Site House Keeping is a KPI

Quality, Consequences and the Construction Industrial Complex (part 143).

Companies and people emit signals 24/7 about their competence, core values and who they really are.

IMHO, how you do something is how you do everything! How you present yourself, manage workflow and staff, even how you write and send an e-mail. It all matters and signals to other peoples conscious and sub-conscious, who you and your firm really are.

Ask yourself this, would you use a dentist who had bad teeth? Would you take life advice from a fraudster? Of course not.

Would you let a construction firm build your project if you walked around their job site and saw this:

When you see site conditions like these, the subtext is:

• We do not care about workers conditions and safety
• We do not care what the client thinks about us
• We are cutting corners everywhere

There are real costs to this approach:

• Reduced site safety and productivity
• Damage to finishes and installed equipment
• Clashes via uncoordinated work
• Reputation risk

Job site house keeping is a KPI. It tells you something about the firms involved, their competence and the client who accepts this level of performance.

IMHO, the construction industry optimizes for and rewards the lowest levels of:

• Quality
• Competence
•  Cost

When will construction evolve as a manufacturing process? It should be like this photo from a car factory.

Yes, I know, buildings are “one off” manufactures. However, until construction evolves into a high performance, process driven, manufacturing and assembly business it will always be a destination of last choice for the brightest people. “A” players do not gravitate to poor job conditions.

Construction needs to be more like a racing car tire change which takes 4 seconds. What would a construction firm be like if it was run with optimized manufacturing and assembly processes half as good as a racing car pit crew?

The only way to change this is to not accept it as a developer and employee. Accountability with consequences are required. However, the first no cost, low cost step, is to tidy up the work areas. Really, how difficult can that be?

Where are Elon Musk or Google? Is it easier for Elon to send his car into space rather than fix the construction industry? Maybe…….

Twitter: @BLDWhisperer

Related Posts:

#105 – Bad Projects? No, Only Bad Leadership ( https://bldwhisperer.com/bad-projects-no-only-bad-leadership/ )

#129 – Design & Build? Nope ( https://bldwhisperer.com/design-build-nope/ )

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