Why do builders avoid facing the facts on process failure?
“Sometimes life – and work – would be easier if you could forget some things you’ve learned.”
So begins my August article in Professional Builder Magazine just out today, the fifth in a series on “Process Mastery” – the one sure route for sustainable profits in any market. I go on to say … “Blissful ignorance has its appeal, not for just individuals but companies, schools, churches, governments, organizations of all kinds. Just keep on doing what you’re doing, even if it’s not working so well. Blame the suppliers, blame the trades, blame your people, blame the other builders, blame the market, blame the press, and blame the government at every level. No worries, you have a long road to travel before you get to yourself. Yet for everyone who has a bent toward process improvement, once you have that piece of knowledge, know its consequences and get banged over the head with continual reminders, you just cannot let it go.”
This month we focus on a very real issue – fear. I illustrate it with one example that accounts for more than $10,000 waste per house on the average $300,000 home in America. If that sounds impossible, we have data from more than 150 Lean implementations with builders in five countries showing this to be a very conservative number. Solving this one would also solve much of your trade shortage problem and that’s a problem for about 99 percent of builders today. The only thing standing in the way of a solution is … fear. Read the complete article here probuilder.com/process-failure-product-waste-home-building. If you’d like a PDF of the entire five-article series plus a couple of bonus articles and Excel templates that will help you understand the true cost of waste in scheduling, email your request to [email protected].
