What is it?

Pre-Construction schedule tracking system is a way to track your pre-construction process (tasks from contract signing to job release to the field) through a centralized scheduling database. It allows a company to maintain pre-construction information such as when tasks are scheduled and completed, why a task/job is delayed, and who is responsible for the work to be performed etc.

The scheduling system used is Primavera Project Planner, a top of the line scheduling software available today that is perfectly suited for any construction projects including residential construction. It is a common sense approach to managing a volume construction business, yet revolutionary since there are so few residential construction companies that use it today.

What are the benefits of having a Pre-Construction Schedule Tracking System?

With a pre-construction schedule tracking system, you can –

· Easily prioritize jobs and maximize resources

· Track all delays in the pre-construction process from a central location

· Have the ability to know the status of every job in the pre-construction phase

· Reduce your pre-construction time and therefore start your homes sooner

· Track which pre-construction steps are prone to the most delays

· Predict job releases better than before

· Slot jobs for release to the field at the time of sale

· Report pre-construction time for any phase of the process or overall pre-construction time

· Increase your return on investment due to better communication and information

How does it work?

A centralized scheduling database setup using Primavera Project Planner will schedule all your pre-construction tasks each day based on the initial logic setup in the system. After scheduling all tasks, the system will then issue schedules to each of your employees as well as any outside vendors/suppliers you wish to send the schedules to. Employees will work to complete the tasks as indicated on the schedule. They will then report the updates/progress at the end of the day to the scheduling department. These updates are fed into Primavera Project Planner, which then recalculates all schedules for the next workday and the cycle continues. In addition to the centralized scheduling database, Process Control boards are established that will visually communicate the current status of each job in the pre-construction phases. A 10-20 minute process meeting will be held a minimum of twice a week with key office staff to discuss job priorities, potential problems and delays. This crucial communication ensures your entire staff is working in sync with each other.

If the process described here sounds too idealistic and simple and you feel that it will not work, please talk to one of TPG’s clients who have been using it successfully for a few years now. Moreover, TPG’s experts have the experience to guide you through many of the problems you might face such as resistance to change, lack of understanding etc. It is the simple problems such as someone not reporting progress, employees and contractors not following schedules etc. which can derail the whole company’s management process. TPG experts have implemented these kinds of processes in several building companies across the nation and can help your company as well in avoiding many of the potential obstacles you might face in switching to a new process. TPG can even help you get in touch with one of their clients so you can get a better understanding of the whole process from their perspective.

How do we set you up?

TPG goes through a rigid and a thorough process of setting up your pre-construction scheduling database. TPG realizes that it is not the technology that makes the company successful, but a well thought out process with quality built into it. Quality cannot be assured after the fact, but during the process. 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.

· Set up the Centralized Scheduling Database

TPG will then setup your pre-construction database utilizing the pre-construction process that has been mapped and approved. Your system will then be ready to go live. This process can take anywhere from one to two weeks depending on the complexity of the pre-construction process.

· Provide system training to your Data Manager and Process Manager

TPG will then educate your staff to operate the system on a day-to-day basis as well as some advanced training for future development/modification of the pre-construction process.

· Provide Management Training

TPG will provide your management with advanced management training among various topics such as effects of not releasing jobs on even flow, schedule non-compliance effects, identification of schedule non-compliance from reports, effects of uncontrolled pre-construction cycle time, 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 this system and reap huge benefits:

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

· A midsize builder with 30 employees or more with 5 or more as production staff (superintendents)

· 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 a centralized pre-construction scheduling system will free up managers and employees’ time because it automatically schedules and notifies them of their next daily tasks. The employee responsible for the task updates job progress, which can take less than 5 minutes a day for all their jobs in the pre-construction phase. All of this allows your employees to perform their job better. Result: A more productive office staff that can easily communicate job progress and see job priorities.

“It creates more work for us!”

This kind of a system does not generate more work for you. It changes your work to make it better and more streamlined. Sure, you now have to have a person in the office monitoring job progress, identify delay trends, addressing office delay trends etc. However, that is the beauty of the system. You have now established a central command center that can easily communicate all the job progress information you would need. By having a centralized control center, your office employees can rely on office support to solve the more difficult issues for which management needs to get involved. All they need to do is report it to the scheduling office and the process manager identifies all critical issues and are handled in a much more professional manner at a meeting with the appropriate party. It does not create more work for you, but forces you to work smarter. This kind of a system enforces discipline whether you like it or not.

“I have to hire additional people (Process Manager and Data Manager) which increases my overhead cost”

Establishing a centralized scheduling control system needs one process manager and one administrative person for handling the system and the day-to-day tasks. Adding these people is critical to operating this program. The benefits you reap from the system far outweigh the additional cost incurred in hiring these people full time. Typically, you can reduce your pre-construction time on an average by a minimum of 5-10 days, which translate to excess production capacity for the company for the year. We have seen companies able to cut it down from 70+ days to 30+ days within a month of implementing such a process. This allows the company to build additional homes in a year thus increasing a company’s bottom line profits. It also results in better customer satisfaction when you are able to start building their home sooner. If you would like to, we will set up an appointment with one of our clients for you to either talk to or visit their location so you can see this for yourself. You can also use TPG’s savings calculator to estimate your approximate increased earnings due to implementing this program.

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!