Today, a sharp young guy named Ryan wrote to me after seeing a Keynote Presentation I did at the recent BuilderExchange meeting in Las Vegas. Two-hundred fifty people attended from 60 suppliers and a like number of builders.
I basically upbraided both the groups by showing them with vivid examples that neither was doing their job. If they did, however, Suppliers would sell a lot more stuff and Builders would make a lot more money – without compromising quality or abusing trades. Then...
My Aunt Janice (rest her soul) gave amazing Christmas gifts when I was a kid. One of my favorites was “Hugo the man with a thousand faces.” It was basically a bald plastic head with a case full of disguise equipment. Hugo had mustaches, glasses, eyebrows and wigs galore. Cool gift, wish they still made ‘em.
This week we will look at a Lean-designed, 2,400-square-foot home designed for a growing family. This home picks up on many current trends in housing and, like Hugo, it has the...
A Risk Management Benchmarking Survey in 2010 showed that 65% of businesses conduct no form of risk analysis prior to making major corporate decisions. While on 42% have any form of risk management audits or procedures. However, a study in the Accenture Global Risk Management Study in 2011 showed that for 98% risk was now seen as a higher priority than just two years ago. With US companies impacted by the global supply chain interruption after the Japanese Tsunami they realized that with an...
A builder would never build, merchandise, and maintain a model without staffing it, would they? Of course not - this would be abuse of an asset! The return on this asset (ROA) would be zero, zilch, nada. No competent manager would ever allow an asset to exist without some expected return on that asset, right?
Most builders expect their model, community, and marketing to return at least one sale per month and cover the bulk of the costs. Two sales per...
When you look at your trade contractors, your suppliers, product distributors, what do you see?
Are they a line item, an expense, a necessary evil or are they true partners?
It’s easy to look at your drywall guy, your lumber yard or your window supplier as someone with which you simply do business with, but finding new ways to partner can be an important way to succeed.
While the market seems to taking a slow turn for the better lately, it’s still tough out there, and...
Last fall the president of one of America’s “Top 10” builders who I have known for years corralled me at a conference. Because I travel this industry about as much as anyone, he likes to pump me for intelligence – as I do him. He wondered, what did I see out there? Who was making it? Who wasn’t? Which cities were ready to emerge and which were not? I gave him my take on things and then he asked a series of bombshell questions, “Who really impresses you? Who truly has the best practices...
Construction projects are complex in nature and prone to cost and schedule overruns. A significant factor that often contributes to such overruns is rework.
I catch myself from time to time spending money on things that I just don’t need to. Whether it’s the cool action video I think I will watch after the (wife selected) romcom, the twenty piece Mcnugget vs. ten, or the third hot dog at Home Depot, it’s all waste – well, usually anyway.
A simple item that builders are wasting money on is the HVAC line set. Locate your air conditioning unit as close as possible to your air handler. There are a lot of factors to be aware of...
The NAHB in conjunction with Professional Builder Magazine launched the National Housing Quality Award (NHQA) in 1993 to encourage and recognize best practices and best builders in the continual improvement of product and process. Modeled after the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, over time the NHQA has become the gold standard of awards in homebuilding.
Not to take away from any other industry awards, but the NHQA has the most demanding application, the most broad-based...
Flat, team based and empowered organizations have the potential to out-perform tall hierarchical organizations in most every competitive industry and that includes home building! I have always enjoyed conversations on business improvement with Tom Gillespie, a NHQ Award winning builder, NHQA Judge and consultant. In this blog Tom engages us in a conversation regarding the importance and impact of flat, empowered organizations.
A tall organizational structure has many levels of...
