Best Practices Research Alliance Focuses on High Performance Home Building

Pittsburgh, Pa — Dozens of leaders from the homebuilding industry gathered recently at the Best Practices Research Alliance Annual Meeting, and spent the day sharing best practices for aligning homebuilding companies to effectively deliver high quality, high performance homes at the production level. The discussions centered on the theme of “Making Quality and Performance Everybody’s Business” — in essence, the importance of having a disciplined, organized business management approach and increasing collaboration, at all levels within a builder’s organization and with trades and suppliers, as a builder seeks to deliver a better product.
The Alliance is a network of homebuilders working with building scientists and manufacturers to find the right combinations of technologies, construction practices, and business management strategies to consistently and profitably deliver high performance, energy efficient homes.
Based on the theme, speakers from K. Hovnanian Homes, Wathen-Castanos, Inc., and S&A Homes shared their insights on effective high performance homebuilding from a builder’s perspective. Industry consultants Alan Laing and Denis Leonard examined ways to align business practices when high quality, energy efficient homes are the goal. Charity Moreland, environmental program director for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage spoke about financing and marketing green homes. The event, hosted at the Pittsburgh headquarters of IBACOS and the Alliance, also featured IBACOS’ building scientists and architects Duncan Prahl and Brad Oberg, who spoke of the research IBACOS is conducting in business and quality management and the Net Zero Lab Home Program.
Speakers throughout the day built upon the meeting’s theme by stressing the importance of collaboration among key stakeholders to ensure quality and performance – no matter what level of energy efficiency you’re seeking.
“Communication is key to team alignment, including interactions between and among Trade Partners, manufacturers, distributors and our sales, production and purchasing teams. All must understand our customers’ wants and needs and the K. Hovnanian team approach to deliver on those market demands ,” said Chip Merlin, Vice President of Operations for K. Hovnanian’s Landover Group, which has recently committed to producing only high performance homes. “The end result of everyone’s efforts, starting with plans and specifications and ending with post-closing service, is a consistent, reliable performance level delivered to our homebuyers. At the end of the day, our High Performance Homes message is simple: K. Hovnanian delivers high performance homes, built by high-performance people from high-performance companies ultimately giving our customers the peace of mind they deserve.”
Added Denis Leonard: “Quality should be seen as a business tool. It’s about aligning quality to your organizational strategy and to constantly see a benchmark to measure against. Get everyone involved in multiple ways.”
Mike Nimon from California-based Wathen-Castanos, Inc., presented a case study that show how sales increased after the company committed to building its own brand of high performance homes, “Hybrid Homes”, as a standard. The process started by assembling the right mix of partners. “We took a long look at our manufacturers to see if they were in line with our new positioning, and we took a new approach to work with the research and development people. We created a supplier-manufacturer-builder triangle to leverage the best of each relationship.”
S&A Homes has partnered with IBACOS to design and construct the Alliance’s first lab home targeting net zero energy, and in the process the company expects to garner best practices in high performance homebuilding and collaboration that they can leverage right away in their business.
“For us to do this is a no-brainer. (High performance) is a core belief for our company on how to build a house and sell a home,” said Chris Schoonmaker, vice president of sales for S&A Homes.
“The variety of viewpoints from this diverse mix of industry leaders and the discussion that followed allowed our participants to walk away with tangible ideas they could leverage in their own business initiatives,” said Betsy Scott, manager of the Alliance. “The Alliance will continue to be a resource for sharing ideas and best practices, and we invite aspiring production homebuilders to become involved in this initiative.”
In addition to those participating in the meeting in person, a simultaneous webinar was conducted for Alliance members across the country to give access to the information and insight sharing.

---

About the Alliance
The Best Practices Research Alliance® is a research-based community of homebuilders collaborating with building quality and performance experts, and product and material manufacturers. Our ultimate goal is to identify and share how to deliver high quality, zero energy homes as an everyday part of mainstream America. Homes that produce as much energy as they consume, while offering higher levels of comfort, durability, safety, and earth friendliness. The Alliance was founded and is operated by IBACOS®, a consulting firm specializing in home quality and performance and a research team leader for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America Program. The Alliance is supported in part by leading industry suppliers – Carrier Corporation, DOW, DuPont, Johns Manville, and Panasonic – and media and outreach partners Scripps Networks and BuildIQ.

For more information, visit the Best Practices Research Alliance at www.theresearchalliance.org