NEWSLETTER - Posillico

NEWSLETTER
Issue 10 | Summer 2008
Posillico’s Hardworking Night Crawlers
As you sleep, Posillico Civil is currently working on two NYSDOT nighttime asphalt milling and paving contracts. The first project currently
being performed is on the Long Island Expressway. The job is headed by
Jim Scudder (Project Manager) and the project runs from exit 52 to exit 60.
The job has 550,000 SY of road to be milled and 62,000 tons of asphalt to
be laid. As of June 13 the eastbound direction has been completely paved,
with a best night of 3,000 tons of asphalt laid in one eight hour shift. The
3,000 tons covered an astonishing 1.1 miles of mainline expressway.
The great production on the job is due to
the dedication of our paving crew, particularly Asphalt Foremen Daniel Fidalgo and
Jim Cook). The paving crew also depends
on many facets of coordination that must
work in tandem before the asphalt gets to
the job. A special acknowledgement must
go to all of the people at Posillico Materials, especially Ed Fox (Plant Batcher), Doug
Gralow (Operating Engineer), Tom Dejewski (Plant Laborer), and Tom Zembko,
(Quality Control Manager).
Immediately following the work on the
LIE the asphalt operation will go to the
Paving on the LIE.
In This Issue:
Posillico’s Night Crawlers
Cleaning Up Long Island City
HeavyJob Implementation
Safety Score Card
HR Corner
Southern State Parkway. The job is
headed by Project Managers Adam
Sobotka and Keith Corrigan. They
have the task of resurfacing 9.2 miles
of the Southern State Parkway in both
directions. The job has 567,000 SY of
road to be milled and 63,000 tons of
asphalt to be laid. All of the work is
scheduled to be completed by spring
of 2009. It will be an enormous task,
but with the hard work and dedication
of our asphalt team there should be no
problem in meeting our goal.
~ Frank Sangiovanni, Asphalt Super
Anthony Occhiogrosso
Anthony Occhiogrosso, or as he was more affectionately known, “Tony O”, worked for Posillico
for 22 years and worked in the construction
industry for 42 years. Tony O retired from J.D.
Posillico, Inc., in 1991. During his years with
us, he played an important role in the growth of
our company and in the success of many of our
large projects over the years. Tony O was not
only lead foreman on many of our large projects
he was cost conscious, a motivator of men and
also had the ability to successfully work directly
with state and other inspectors when he was
in that position. All that have known him will
sincerely miss his presence.
Cleaning Up Long Island City
Cleaning up a contaminated site is no easy task, and not any company can
go out, tackle it, and succeed. The Queens West project is made up of many
different obstacles, and Posillico is going about solving them in innovative ways.
Queens West is a partnership between Posillico Environmental and TRC Engineers. The
site is 9.5 acres along the East River. The job involves driving sheeting along the property
line, installing two 132’x197’ tents, a dewatering system, and installing 12 state of the art
air handler units.
The history of the site can be traced back to the early 1800’s when it was originally
Temporary enclosures being built.
used as a farm. Purchased by the Devoe Manufacturing Company which developed a
petroleum processing facility in the 1860’s; they utilized the site to process crude oil
into kerosene for lamps. It was then acquired by SOCONY, the Standard Oil Company of New York, they continued similar operations
which also included producing gasoline and other oil products. In 1936, it was sold to PepsiCo, and in 2003 and 2004, sold to current
owners Queens West Development Corporation.
Spearheading the job is Michael Posillico, Joseph Sheehan is the Area Manager on the job, John Soliman is assisting in the start up,
Erika Amador is the Project Manager, and Mike Rosato is the Site Superintendent.
Two tents are being installed to protect the surrounding neighborhood from odors, which could infiltrate the neighborhood during
the remediation process. Each tent will have six air handler units the size of tractor-trailers to extract the air. The air then enters into
a carbon filter inside the air handler before it is re-released into the atmosphere. An average of 40 trucks a day will be hauling away
the contaminated soil from the site, to numerous locations along the Tri-State Area.
After remediation under each tent is complete, the two tents will then be pulled around the site on rollers, which is part of Posillico’s
own base beam design made up of steel I-beams. The two tents will be rolled around the site with two D7 dozers.
