Judith Miller is one of our company’s most popular business consultants so I often pick her brain for thoughts and ideas on what our members should be doing today to insure success tomorrow. Today, we focused on the habit of using something called the Look-Ahead.

“A Look-Ahead is a process that helps train your team, especially your production team, to anticipate the short term future,” Judith states. “In other words, instead of reacting to the job, they learn how to look ahead to be ready for what is coming.”

“In addition, this process can increase efficiency on a job by 10-25% simply by forcing those involved to be more organized.”

The process Judith describes includes two things: Reports on the status of each, individual job, and meetings to discuss them.

“Too often, the production team shows up on a job and only then begins to think about what materials are needed, which trade contractors need to arrive, when the trade contractors need to arrive, and what labor is required,” Judith comments. “This ‘yesterday’ approach can waste a huge amount of time –and in production, more than anywhere else, time means money.

“Instead, meet weekly with your production manager to look at a report on the progress of each job and then review what’s going to happen next week, the week after that, and the week after that.”

By using a one, two, and three week Look Ahead, everyone will be aware of the resources that are needed and there will be no more unnecessary trips to the lumberyard, no more arriving with out the tools to do the job, and no more waiting for trade contractors who don’t show up. Sounds like nirvana, doesn’t it!

Implement this process this week and watch slippage and waste shrink before your eyes.

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