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On the way to this year’s concrete convention,
my kids and I stopped in Norfolk, VA and
toured the huge USS Wisconsin battleship.
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What a summer this has been! Someone swapped out the usual dog days of summer for greyhounds. From May through mid-August, Herbert Construction was the busiest we have ever been in the 37 years we’ve been in business.
Our backlog stretched out to 12 weeks for new customers, at a time when our normal, busy backlog is 1½ to 2 weeks. We have never seen such a rush of work that needed to be done at the same time.
In the pre-Great Recession era we constructed more foundations, but the work came in at a manageable pace. This summer the work came in all at once. Our long-time clients flooded us with new work, and new customer requests came in daily.
In order to take care of all of the work that came in, we moved quickly in a few key areas. We scraped some money together and invested in our business. We added new trucks, equipment and manpower. In a three month period, we hired 93 new laborers.
To get more footings done at one time, we purchased more reusable, recyclable footing forms. We moved a good man to a Foreman position and built a crew around him. We built a new footing crew truck (see this post).
In order to construct more walls, we promoted an assistant Foreman from an established crew and created a new wall crew for him. We purchased more wall forms in three expensive phases.
We also had a concrete contractor friend of ours come up from Florida for a couple of weeks to construct some of our basements. They did a great job and really helped out our schedule. While this wasn’t profitable for us—due to lodging and logistics expenses—it allowed us to keep our clients happy.
Despite all of the actions we took to increase production, our service suffered during this time. There were days when we simply didn’t know how we were going to get all of the work done. It took a toll on everyone at the company. I think the entire Management Team aged an extra year or so due to the intense stress and pressure.
However, I am really proud of how everyone at the company rallied to handle the tidal wave of projects that came in.
The huge demand from our best clients forced us to make some difficult – and at times, unpopular – decisions on who we were going to work with.
There were some good contractors that wanted to work with us. We simply weren’t able to work with them due to our backlog of projects with our core group of clients. I wish we could have changed that somehow.
As we head into the fall season, the rush of work has slowed and we are now back to our normal schedule. We are at our lean, fighting weight and able to produce a lot of work at one time. If you don’t currently utilize our company and you’re experiencing quality or scheduling problems with your current poured wall contractor, then call us. We can help.
To Your Success,
