It’s the Most Perfect Time of the Year

Use these slower months to do something transformative in your operations

I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. However, I do think it’s important to plan ahead, and the beginning of the year is a good time to implement sustainable solutions that will benefit your company throughout the year to `come. Most housing economists agree that the first part of this year will likely be slower than the second half in a majority of the U.S. housing markets. That means it’s a great time to retool, retrain, and be aggressive about solidifying your relationships with your customers.

Retool

I’m a big believer in continuous improvement. You’re never done when it comes to eliminating inefficiencies in departments, from design to production to delivery. When it’s relatively slow, it’s time to pay attention to 5S (sort, set, shine, standardize, and sustain). Challenge everyone in the company to go through their workspace and sort by what is needed most to anything that is rarely needed. Then have everyone place the things they use most often nearest to them to reduce motion and improve ergonomics. Next, everyone should completely clean their work areas to remove clutter and potential hazards. Once all the hard work is done, an effort should be made to keep those work areas clean and organized through incentives and policies.

Another easy way to gain efficiency in your operations is to start using SBCA’s new Digital QC program. This software platform will make QC inspections dramatically more accurate and efficient, and provide more immediate data to help identify areas where your production processes or training could be improved. The many manufacturers who have implemented this program in the last year have remarked that it is much more intuitive to use, so inspectors can be trained more quickly and can either spend less time doing inspections, or conduct several more inspections per shift.

Retrain

Lean concepts stress that everything is an ongoing process. Employee training should be approached the same way. Whether it is the data from Digital QC helping to identify the areas of production that need more focused training, or it’s injury data that suggests some teams may need a reminder of safety protocols, training should always be a priority.

Standardizing processes, whether it’s related to production, safety, estimating, or delivery, will make initial training, and retraining, much easier to implement. SBCA has a robust library of standardized, industry-specific training programs available to manufacturers through its learning management system (LMS). Beyond these programs, it can also be effective to have your management teams regularly review training materials and goals to ensure there is a regular cycle of retraining on key topics and processes.

Gaining Ground

If you jumped into the multi-family boom over the last 18 months, it was hopefully a very positive experience. As that sector of the market cools off in many parts of the country, it’s time to re-diversify into single-family and/or light-commercial projects.

One way to potentially gain ground with single-family builders is to set up conversations with them focused on how you can help them achieve their goals for the second half of the year. Our industry is in a unique position to offer a wide range of solutions, from design to materials and labor, but most builders aren’t aware of our capabilities. Don’t assume that just because they buy a product from you, they know everything about you.

One example is to sit down with a current set of their plans and walk through how you can optimize that structure. The goal is to save on material costs while reducing waste and skilled field labor requirements, and help them reduce cycle times to get more projects dried in come the second half of the year.

If you’re going to make a New Year’s resolution, resolve to look at your company through a new lens at the start of this year and take a proactive approach to retooling, retraining, and opening your customers’ eyes to everything you can do for them when the market begins to heat up again. 

Jeff Taake, SBCA President