October 2025 APCA MARKET PENETRATION RESEARCH www.ContinuumCapital.net APCA Research Methodology This type of research effort is challenging due to the lack of readily available data and information. Continuum recognized this challenge and designed three potential approaches to secure the raw data. – Plan A: Survey the APCA members and build out a model representing the nature, size, and geographic location of the member’s workforce and then scale these figure up to represent the entirety of the merit shop workforce. This approach failed. – Plan B: Utilized readily available data on projects bid and won around the country and advertised in industry magazines. Augment this collected data with insights into the contractors who won these projects, segregate the prime contractors and subcontractors among their union or merit shop affiliation and establish the nature, size, and geographic location. This approach failed. – Plan C: Utilize PHMSA data on mileage installed in any given year, segregate this mileage by pipe diameter, establish a series of three types of pipeline spreads based on pipeline diameter, establish the supervision, crew and equipment complement of each spread type, establish the range of likely production rates on a monthly and annual basis for an individual pipeline spread, establish number of spreads necessary to complete the PHMSA mileage installed, and through a series of interviews on a regional basis, establish the percentage of work completed by union versus merit shop contractors. This approach with some augmenting information collected from the attempts to utilize Plan A and Plan B was ultimately successful. 105
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