Last month, we had Scott Kimpland, a consultant from FMI, speak to our Officers and Area Managers about “Productivity in the Construction Industry.” Scott gave an excellent presentation on how we can increase productivity by attacking waste. This is really not something new to Team Fishel, but we are always looking for ways to improve. Scott pointed out that there are six critical success factors for productivity improvement:

1. Pre-job Planning
2. Communication / Teamwork
3. Teammate Training
4. Setting Daily and Weekly Goals & Expectations
5. Providing Feedback & Keeping Score
6. Leadership Development

In this letter I’d like to focus on two of the six, Pre-Job Planning and Daily and Weekly Job Goals and Planning. Every one of our jobs has variables that can affect production. Since we cannot change the uncontrollable ones (like the weather), we have to focus on the ones that we can control, like overtime, lost time due to not having the right tools or equipment for the job, removing roadblocks in the path of progress, rework as a result of the lack of Teammate training, to name just a few. The best way to reduce the amount of lost time is to start each day with a written plan. We need to always keep in mind that we have to keep the yellow muscle moving. That takes planning and scheduling of crews, equipment, materials and subcontractors. It is everyone’s responsibility to communicate clearly and effectively, to provide ongoing feedback for continuous improvement, to learn from our mistakes as well as our successes, and to consistently set goals and expectations for profitable growth. Take a moment to consider these facts and figures from FMI’s Productivity Research Group.

I am sure that we could all figure out a way to eliminate 10 minutes every day of wasted/lost time when we could be doing something more productive. But imagine what would happen if we could capture 48 minutes every day of lost unproductive time. What a tremendous impact that would have on our profit sharing program!!!

If we can create a written daily plan for each of our jobs, I am certain that we can overcome more obstacles than we can without a plan. It is important that we take the time to share that plan with our crews and Teammates to make sure everyone understands what the goals and expectation are for the daily production.

And remember, it’s not about work harder, it’s about working smarter each and every day that will allow us to get where we want to go as a company. And it is also about sharing best practices with our fellow Teammates that will allow each of us to learn from each other and help us to build upon our past successes. We have such a wealth of knowledge within our company that we need to take full advantage of those years of on-the-job experience so that we can make the most of each day, all 480 minutes of it.