The gulf oil spill has given those of us in the construction industry a valuable lesson.  My guess is that if I took a straw poll of contractors, 99% of them would submit that they never cut a corner to reduce costs and speed up a project.  While the vast majority of them would be telling the pollster the truth, I would estimate that quite a few would be lying to both the poll taker and themselves.

I am certainly no expert in prospecting for oil, drilling wells or collecting crude.  In fact, I know very little on the subject.  But I do understand intimately well the pressures that we all face to keep our projects on time, on budget, faithful to the drawings and specifications and accident free.  Most of the time these goals are mutually inclusive and fit hand in hand with one another.  Sometimes, though –extraordinary time or financial pressure exists to subordinate one of these fundamental goals to the others. 

Don’t do it.

One of the great things about our industry is that much of what we are supposed to do is scoped out, drawn and specified for us beforehand.  The better the bid package, the less confusion and opportunity to skimp on details exists.  While this may sound like an advertisement for the American Institute of Architects, make no mistake that many important details are left out and remain up to the general contractor to faithfully execute.  Most of these issues have industry standards as a guide, but again some are open to interpretation.  When we sign a contract, our companies are given the fundamental trust by our clients to faithfully execute the bid documents and to perform all phases of the project to or above industry standards.

What the gulf oil crisis teaches us is that no time constraints or financial pressures are great enough to cause us to not perform our work to acceptable standards.  Checks and balances must remain in place at all times and not ignored.  Warnings from subcontractors must not go unnoticed.  Problems cannot be simply buried under stories of earthen backfill, hidden behind a layer of ½” drywall or sunk below a mile of ocean water.  These checks and balances exist to mitigate future damage or, especially sad in this case, eliminate the loss of life and property and the destruction of precious ecosystems.

Ours is an inherently dangerous endeavor.  Powerful equipment, falls, etc. are all part of our chosen profession.  Entire industries have sprung up to help make construction less dangerous and safer for our employees and clients.  By making our projects safer, we save lives and property and build our reputation.  But no industry exists to check and double check each and every phase of our work.  That alone is up to us and our project teams.  Each person must be empowered to have input.  Each issue must be addressed.  And above all, we cannot allow any of our fundamental goals to exclude the others.  Doing so may cost us a bit more at the time, but the cost of skimping on quality and not constructing to  or beyond acceptable industry standards will be paid for generations.  

At the end of the day, we have a solemn duty to do what is right, not just what we can get by with.  The scary thing is I understand where the pressure comes from.  We are all under it nearly every day.  I can put myself in the position of the project manager who is told it “should be good enough” by a subcontractor and struggles to balance costs, time and safety.  Some instances in life are the kick in the mouth we need to avoid complacency and acceptance of anything less than our best.  The photos of shrimp boats skimming for oil rather than shrimp is an image that should convince us that “sort of ok” is just not good enough. 

As an industry, we simply cannot tolerate “good enough” or assume that problems, once buried, won’t have catastrophic consequences down the road.

As many of you know, the current economy has created tough competition among contractors. Since construction is expected to rebound more slowly than other industry segments, the biggest challenge for construction business owners is figuring out how to weather the continuing economic storm. Many contractors are bidding jobs at a loss just to keep work coming in the door. But this isn’t the best survival strategy, since building a backlog of low-paying projects will leave you with limited resources when more profitable jobs return. A smarter approach is to cut costs, increase efficiency and downsize your staff to a core group of A-players.

In construction, your A-players are the moneymakers who consistently get the job done – on time and under budget. Keeping these people on your payroll, and giving them the tools they need to optimize productivity, is your best bet for enduring the rest of the recession. Fortunately, the leading construction software technology trends support this endeavor by increasing efficiency in the office and the field. Electronic document management systems and wireless field-to-office solutions are the newest technology tools to hit the construction industry, and they offer the greatest potential for helping contractors accomplish more with fewer staff. But if you’re still using a generic accounting program, replacing it with integrated construction-specific accounting software will also deliver immense productivity gains.

At ComputerEase, we’ve used the less-frenzied pace of the last few years to cultivate stronger relationships with our clients and to better understand their needs. We discovered that better communication between their office staff and field force was a top priority. As a result, we developed FieldEase for the tablet PC, an easy-to-use suite of wireless field and service management solutions that turn paper-based field processes into paperless transactions. While some construction software vendors have scaled back their development plans, ComputerEase has done the opposite. We remain competitive by staying on the forefront of product development, striving to understand how new technology will benefit our users and continually enhancing our existing solutions.

Our most successful clients are using the slowdown to refine their internal business processes and put new technology in place that will help them to capitalize on the inevitable upturn. The earliest adopters of FieldEase, for example, are achieving enhanced cash flow through more accurate job costing and same day billing for service work. Other companies are streamlining invoice routing and approval by implementing our Electronic Document Processing solution.

Although 2010 will likely be another year of financial uncertainty, construction business owners that invest in their company’s future by cutting costs and embracing technology have the greatest opportunity to survive the downturn – and thrive during the recovery.