The cleanup will occur in three stages and each needs to be completed before the next can start. The first stage will be remediating a
portion of the site that will be given back to PepsiCo, once this is finished PepsiCo will make this the final resting place for the famous
Pepsi Cola sign. The remaining two Stages are the larger portions of the job and will be completed by the end of 2008. After the cleanup
of these sites is complete the eventual goal of the owner is to construct condominiums, a high school, and a park.
~ Joseph Trapani, Project Engineer
HeavyJob Implementation
In an effort to directly advance field
document efficiency and indirectly increase field productivity; Posillico set
an OPO to implement HeavyJob (HJ)
Field across all major projects by June
30th. Upon the purchase of 15 Field
licenses, 4 Manager users, 4 days of on
site training and continuous Q&A’s we
have successfully met our goal. Some
basic uses of HJ range from timecard
entry to production planning, however the software’s capabilities stretch
far beyond and even lessen the gap
between office and field data.
HJ is a multi-dimensional HCSS field
management software designed specifically
for field personnel. Among the most basic
and useful features of HJ is the daily timecard entry that has replaced the old Excel
spreadsheet timecards. Project engineers
also use HJ to send in their needs request,
keep daily logs, project revenue gains and
plan field productivity. In the very near
future we aim to take advantage of the
export to payroll feature that eliminates
double entry by allowing timecards to be
sent directly to our accounting system.
Similar needs requests can be sent directly
to our dispatcher system, also eliminating
double entry.
The most powerful feature of HJ is its
capability to integrate with our primary
estimating software, HeavyBid, our
accounting software, ViewPoint and our
dispatch software, The Dispatcher. The
long-term benefit is the collection of
empirical field data that is presented in
a concise form and compared against
estimating information, allowing estimators
to refer to real life productivity quantities.
With a better understanding of true costs,
risks can be more calculated and through
better planning, cost can be reduced.
Behind the scenes, HJ is updated with
real time accounting information through
a program called Data Integration Studio
(DIS). DIS was customized and set to
extract information from ViewPoint and
transpose it into HJ. This provides field
personnel with the most up to date pay
rates, equipment, employees and cost
codes. HJ can also produce a multitude
of reports that convey very specific and
detailed information or very broad comprehensive reports, giving the Posillico team
the tools and the information necessary
to complete their jobs safely, on time, on
target and on budget.
HJ implementation was led by Alia Nagm,
Mike Trotta, and Sue Holifield with support
from Debby LaCalandra from payroll and
assisted by HCSS professionals.
~Alia Nagm, Startup Engineer
Safety Scorecard
What is Posillico’s Safety Score? Are we winning or losing in our quest for safe production? And if we are losing…how do
we win? Everyone agrees that safe production is a priority, yet how do we achieve it? How much effort do our employees
expect our company to put into keeping them safe? 100% is the answer. Posillico expects the same 100% effort back, from
every one of their employees.
Knowing that the road to success would
be a long and challenging one, the first
step the Safety Department needed to
take was…backwards. We examined how
Posillico’s Safety Program had been operating, and whether it had been effective.
We discovered that we had a high rate of
eye injuries, equipment damage and poor
housekeeping on our sites. Employee training records were not accurate. There was
a general lack of knowledge on the daily
inspection of equipment, how to assess the
hazards of an operation, storage of flammable and combustible gases, even injury
reporting procedures were unclear and
handled differently on every job site.
It wasn’t that our employees didn’t believe
in safety. It was a “perception of safe production” and, at times, a lack of training
that was the problem. We knew we needed
to change our course and intensify our
safety effort.
The push towards safe production began
with the institution of a new Company
Policy. Effective January 1, 2008, it became
mandatory for anyone working on or visiting our job sites to wear safety glasses. Approved, hi-visibility hard hats and vests are
also mandatory on every Posillico job site.
We are now
almost halfway
through the
year and have
sustained only
1 eye injury,
compared to
the 22 sustained last year!
The affected
worker was not
wearing an approved pair of
safety glasses;
the wind blew
some grit
around the rim
of the glasses and into his eye. Fortunately,
he received medical attention and the grit
was removed without the worker sustaining
any serious damage to his eye.
