Systems for Better Construction
Earlier this year I spoke at the concrete industry’s big annual convention in Las Vegas. One of my presentations showed contractors how to create effective systems within their businesses.
Within your business there are many tasks that should be performed the same way every time. When you take the time to create and document a system for each of those tasks, many great things come from it.
Benefits of creating systems in your business:
¨ Less screw-ups
¨ Increased productivity
¨ Delegation of tasks to others
¨ Less vulnerability to employees leaving
¨ Assigned responsibility
¨ Reduced reliance on key employees
¨ Leverage time and talent
¨ Increased profits
Systems for Homebuilding
When my good friend, Jim Sessoms, was building homes in Cobb County, he had a detailed system for managing his homeowner clients and the selections they had to make throughout the building process. His clients had a schedule that showed them when they had to make decisions based on the stage of construction the house was under. This kept Jim’s houses on schedule. He rarely had to halt construction due to his client’s slow selection process.
Charlie Borg and the other excellent builders at Traton Homes have a system for detailing all of the options and specifics of a project before giving those plans to us and their other trades. This process reduces errors and conveys all of the information in one place.
At Herbert Construction Co., we have created systems for many areas in our business. Some of those systems are complicated and involve hundreds of steps. However, some of our most effective systems within our company are simple checklists and forms that get filled out each time a task is performed.
When we first came to Atlanta, we would occasionally miss items on our foundations – a sewer sleeve here, a beam pocket there. This was an annoyance to our clients and to us. To fix the problem, we created a Foundation Checklist.
Before beginning a new foundation for our client, we asked them the questions on the checklist to make sure we constructed the basement the way they wanted it. The information on that checklist was used to create our custom CAD plan. Our crews used that custom CAD plan to construct the foundation. Everything was addressed on the checklist, and every basement was constructed properly.
The items on the checklist grew and, over time, we began to use that same Foundation Checklist for creating estimates for potential clients. This was back when we would meet them on the jobsite to review a set of paper plans. While meeting with the homebuilders, we would fill out the Foundation Checklist. Then, we would take the plans and checklist back to our office to work up pricing. When they asked us to do the job, we already had the information for our custom CAD plan.
That Foundation Checklist has grown to include more than 44 items and is still used on every foundation we construct today. A simple checklist has reduced our mistakes and made our clients happier.
Where in your business can you create systems that will reduce mistakes and increase your profits?
To Your Success,
