Page 16 - BusinessWest December 8, 2021

trial, residential, site work, and real estate. “But the pandemic affects people, and people are the ones who produce products. I think the demand is out there, but those other things out there are causing a little bit of a bog on the system. This is something I hear from others in construction as well.”
It’s what BusinessWest is hearing, too — that there’s plenty of demand for work, but no one is in a place to take on all they could were the work- force and supply outlooks more stable.
“Demand is a great thing,” Keiter added, “but if the supply chain is already compromised, those things can really put a strain on the system ...
“Demand is a great thing. but
if the supply chain is already compromised, those things can really put a strain on the system ... and we have to work harder to achieve the same results.”
and we have to work harder to achieve the same results.”
Carol Campbell agreed. “It’s been a year like no other,” the president of Chicopee Industrial Con- tractors (CIC) said. “I think I’ve said that before, but this time is very different.”
Indeed, “we are certainly affected by the labor force, or the lack thereof,” she went on. “So when you evaluate your sales or how busy you are, well,
Scott Keiter says the industry
is busy,
but new challenges make it a different kind of busy than before.
if we were at full complement, it would be a dif- ferent story. We’re at reduced labor teams, so we are busy, but it’s hard to serve all our customers at the level we’re at right now.”
From a supply-chain perspective, CIC is a con- tractor based in the manufacturing world. “Where we have issues with the supply chain is, if we have a team scheduled to do a project, the installa- tion may take a week or two, then, with 48-hours notice or less, we get a phone call saying the machine hasn’t even hit the dock.
“It’s a scheduling nightmare,” she went on. “I
tip my hat to our schedulers, how they keep all the balls in the air and keep all the employees working and customers happy, with all the chang- es that happen on very quick notice.”
The supply crunch affects both availability and cost, said Craig Sweitzer, co-owner of Sweitzer Construction. “I just got off the phone with some- one who needs 12 weeks lead for replacement windows. I’ve never heard of that before. And a lot of materials are unavailable, so we have to search for substitutes.”
Co-owner Pat Sweitzer said she was bidding
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16 DECEMBER 8, 2021
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