The next step began with a massive campaign to re-educate each and every employee
about safety. Since January of this year,
the Safety Department has re-orientated
440 field employees and 87 managers. The
orientation takes about 2 hours and covers
all of Posillico’s core safety policies. Safety
videos are viewed which re-enact actual cases
of worker injuries. Most importantly, we
encourage each worker to speak about his/
her personal experience with safety. The moment of satisfaction comes when we see the
“light bulb” go on and the worker realizes
that Posillico is serious in their total commitment to safety and that we want to see each
and every person go home at the end of the
day, the way they arrived…alive and well.
We have, and continue to conduct, extensive training in key areas of the construction
trade. To date, 61 members of our Posillico
management team have attended
training on the Core Health & Safety
Plan. The National Underground
Construction Association has certified 32 of our project managers and
foremen, as Competent Persons in
excavation and trenching. Twenty
employees have obtained their
40-Hour HAZMAT certification with
Proper safety attire at Wellwood Avenue.
Dates to Remember:
an additional 25 obtaining their Supervisory HAZMAT refresher certifications. By
June 1, all of our field personnel will have
obtained their required 10-Hour OSHA
training…a full month ahead of schedule.
Our foremen have attended classes on the
“One Call” system, surveying, rigging, accident reporting, and job hazard analysis
procedures.
Posillico is not waiting to improve their
safety record. We are moving forward,
realizing that correcting our bad safety
habits takes time, effort and training. The
result of this effort will be a more responsible and successful company. Posillico is
holding itself to a higher safety standard
and the benefits of that effort will belong
to every one of us.
~ Janet Greco, Safety Supervisor
Eye protection is crucial.
Posillico Family Picnic – September 21, 2008
Strategic Update Meeting – October 16, 2008
Posillico Holiday Party – December 18, 2008
HR Corner
Signs of an active upcoming 2008 were evidenced this winter and early spring with the interviewing of over 80 candidates and the hiring of 27 new employees. Our recruiting efforts have secured talented individuals in the areas of Project
Management, Safety, Estimating, Purchasing, Accounting, Human Resources and Payroll.
In addition, we have hired a record number of Interns (14). They come to us from
a variety of schools such as Arizona State,
Binghamton University, Brown University,
C.W. Post, Hofstra, Manhattan College,
New Jersey IT, Polytechnic, Rochester IT,
RPI, University of California, University
of Maryland, Villanova, and Virginia Tech.
These men and women have been a great
asset to us and have filled the gaps in many
areas of our organization, allowing us the
opportunity in fulfilling our goal of being
Safe, On-Time, On-Target and On-Budget.
We applaud their professionalism, eagerness to learn and willingness to pitch in.
They possess the core values in which we
seek. We wish them the best in the upcoming semesters and look forward to their
return next year.
~ Frank Franzini, VP of Human Resources
Welcome Interns:
Adela Amador
College Point Intern
Daniel Cerutti
Field Intern
Ashley Ferguson
Field Intern
Audra Rose Lexa
Accounting Intern
Laura Livingstone
HR Intern
Jessica Maura
Safety Intern
Jessica Murphy
Field Intern
Christopher Nash
Environmental Intern
Joseph Posillico
Field Intern
Troy Sanders
Field Intern
Philip Schneider
Field Intern
Brendan Warner
Field Intern
Brian Cordes
Shop Laborer
Michael Emanuele
Executive Driver
Lee Ann Emma
Office Engineer
Walter Glinin
Shop Driver
Dimitrios Lambros
Project Manager
Angela Mercado
Procurement Coordinator
Richard Montanye
Jr. Project Engineer
David Sposito
Project Manager
Nataly Stephens
Office Engineer
Laura Williams
Welcome New Employees:
Elizabeth Buoncore
Accounts Payable Assistant
Dino Cimetta
Estimator/Purchasing
Erica Grammont
HR Payroll Assistant
Kenneth Gregg
Estimator/Project Engineer
Angela Roma
Executive Assistant
Selso Salazar
Area Safety Manager
Lee Kaplan
Sr. Environmental Project Engineer
© 2008 Posillico, LLC. All rights reserved. For internal use only.
Vincent Saulino
Project Engineer
Bookkeeper