It is critical to know what our customers think of living in the homes we build for them and what it was like to be involved in the design and construction process with us. In the case of survey results, this is a lagging indicator but still a track record of how we have done and it is powerful data. The more accurate the data and the faster we gather and act upon this data the more quickly we can listen, evaluate, correct anything that went wrong, prevent it happening again and seek further...
Blogs
22 weeks 3 days ago
By: Denis Leonard
23 weeks 11 hours ago
By: Bradley Hartmann
1. Metal
2. Material
3. Plan
4. Base
5. Idea
6. Hospital
7. Doctor
8. Vertical
9. Horizontal
10. Diagonal
No $3 Ivy League words in this bunch.
Just a handful of words you might use...
23 weeks 1 day ago
By: Bradley Hartmann
1. Twitter
2. Gangnam Style
3. Like
4. Gronkowski
5. Angry Birds
6. Linsanity
7. Kardashian
8. Middleton
9. 50 Shades
10. RG III
Odds are 18 months ago the items on this list didn’t mean much of anything to you. Now you probably recognize the pop cultural...
23 weeks 6 days ago
By: Denis Leonard
A recent research study on quality in construction projects established the following Quality Problem Factors as the sources of quality defects.
Quality Problem Factors
Managerial/Stakeholder
- Lack of contractor supervision
- Poor relationship and partnering among project participant
- Reduced Subcontractor responsibility
- Inappropriate method of contractor selecting
- Poor quality procedure ...
24 weeks 18 hours ago
By: Bradley Hartmann
Do you know what the Spanish term for Profitability is?
It’s Rentabilidad.
RENTABILIDAD
(rayn-tah-bee-lee-DAHD)
Profitability
I love this term because the word RENT leaps out at you.
RENTABILIDAD = Profitability
...
24 weeks 1 day ago
By: Bradley Hartmann
Remember the DeLorean?
If the name doesn’t conjure up an immediate mental image, this will: Remember the car from Back to the Future?
That’s a DeLorean. Doc Brown and Marty McFly’s dream machine. In early 2013 the car is making a comeback - as an electric car.
The most interesting thing about this news is the commentary coming from the DeLorean C-Suite. Speaking to Fast Company...
24 weeks 3 days ago
By: Todd Hallett
It is clear that a housing recovery ground swell is underway. In 2013 we will be looking past survival and finally able to focus on business growth. That is why IBS 2013 is going to be phenomenal! The country’s best builders are already focusing on Lean as a platform to optimize their profits and maximize the marketability of their homes – here is your chance to do the same. There are two major programs being offered that will help you get started:
1. Improve Your Plans – ...
24 weeks 3 days ago
By: Susan Bady
Come January 2013, we’re taking HousingZone’s already stellar coverage of residential design to a new level. Look for weekly blog posts from yours truly … a new monthly e-newsletter, “Design Innovation” … contributed articles from the best in the business … and much more.
“Design Innovation” will be a monthly compendium of design-related news, project profiles, floor-plan reviews and first-person reports from the show floor and the field. Whether it’s the highlights of a new consumer...
24 weeks 6 days ago
By: Denis Leonard
In a recent study rework costs (including labor, materials, equipment and subcontractors) can run from 2% to 20% of a project's total contract amount according to the Construction Industry Institute. These costs are of course eventually passed on to the customer as profitability shrinks.
The questions raised by this are:
What is your cost of rework?
and
What quality tools are you using to reduce those costs?
25 weeks 2 days ago
By: Denis Leonard
Some things to consider when evaluating your trade partners and creating a scorecard include the following:
- Defects
- Their scores on customer surveys
- The % of completed service requests on time
- Ease of doing business
- % of time on site ready to go on time
- Safety
Some of this data will already be available in other data tracking records (such as defects per home) others would have to be scored annually for example the...
