Bottlenecks
Most of the companies I work with aren’t working at peak efficiency; that’s why they’ve called me in. Frequently, inefficiency stems from bottlenecks. The estimator may be sitting around unable to finish a proposal because s/he’s waiting for some vital decision that has been made but not communicated. The draftsman in a design/build company may be stuck with an unfinished drawing, waiting for the final electrical decisions that were made last week but not communicated. The bookkeeper may be waiting for a stack of week-old invoices to be reviewed before being sent. Payables may similarly be sitting around (missing discount dates) because they haven’t been reviewed to see who will get paid because there’s not enough money to pay everybody because invoices went out late last month – as usual. The person responsible for putting together ad and promotional materials may miss a deadline because they’re waiting for copy to be reviewed. A field crew may be literally sitting around waiting for a final decision about how to handle an owner-requested change. The production manager may be unable to schedule tightly because s/he knows that more jobs have been sold but that information hasn’t trickled down yet. If you think none of this sounds familiar, check with your employees!
When people are consistently waiting for a decision to be made by somebody else, there’s a problem. It may be that the owner/supervisor/manager has a legitimate need to review or decide, but in my experience this sort of situation is often created when the individual in question is unable to give up his/her role as decision-maker. If you must review invoices before they’re sent, then make this a high priority since it affects your cash flow. If your cash flow improves, then deciding which subs and suppliers you can afford to pay will cease to be an issue. If you can’t trust your field crew/bookkeeper/promotional person to make good decisions, hire somebody whom you can trust and then keep your nose out of it. If you’re working as a designer, remember to keep your draftsmen, estimator, and relevant subs in the loop to avoid later errors and omissions. Develop a system for relaying information to them: if nothing else photocopy your site notes when decisions are made. You should be sending copies to the client anyway, to keep everybody on the same page. If you can’t give up control just because you can’t give up control, then either accept the inefficiencies that will result, or downsize until you can once again do it all yourself.