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Why Track Production?

Can you imagine an NBA game without the fans in the stands, cheerleaders on the floor or a scoreboard?

This seems unimaginable yet these are the circumstances we typically work with every day in the construction industry.

Could you imagine playing basketball for 8 hours and not having some way to keep track of how many baskets your team scored? Most construction crews go to work and their only clearly defined goals are start, finish and break times.

Could you imagine playing basketball for 8 hours against another team and only knowing how many baskets your team had scored? For the few crews that go to work everyday and can actually tell exactly what they accomplished even fewer have a way to compare whether their production was good or not.

Could you imagine playing basketball everyday for months without knowing the score? That is exactly what construction crews are doing when they are relying on job costs and budgets to tell them whether they are over or under budget (winning or losing).

Could you imagine a coach letting their team play basketball for several months with little feedback and then just showing up and telling them that they were way behind the other team? That is what happens in many companies when the project manager finally sees the results of daily production on the job cost reports.

Could you imaging a coach trying to lead his team to victory by defining plays, setting strategy, making player decisions, etc. all based on his “gut” feeling without knowing what the score was or what the other team was doing? Many superintendents and foremen are forced to work in this environment – sometimes their “gut” pays off and sometimes it does not.

Could a coach pull together all the diverse personalities and egos necessary to win and make them work together effectively if they were each focused on different aspects of the game rather than the common goal of getting the ball in the basket? Many project teams function like this each and every day with each person focused intently on what they think their individual responsibilities are or should be without looking at what they could do RIGHT NOW to facilitate getting the ball in the basket.

For the construction crew production tracking can provide that scoreboard and unite the team. Production tracking is significantly different than job costing because it is done daily, even hourly.
Production tracking can be used to set daily goals with hourly milestones.

Production tracking creates a competitive environment where the crew is competing against and trying to beat the budgeted production, their past production or the production of other crews within the company.
Production tracking creates a common language within the company that can be shared by everyone from the apprentice laborer up through the operations manager.

Production tracking creates a common measurement (dollars) so that activities can be prioritized within in the project team. EVERYONE on the project team should be focused on the activities that will generate the most money every day.

Learn about how production tracking is different from job costing.

Posted by David on August 21, 2006 01:58 PM|Permalink

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