The Construction Innovation Forum (CIF) honored five construction innovations tonight with the organization's prestigious NOVA award that honors contributions to quality, cost-effectiveness, and productivity in construction.
The Ann Arbor-based CIF has presented the NOVA awards each year since 1990 to truly new and innovative construction processes, techniques, products or services. Twenty-seven nominations were received this year from around the world for the coveted NOVA Award. Of six finalists, five were selected by a jury of experts to receive this year's honor. Approximately 500 construction industry leaders attended the awards banquet - the InNOVAtion Celebration - March 16 at the Laurel Manor in Livonia.
"Some people think that those who work directly with the tools cannot be innovative, that improvements in productivity must come from businessmen and engineers, or that you need a bank of computers and have a couple of million dollars for research and development," said keynote speaker Charles W. Jones." Jones is International President of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, Kansas City, Kan., which sponsored the NOVA awards banquet.
"But that is not always the case," Jones continued. "Innovation results whenever a person or a group of people see the need for change and are willing to do the hard work necessary to bring it about
Garnering the NOVA Awards this year were:
- Rapid Deployment Crane Barge is transportable over land without disassembly; Trident Tech Services Inc., Chesterton, Indiana
- Lock-Up Device for Dynamic Loads transfers fast acting, short duration loads between
supports; Colebrand Advanced Engineering, London, England
- Mobile Parapet Barrier, a portable guardrail for unguarded roof edges, General Motors Corp., Detroit,
Michigan
- Friction Pendulum(tm) Seismic Isolation Bearings provide flexible
protection for new and retrofit construction; Earthquake Protection Systems Inc., Richmond,
California
- Steel-free Concrete Bridge Deck Slabs eliminates steel reinforcing
in bridge decks, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
CIF is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1987 by a handful of construction industry leaders to identify construction innovations quickly and share them with others in need of creative solutions to common problems, explained CIF Vice Chair and NOVA Award Chair Robert I. Carr, Ph.D., P.E.
"These innovations originated in many countries and cover the wide variety of construction, including design, fabrication, construction, rehabilitation, labor, management, equipment, and materials," Carr said. "Innovation makes construction of higher quality that is less expensive, safer, more beautiful, less environmentally intrusive, and better understood and accepted." Carr is Professor of Civil Engineering in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
To determine the NOVA Award winners, construction researchers investigate a short list of nominations, explained CIF Director and building contractor David L. Hamilton, President, The Auch Co., Pontiac. The investigators prepare reports, and the NOVA jury selects the winners.
A main objective of the CIF and its NOVA awards is to enhance the construction industry's image by meeting the challenges of declining productivity, a shortage of skilled workers, rising costs, fragmentation, and insufficient research and development investment, said CIF Chair and founding member Roger W. Lane. Lane is Manager of Contracted Labor and Services for DTE Energy, Detroit.
"CIF has grown into a worldwide grassroots organization that is known and respected for its NOVA award, the 'Nobel Prize' for innovation in construction," Lane said. As important as the winning innovations, he added, are the more than 360 nominations received to date from around the globe. "They represent a great body of creative problem-solving and new thinking about many areas of the construction process."
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