Homebuilders: Managing for Quality Task-by-Task

Task level quality scoring -- on the jobsite, using an iPad!

Homebuilding, says Carl Seville, faces difficulties few other industries encounter. What other industry has to build their product in the rain, using dozens of other companies, each of which hires their own employees to perform the work? If you watched GE build a refrigerator in your front yard, Seville asks, would you buy it?  Read his Builder Online article here.

High-performance (think: quality) construction, Seville posits, will provide long-term benefits such as happier clients, fewer callbacks, decreased warranty issues...but how do you achieve it?

One suggestion is a commitment to quality from your entire team -- and that takes time and requires processes.  Everyone in the organization
from design to purchasing and most importantly construction and field management needs to get in front of the curve.  It's too late, in other words, to have a quality process that measures at the walk through!

CPS clients have found an effective process to be quality scoring at the task level using FieldCollaborate.  Take a look at the posted image. The Sheetrock task is a "pay
task" and is scored for both quality and safety.  There are minimum scores needed in order for the subcontractor to be paid, as well.  Seville talks, in another article about "keeping score with cash."

This quality team is made-up of the subcontractor performing the work, field manager providing the scores and accounting monitoring the score/pay relationship.  Not every task is scored; start with a few and evaluate how task-by-task scoring improves your quality performance!