What is it?

When organizing and streamlining your internal processes from Contract to Closing, special tools are necessary to help control the efficiency of workflow. TPG believes in the idea of control and efficiency through visual aids. We refer to these visual aids as “Process Boards” which become a part of your pre-construction job status tracking system.

What are the benefits of having TPG’S Pre-Construction Management training?

Pre-construction management training will –

· Provide a successful communication link to internal office employees, as well as to your production, sales staff and vendors regarding all issues related to pre-construction.

· Centralize communication among the office, helps prioritize jobs, controls job releases, reduces delays, reduces cycle-time and increases productivity.

· Help management easily see process deficiencies and through weekly process meetings, provide a great forum for resolving problems immediately and effectively.

· Aid management in the area of closings projections and budget planning.

· Let you walk to the Process Control room and immediately identify scheduled releases and closings over a period of several months!

· Promote team spirit and friendly competition among employees.

· Bring a sense of understanding of everyone's workload and respect for each other’s jobs.

· Eliminate red tape and bring forth a fresh process perspective of managing a business.

How does it work?

Once the process room has been setup, your Process Manager (or designated manager) will manage and maintain the accuracy of the Process Boards. Twice a week 10-20 minutes process meetings will be held first thing in the morning. This meeting is held in strict guidelines and protocol as prescribed by TPG for its maximum effectiveness. Every person responsible for a key task along with the President (or other assigned senior manager) will participate in the meeting. The Process Manager facilitating the meeting will get a quick update on each job and update the process boards at the same time. Job releases and closings are rearranged if necessary during this meeting. No issue is kept in suspension and all decisions are deliberated and decided upon in the meeting. This is possible since everyone responsible for the decision-making is present in the meeting. Such a meeting is called closed loop meeting and is central to the concept of pre-construction job status management as taught by TPG. Your department managers will soon rely on these meetings to resolve all issues related to a job’s progress through the pre-construction process. TPG will also provide seminars to your Office, Production and Sales staff teaching them how to read and use the information provided.

How do we set you up?

TPG goes through a rigid and a thorough process of setting up your pre-construction job status management system. The process described below has been developed after years of experience working with several builders and realizing that shortcuts taken upfront will jeopardize the success of the whole program.

· Map out a pre-construction process

TPG representatives will first meet with each office staff member and map out your current pre-construction process. After mapping out the entire pre-construction process, a time estimate is prepared for the process. Any lack of policies or guidelines for making clear-cut decisions at any step of the process is identified. The process is then discussed with senior management and recommendations are proposed to improve the process so a better quality output is ensured. After everyone’s approval, this process is revised and published for the whole company.

· Design Process Board System for your company

Based on your current pre-construction process, pre-construction cycle time and number of homes you sell, TPG will design the optimal number of boards and recommend the types of boards you will need. TPG will also identify each task that should be tracked to effectively monitor job progress and assign a magnetic indicator or a symbol that will represent that task’s completion. TPG will then help you order these items.

· Setup Process Boards and Completion Indicators

Once the process boards and accessories are at your office, TPG will assist you in setting them up in your Process Control Room. The boards are then filled with information regarding the job status of all jobs in your work in process whether it is at the sales desk or at the closings desk. All of our clients are amazed at the visual impact of these boards once they are set up. They begin to realize the importance of the visual tools, since to that date; they were never able to visualize the entire company’s workload accurately. They now are eager to learn more about the boards and how they can use them regularly. This leads us directly to the next step.

· Provide Management Education

TPG will educate your Process and Data Manager on how to manage and maintain the accuracy of the Process Boards. We will also provide extensive training to your Process Manager on how to lead and facilitate process meetings. TPG will then conduct a seminar for your entire office staff educating them on the purpose of the meetings and the important role they play. During this seminar, a mock process meeting is conducted which clarifies all issues and questions that your office staff may have regarding the new way of managing. The seminar is very comprehensive and will cover various topics such as even-flow management philosophy, how to determine your company’s even flow capacity, how to continuously gauge your company’s bottom-line capacity, effects of not following even flow theory, a simulated experiment showing effects of maintaining your even flow at over capacity levels, under capacity levels or totally disregarding your capacity levels (releasing jobs as per your sales volume that week) etc.

Who really needs this? Do I really need it? What are the bottom line benefits for me?

A company that can satisfy any of the following can use TPG’s recommended pre-construction job status management process and reap huge benefits:

· Volume production or custom builder with an annual volume of 50-1000+ homes

· A midsize builder with 10 employees or more

· A company that wants to aggressively expand and build more units a year, but doesn’t know how to go about it

There are several builders who think they do not need a system like this because of various reasons. Some of the reasons are quoted below with our explanations of why those reasons are misguided:

“We pay our operations manager and other departmental managers and employees to monitor job progress and prioritize jobs. I don’t need another system to do what they are supposed to do.”

The managers and employees within your department are paid for monitoring job progress and prioritizing jobs. The difficulty with this is finding a way to effectively communicate job progress throughout the organization. We have found that many companies do not know the status or holdup for many of their jobs within the pre-construction phase. They lose time but are not sure exactly what has caused the delays. Any employee, who cannot complete a task for a particular day, changes the whole schedule and affects the rest of the process. For a manager to track all this information, it would take constant communication with everyone in the office. Their entire job would entail running around seeing what everyone else has or hasn’t done. Using TPG’s approach to managing pre-construction jobs, it makes the whole job much easier and allows the process to flow smoothly with little or no mistakes.

“Why do I need this way of management if I have an electronic scheduling system that issues pre-construction schedules?”

Pre-construction Job Status Management system as described here can work independently or in conjunction with Pre-Construction and Construction Schedule Tracking Systems. However, one is not a substitute for the other. The pre-construction schedule tracking system is a highly sophisticated technological communication tool to help issue schedules and disseminate information among all members of the team. Without this technology, it is very difficult to issue up-to-date and accurate schedules to each member in your organization. However, technology cannot replace the closed-loop meeting where they are accountable to each other in the organization. An electronic scheduling system is a convenience tool that can help you do your job better, but a closed loop meeting with process boards is a necessary tool that will promote teamwork and cooperation among each other in the organization. Preconstruction job status management using process boards will improve organizational alignment, resolve problems and provide a quick glance of workflow for each department as well as the whole company.

“This closed loop meeting is another addition to our already long list of meetings that we have each week! We won’t have time for it!”

If you talk to our clients, you will realize that the closed loop meeting will actually reduce your time or even replace some of your existing meetings and/or meeting topics. Because of the way this meeting is structured, it is quick and decisive and therefore does not take up much of anybody’s time. It is a routine way of operation once the company is used to it and cannot live without it. To get a first hand experience of this meeting, we invite you to witness one of our client meetings. Please call TPG or send an email to info@totallyproductivegroup.com.

How can we get it?

Please contact Totally Productive Group, Inc. by email at info@totallyproductivegroup.com or by telephone at . TPG representatives will meet you and provide you with an overview of the implementation process. You will be on your way to revolutionizing your pre-construction process management in no time!