So what does weight loss and construction productivity have in common? If you track the inputs you are much more likely to get better results. In 2008, a study was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine that shows that keeping a “food diary” may double your weight loss. What they actually found was that the more participants recorded what they ate, the more weight they lost in the ...

When managers in construction start beating the drum of more production, the message that is typically received from the crews is “you need to be working harder”. While this may be true in some instances, most of the time this is not what is being said. In construction, especially for subcontractors that are performing the labor, money is made or lost in the amount of work being put in per hour charged ...

For subcontractors, the best way to control and increase profit is by managing labor productivity. Too often, project managers, foreman, and executives focus on material buyouts, squeezing subcontractors, and cutting back on overhead to make gains on profits, but these actions pale in comparison to what can be accomplished by having highly productive labor. There is no doubt money to be made by being ...

Business management for years has taken the advice of statisticians: that if you don’t or can’t measure something, then you can't manage it. In construction, this simple truth is the key to being successful. Management of bidding, projects, labor, or profits is not just a group of tasks that you must perform, it is taking in facts, analyzing those facts, coming to conclusions, taking action, and then ...

Measurements are critical to good construction. Not just in constructing walls, placing tiles, and balancing mechanical systems, but also in tracking contractor's performance on the project. A minute cannot go by where workers are not measuring boards, conduits, walls, concrete volumes, and hundreds of other things on a construction site, but are contractors measuring things for their own betterment? ...

Simply put: productivity is king. As a subcontractor you are required to perform many tasks; from generating an estimate and proposal, to safely performing work, as well as everything in between. So why do I believe that productivity is king? Performing work safely, in compliance with specifications, and to certain quality standards are non-negotiable items. If you cannot do these things well, then ...

We have recently decided to introduce an incentive program for our superintendents in order to improve productivity and ensure that the schedule is met and customer satisfaction is attained. Here is a synopses of the program... Bonuses are to be awarded and evaluated on a project by project basis. In order to qualify for a bonus the projectmust have a contract amount of $30,000 or greater and pass ...

It’s that time of year again…time to put together your company projections for 2012! You may be in the process of crunching numbers to let your partners, bankers, and other stakeholders know your company’s outlook for 2012. Hopefully, 2012 will shape up to be a great year! Instead of rewriting what has previously been written in past articles, below are some articles to reference to assist you in ...

Construction subcontractors tend to be more like Aerosmith than like an airline. What exactly do I mean? Well to further the analogy, let’s look at the definition of both of these entities. Rock bands are made of a small group of talented people that perform specific functions. As the band forms it is not a big secret what each person is to do, however, there are not written rules on how this ...

The most frustrating experience for a project management team and the owners of a construction company is project fade. The process of margin disappearing as the project becomes more complete deteriorates moral, the balance sheet, and may threaten the ability for an organization to continue as a viable concern. Fade comes from many causes: optimistic estimates, poor team performance, work outside ...