When small businesses are forced to compete with large corporations, proactive, innovative thinking can mean survival. The small business must do more, at a lesser price, just to compete. So, when unexpected problems occur, innovation is necessary to save the day.

Mike Avino, of Avino Construction Inc, East Northport, N Y, managed a project at a sensitive government installation on Plum Island, NY. Part of the project entailed installing a specialized underground piping conduit.

When assessing this project, excavation was a major consideration. The Island is only accessible by a small ferry with limited carrying capacity. The largest transportable equipment was a small six-wheel dump truck and a small backhoe. The soil condition was listed as sand and gravel without obstructions. However, a series of huge underground boulders was discovered directly in the path of the conduit. Normally, re-routing the pipe by using heavy equipment or by blasting the boulder would be the solution, but, due to the nature of the facility, these methods were not allowed.

This could have caused severe cost overruns and delays for the client and possibly an unprofitable situation for the contractor if not for the outside-the-box thinking of the owner and founder Mike Avino. From years of experience and his engineering background, he remembered a situation when hydraulics were used to demolish a stone structure where blasting had been impossible.

Using the same principle and a small portable drilling rig, holes were bored into the boulders, and a hydraulic ram was used to split the boulders into manageable pieces, allowing the job to be completed according to cost and time constraints. By using outside the box, innovative thinking, the project was completed profitably and to the satisfaction of the client. This type of proactive, innovative thinking is what many small businesses do to survive. It’s what they bring to the table when they do business.