Maintaining a high-level of jobsite productivity is one of the most important activities for any foreman, superintendent, or project manager. By using the four pillars of productivity, the productivity levels of any construction crew, on every construction project can be increased.   

When production rates drop on a construction jobsite, money is lost, and often cannot be recovered. On the other hand, when production rates are monitored closely, and improved upon constantly, profits are earned and a company will gain a competitive advantage. How can jobsite productivity be enhanced? One ways is by utilizing the four pillars of productivity.

Getting productivity out of a crew breaks down into four key areas: materials, tools and equipment, information, and goals. How well you execute all four of these will determine the overall productivity of your crew. The systems you set up in your company to guarantee these four areas are managed effectively will determine the success of your company.

Let’s take a closer look at these four areas, and what you can do today to start increasing your productivity tomorrow.

Defining the Four Pillars

1.  Materials: This is priority number one, but luckily, materials are also relatively easy to manage and set up systems for. If the crews do not have materials, they cannot install anything. Making sure all materials are on the jobsite and that they are getting to the work areas for the crews to install in an efficient manner are what should be focused on.

2.  Tools and Equipment: This is a simple enough concept, as no tools equals no production. This is not a place any construction crew wants to find themselves at! Therefore, ascertain that the crews have all the tools they need and that the tools are easily accessible. Do a quick analysis to see if the higher cost of the tool will offset the savings in labor.

3.  Information: If people have materials and tools, then the only thing they need to get started with installation is the information about what, where, and how they will be doing the installation. This is the area where pre-planning comes in as a critical tool. You will never be able to achieve 100 percent in this area, which is why you need to be constantly working on improving what information you have, and how you communicate it to the crews.

4.  Goals: If your crew has the proper materials, tools, and information, you might wonder what’s left. Adding in goals can improve production by 10 percent or more on a consistent basis, so this pillar should not be overlooked. Don’t underestimate the power of setting goals for the crew on a daily and weekly basis. Look at tying small rewards to meeting certain production goals throughout the entire work process. If an activity is budgeted to take a crew three days of work, offer them all a steak dinner if they finish in two. You will be amazed at how many times they will earn that steak dinner.

Good jobsite productivity really is that simple! There is no reason to make it more complicated. Every project management process in your company, every activity that you do every day should be able to be categorized into one of these four pillars. If they aren’t, you need to ask yourself whether it is really necessary.

Remember that good productivity means a competitive advantage, more work, good profitability, and more opportunities for everyone in the company. It’s a win/win situation!

DAVID BROWN is the Founder and President of D. Brown Management, a consulting and management firm that helps construction companies improve profitability. See www.dbrownmanagement.com for more information and to sign up for a free newsletter. 

It is likely many firms are going to be showing either minimal profits and/or losses this coming year end. How is your surety going to view these results?  I think it comes down to the nature of the results and what you did to get there. 

If you picked up a lot of work with minimal profits I think you might have an issue.  Those projects will last for some time and continue to impact results while causing your surety pause on future work you want to pursue.  If your results are due to lack of revenue the positive is you don’t have baggage to deal with entering the new year.  In my opinion the surety will look at this business decision more favorably as your ability to pick up some work at the right margins will allow you to regain your standing quicker. 

End of the day I think the firm with minimal profits to a loss but little work will be in much better shape than the firm saddled with low margin work over the long haul.  Good luck out there.

I have often struggled with training programs for young carpenters.  As a laborer as a kid, I did the basic grunt work first, then got trusted with a hammer, then eventually was taught the finer points of building things.  The nature of the industry and the mobility of employees has put much of this informal apprenticeship training aside.  As managers, we lament the days of the talented carpenter that could build a project from A to B, but we fail to set aside quality training time to grow the next generation of these talented folks.  We assume that our employees won’t be here in a couple of years, so we don’t invest in developing them as builders and managers.  We quickly assume that they will head for greener pastures when the two dollar an hour (temporary) raise comes knocking.  We guarantee it when our organizations aren’t far-sighted enough to provide the pastureland for our staffs to grow into what they want to become.

As a small general contractor, I struggle with trades staffing needs.  I prefer to do as much of the work as I can in-house for both quality assurance and scheduling reasons.  But, unless these tradespeople are generalists in the sense that they can frame one week, drywall the next and run quality trim the week after that, I struggle to keep them busy.  This situation occurs countless times in construction companies everywhere.

Currently, I am internally debating  and leaning towards working with a local union for construction trades people more and more.  The benefits are obvious - fixed labor/hour costs, ample supply of personnel and, the most important aspects of all to me - apprenticeship training and continuing education.  Along with this is the ability to staff according to actual project needs and not projections.

The potential downsides that I see are a lack of ownership in the project (Doesn’t seem much different than a subcontract perspective); higher dollar per hour costs along with workplace continuity and how that would effect my clients.  I also worry about unionized workers giving non-unionized subs a tough time and vice versa.  Operating in a right to work state should quell this worry, but it is still a concern.

I would love to hear from any of you that have made the switch to union labor.  I would enjoy hearing the success stories and the horror stories.  In an effort to continuously grow both my organization and to adapt to an ever-changing marketplace, I have to reach out beyond my comfort zone a bit.  But, on paper, a well trained on-staff project management team provided with the ability to draw highly trained carpentry labor seems like a win/win and another tool to become more efficient. 

Aside from a political argument, which I have no desire to entertain here, have any of you found that using union trades (carpentry) labor has been beneficial to your organizaton?  Have any of you found it not to be?