How to Ensure Quality in Construction
Efficiency is a 2-sided sword. It’s easy to get infatuated with the bottom line improvements that process cuts offer, but it’s all for naught if your building’s quality suffers. Cut processes too deeply, and you’re asking for trouble. Workers start to cut corners to...
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Don’t Sacrifice Quality for Efficiency
Efficiency is a 2-sided sword. It’s easy to get infatuated with the bottom-line improvements that process cuts offer, but it’s all for naught if the quality of your product suffers. Cut processes too deeply, and quality is the first thing to take a hit. Poor-quality...
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Lean vs. Process Improvement: What’s the Difference?
The terms “Lean” and “Process Improvement” aren’t interchangeable. In fact, while they both seek bottom line savings, that’s where the similarities end. Here are some very broad strokes of what defines these tactics in relation to each other. Bottom line: their...
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Office Bottleneck? It Might Be You.
Running an office is a gauntlet of processes that happen every minute of every day. Making coffee. Approving budgets. Putting callers on hold. There are some processes you think about, but most happen on autopilot. They flow and overlap throughout the day like a...
read moreWhere Are Your Manufacturing Bottlenecks?
Manufacturing a product, whether that’s a pick-up truck or a bar of soap, is a current of processes that happen one after the other. Ideally, the current flows like electricity. But what happens when one step stops the current? Or when multiple currents converge into...
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Prefabrication and Real Construction Savings
In construction, as in warfare, success hinges on logistics. Project Managers need to juggle not only people and supplies, but also the needs of independent contractors and clients. Add in layers of compliance and safety checks, plus the wildcard of weather, and...
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How to Keep Good Ideas Alive (and Save Your Money)
A lot of us have attempted Process Improvement. The reality is that most of us have failed. For the most part, we didn’t fail because we lacked the talent, the team, or the hunger. We failed because it fizzled out. We started out excited, with people pitching in...
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Your Money is Frozen
Where’s my cash?! We’ve all had that moment while looking at the Balance Sheet or Cash Flow Report after a good quarter, thinking you’ll be flush with cash—then getting a big surprise. So what happened? Over-inventory happened. Getting comfortable happened, and you...
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Creating a Change Team in Professional Services
Change can come slowly to an office. Processes get ingrained, habits form, and the pressures of doing extra—on top of a long list of daily tasks—can quickly quell cooperation. Process Improvement can change the bottom line, but it needs to be systemic. Change that’s...
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Creating a Change Team in Construction
Staying profitable in the construction industry is about being able to adapt to change. Projects overrun, site conditions change, regulations close in: the businesses that stay nimble stay prosperous. Change management on a project-by-project scale is about building...
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