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BUSINESS NEWS FLUOR JOINT VENTURE COMPLETES UNION SQUARE BRANCH OF BOSTON GREEN LINE EXTENSION Fluor Corporation announced that its joint venture team Green Line Extension Constructors, comprised of Fluor, Balfour Beatty Infrastructure, Inc., Herzog Contracting Group and The Middlesex Corp., has completed construction of the Union Square Branch of the Green Line Extension light rail project for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and it is now open to the public. “Safe and reliable infrastructure is vitally important to local, state and regional commerce,” said Thomas Nilsson, president of Fluor’s Infrastructure business. “Boston is one of the most vibrant cities in the United States and when this project is fully completed, it will help to improve transportation access for residents and visitors of the greater Boston area. The addition of the Union Square station provides first-time
access for those in the City of Somerville just north of Boston.” The 0.7-mile line is the first of two distinct branch lines to open as part of the Green Line Extension project, running from the new and relocated Lechmere Station in Cambridge to Union Square in Somerville. The second line of the 4.7-mile project, the four- mile mainline branch, is scheduled to open later this year. It includes the addition of a large vehicle storage and maintenance facility and the extension of the community path from Somerville into Cambridge. The Green Line Extension will greatly improve local and regional mobility by offering a one-seat ride to downtown Boston, address longstanding transportation concerns, result in fewer automobiles on local roads and help to combat greenhouse gas emissions and other components of air pollution. The project will also support municipal
plans for sustainable growth and urban redevelopment and provide residents with faster rides to jobs and other destinations. The projected daily ridership at the seven stations is estimated to be 45,000 by 2030. Construction began in 2018. Fluor Corporation is building a better future by applying world-class expertise to solve its clients’ greatest challenges. Fluor’s 41,000 employees provide professional and technical solutions that deliver safe, well-executed, capital- efficient projects to clients around the world. Fluor had revenue of $12.4 billion in 2021 and is ranked 196 among the Fortune 500 companies. With headquarters in Irving, Texas, Fluor has provided engineering, procurement and construction services for more than 100 years.
communicating to the client that whatever they have done in the past as it relates to paying your bills, or whatever other companies they owe money to tolerate from them, is of no concern to you – and that you fully expect to get paid promptly when you send them a bill. 4. Internal tracking and communication. You have to track and report the metrics related to billing and collection, and then talk about how you are performing in your regular management meetings. Maybe total collection period is a better metric to track than average collection period, because it starts the moment the work is performed versus when the bill is actually sent. Certainly monitoring your unbilled work-in-progress is crucial, as this money reflects the difference in total collection period versus average collection period. Many firms allow their WIP to build to a completely ridiculous number because their managers allow people to keep charging their time to jobs that are over budget with the idea that some day they may be able to ask the client to pay for some of that. Then they never bill it. This is a bad practice. Either bill it or write it off – quickly in either case – so you don’t distort your accrual revenue numbers. The bottom line on all of this stuff is that as long as I have been working with firms in this business and as solvable as these kinds of problems are, they still exist. Why not learn and change so when this economy turns down and the music stops, you aren’t left without a chair to sit in? Mark Zweig is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com.
MARK ZWEIG , from page 11
This takes diligence and people in your firm who know what they are doing. It also takes some common sense. No one pays a “statement,” so why ever send those out? I also always thought that agings of prior invoices (“0-30, 31-60, 61-90,” etc.) should never show up on a bill, and a lot of companies still do that today. It just demonstrates to a client that you EXPECT them and your other clients to not pay you promptly. I would much rather show any prior unpaid invoices for a particular project to be reflected on the bill after the total for the current billing period, and to be included in the “total due and payable now” figure at the bottom of the bill. If clients gripe about you doing that, simply tell them to pay their bills promptly and they will never see that again. I’m serious! “As solvable as these kinds of problems are, they still exist. Why not learn and change so when this economy turns down and the music stops, you aren’t left without a chair to sit in?” 3. Weak collection efforts. I would define “weak collection efforts” as not following up shortly after a bill is sent to see if it has been received and if there are any questions, not following up after 30 days to see where it (the money) is if it hasn’t been paid, and not getting the technical or design professionals who are running the job involved if it isn’t paid in 45-60 days. These things have to happen consistently or payments will stretch out. It’s all a matter of
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THE ZWEIG LETTER MAY 16, 2022, ISSUE 1441
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