Can you repeat your successes?

By STEVEN K. GORSLINE
Moss Adams

Your last project was a winner -- on schedule, under budget, superior quality, satisfied client. And your employees felt like it was a good experience.

But can you repeat that success again and again, for different clients in different circumstances? Can you improve it? Does your company do work of the highest quality usually or consistently and reliably?

Product quality is the cause. Customer satisfaction is the effect.

Today's construction projects are increasingly more complex. The logistical issues alone can make the tax code look simple. When you add tough competition, tight margins, complex safety and environmental regulations, and a shortage of skilled labor, it's no wonder a construction company can suffer because of inconsistent quality results.

But in construction, as in any business, the relationship between product quality, customer satisfaction and ultimately making money is the relationship between cause and effect. You have to find a way to get it right -- every time. This is a business where you simply can't afford to base key business decisions on intuition. And you can't afford to rely on successfully negotiated change orders to provide your profit on the job.

Now the good news. Precisely because of its complexity, the construction business is well suited to improvement through the systematic, scientific tool called business process analysis.

Define. Document. Evaluate. Improve.

Business process analysis applies a very simple idea to your business. If you want quality, consistent improvement and a positive impact to your bottom line, you need to do four things:

• Define your procedures.

• Document those procedures.

• Evaluate every project in terms of those documented procedures.

• Constantly refine and improve the procedures in light of experience.

People who are casual about fitness go to the gym. Professional body-builders go to the gym and document what they do there. The difference? Professionals want to record the process, measure each work-out against that process, and constantly fine-tune and improve the process for a better work-out next time around. Guess who's stronger at the end of the month?

The same principles apply when you are trying to build a strong construction, design or engineering company. You can't bring reliable and consistently improving quality to a complex process without identifying and documenting the procedures you currently use. These procedures show you where the business is now. And they show you how to specify and record each improvement.

A business process analyst looks at every aspect of your operations: Purchasing. Hiring. Managerial decision-making. On-site quality control. Communications. Contract review. Design control and verification. Inspection and testing. Training. Corrective and preventive action.

In all these areas and more, the analyst seeks to identify bottlenecks, conflicts, areas where there are inadequate safeguards or procedural ambiguities. The analyst deals with core problems -- not symptoms. Begin by asking yourself, "Is this a problem or merely a symptom of a bigger issue?" Fixing symptoms will not solve your problems!

Once you know the core problems, your solutions can correct the root of the problem and its related symptoms, simultaneously -- a process that will have a direct positive impact to the bottom line.

Consider the benefits of thoroughly documenting and analyzing your business systems. The right business process procedures shorten design and development schedules, reduce production and materials costs, improve decision-making, raise employee morale and widen available markets. They also instantly raise the company's value by providing a documented benchmark of current practices in all operational areas.

These processes also unleash the capacity to actively manage change. Along the way, they can even materially affect your business just by showing you how to improve record-keeping and financial processes.

Benchmark for managing change

For some companies, an important method for improving business process procedures is ISO 9000 compliance and registration. The ISO 9001 standard "specifies quality system requirements for use when a supplier's capability to design and supply conforming product needs to be demonstrated." It also happens to be an excellent model for maximizing return on existing capital and human resources.

The importance of ISO in this country is increasing sharply as federal agencies, like the Department of Defense and major prime contractors like Boeing, start to demand that sub-contractors be ISO registered.

In fact, in an industry where few things are certain, this is certain: an increasing percentage of architectural, design, construction and engineering contracts simply will not be available to "non-ISO" companies. ISO isn't just for the big players. Almost 50 percent of all ISO-certified companies in the U.S. have fewer than 150 employees.

However, for many companies, ISO is too cumbersome or too expensive. The important thing is to realize that a "no to ISO" decision does not imply that you can afford to ignore business process issues. It does not imply that you can safely avoid documenting and perhaps changing your existing processes.

Begin with an objective analysis

A review of your business process needs should begin with a thorough and objective analysis of the gap between your existing practices and the set of practices which would most benefit your business.

Be a professional body-builder. Analyze and document your business processes. It's the first step to a leaner, stronger, more competitive company. The kind of company which beats the competition by delivering the highest level of quality at a profit -- again and again and again. It's also the kind of company that attracts and retains the best employees in the industry. Everyone wins!

The process begins by starting each business day with the following question: What are you doing today to ensure you make money now and for the future? You may be surprised with your answer.

Copyright © 1998 Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce.