N844AA
Member
- Location
- Los Angeles
What is the ideal internal structure for an electrical contractor? When I say ideal, I'm thinking in terms of ease of management, fewest number of people not involved in production, ease of scaling up or scaling down the size of the organization in response to market forces, fewest number of vehicles required, smallest size of shop needed, etc... I'm talking non-union here.
Granted, much of this is subjective and dependent on what type of electrical work you do, but there certainly must be some common traits any EC would desire in his business.
For example, I tend to think that 1 skilled electrician working with 2 helpers is a pretty efficient and economical crew. If you had 4 such crews (12 men) you might need a Project Manager who would meet customers, bid jobs and layout work for the crews. If you had 8 crews, you might need 2 Project Managers, maybe 24 crews would need 3 PM's and a driver/parts guy to deliver materials, etc....
I once knew an EC who only hired journeyman level electrician, no helpers. Fewer problems when everyone's a journeyman but very expensive payroll.
If you guys could run the perfect shop, what would it's internal structure look like?
Granted, much of this is subjective and dependent on what type of electrical work you do, but there certainly must be some common traits any EC would desire in his business.
For example, I tend to think that 1 skilled electrician working with 2 helpers is a pretty efficient and economical crew. If you had 4 such crews (12 men) you might need a Project Manager who would meet customers, bid jobs and layout work for the crews. If you had 8 crews, you might need 2 Project Managers, maybe 24 crews would need 3 PM's and a driver/parts guy to deliver materials, etc....
I once knew an EC who only hired journeyman level electrician, no helpers. Fewer problems when everyone's a journeyman but very expensive payroll.
If you guys could run the perfect shop, what would it's internal structure look like?
