sfav8r
Senior Member
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
I was waiting for an inspection last week, and found myself thinking about inproving efficiency (like not waiting for inspections 
I was wondering what other people do to minimize wasted time, so I thought I would put a few things out here:
Inspections:
Some inspectors give a 2-3 hour window (most try for 1 to 1 1/2 hours). I'm sure it's not really true, but it seems like they usually arrive near the end of that timeframe. I try to utilize that time by, straightening out and organizing my van, making a list of inventory items I need, etc. It makes the time go by faster and I'm all ready for the next job.
If the van is already in good shape, I'll look through the schedule, make calls, follow up on estimates, or check on supplies.
Does anyone have any useful ways to spend idle time?
One area that seems to eat away at productive time is runs to the supplier We do a lot of service work and it seems like it is impossible to stock the right parts. This year has been better, but there is only so much room in a van and you can't pack everything. Any good tips in this regard? We do keep a list of every item that we have to make a parts run for. I keep hoping that a trend will emerge.
How about billing for parts runs. Should the client expect we'll have whatever they need in stock? Should we expect the client to pay our shop rate to go shopping? I'm sure there are lot's of ways to handle this. So far, if we feel we should have anticipated the need of a part, we eat the time. If it is something unexpected or custom, we bill 1/2 our shop rate of $75/hr for parts runs. There is no science involved in this formula, I'm just on the fence as to whether or not we should bill for that time so I split the difference.
Job site:
On bigger jobs, the biggest factor for us is the actual job site. The difference in efficiency between a nice clean site and one where the GC has piles in every room and tools all over the floor is like night and day. Our tracking has shown about 40% increase in time between our best case site and worst case site. How do others deal with this. I don't feel our contract addresses this very well. It states that the site must be "accessible", but one man's accessible is another mans disaster area."
In the interest of not making this the world's longest post, the last topic is bidding tips. We do almost exclusively remodel work. You can throw the price guides out the window on these jobs. Sometimes, if the entire building is being torn down to the studs, you can use them as a guide, but in general, I find them useless for remodel.
The method that works best for us now is to walk the job and estimate days, then add in parts and markup. I suppose that we "guess" as good as anyone else, but the concept just bugs me and I'd like to dial this in better. Particularly because it requires a good knowledge of how MY crew works. Any thoughts?
Hope this wasn't too lengthy.
[ July 25, 2005, 12:37 AM: Message edited by: sfav8r ]
I was wondering what other people do to minimize wasted time, so I thought I would put a few things out here:
Inspections:
Some inspectors give a 2-3 hour window (most try for 1 to 1 1/2 hours). I'm sure it's not really true, but it seems like they usually arrive near the end of that timeframe. I try to utilize that time by, straightening out and organizing my van, making a list of inventory items I need, etc. It makes the time go by faster and I'm all ready for the next job.
If the van is already in good shape, I'll look through the schedule, make calls, follow up on estimates, or check on supplies.
Does anyone have any useful ways to spend idle time?
One area that seems to eat away at productive time is runs to the supplier
We do a lot of service work and it seems like it is impossible to stock the right parts. This year has been better, but there is only so much room in a van and you can't pack everything. Any good tips in this regard? We do keep a list of every item that we have to make a parts run for. I keep hoping that a trend will emerge. How about billing for parts runs. Should the client expect we'll have whatever they need in stock? Should we expect the client to pay our shop rate to go shopping? I'm sure there are lot's of ways to handle this. So far, if we feel we should have anticipated the need of a part, we eat the time. If it is something unexpected or custom, we bill 1/2 our shop rate of $75/hr for parts runs. There is no science involved in this formula, I'm just on the fence as to whether or not we should bill for that time so I split the difference.
Job site:
On bigger jobs, the biggest factor for us is the actual job site. The difference in efficiency between a nice clean site and one where the GC has piles in every room and tools all over the floor is like night and day. Our tracking has shown about 40% increase in time between our best case site and worst case site. How do others deal with this. I don't feel our contract addresses this very well. It states that the site must be "accessible", but one man's accessible is another mans disaster area."
In the interest of not making this the world's longest post, the last topic is bidding tips. We do almost exclusively remodel work. You can throw the price guides out the window on these jobs. Sometimes, if the entire building is being torn down to the studs, you can use them as a guide, but in general, I find them useless for remodel.
The method that works best for us now is to walk the job and estimate days, then add in parts and markup. I suppose that we "guess" as good as anyone else, but the concept just bugs me and I'd like to dial this in better. Particularly because it requires a good knowledge of how MY crew works. Any thoughts?
Hope this wasn't too lengthy.
[ July 25, 2005, 12:37 AM: Message edited by: sfav8r ]
