I once had the sales representative for a software company looking to secure our business tell me that, in his view, being a truss designer (or panel designer) was like taking a never-ending math test in which any score less than 100% was failure. He was certainly of the “old school” when it came to his view of how staff should be managed, but it got me to thinking about this idea of pass or fail versus educate and develop.
Certainly, none of us likes to see mistakes. That is true of ownership and management obviously, but it is equally true for virtually all staff members – at least those with the positive work attitude that makes them a valuable part of your team. Your people are all human, and that means that some mistakes are inevitable. As a designer, I have always hated making mistakes! It exposed that I had slipped up in one or more ways, such as:
- Perhaps I misread the plans or failed to get clarification on some unclear detail,
- While creating the truss layout I made some type of data entry mistake,
- During the design process I failed to update my designs to the most recent model,
- Code-required or project engineer-specified requirements weren’t addressed.
Regardless of the cause of the mistake, there is always a cost to correct it. Someone once told me about a “Rule of 10” that applies to the cost of correcting a mistake:
- Re-doing a layout or fixing some designs before the work leaves the design department might cost $50,
- If the trusses or panels have been built but not yet shipped, the cost jumps x10 to $500,
- If the mistake is discovered after trusses or panels are on site and installed, it’s x10 again to $5,000.
Yes, I know these are broad generalizations, but I’m sure you would agree that the hard costs go up the later in the process that they are discovered. And any time a mistake makes it to the site, there is a cost to your company’s reputation that could be much worse than any back charges.
The framing foreman, site super, and others may be involved in communicating the problem, so that is pure lost time for them. The time needed for the truss plant to determine the cause of the repair and find a solution is almost always a delay to the site schedule. Finally, there is the time to implement the fix. Every step of getting the problem corrected has a cost correlated with it, and almost without fail your client understandably will expect to be compensated.
So, how should management respond when it’s clear that a mistake has been made? Here are my thoughts:
- When facing the client, I put the blame on our company and not solely on any individual. We are all part of the same team, and unless an individual is not a good part of the crew, we shouldn’t be throwing them under the bus. Doing so sends a message to all members of the team.
- I make it clear to the client that this is not “normal” for our company (of course, if it was, that’s a whole other discussion) and everyone on our team regrets the progress delays that result.
- Where possible, I try to have the designer involved in resolving the problem. Often this is taken over by the design manager or a senior designer, but I think it’s important to keep the initial designer involved. He or she will see the effort needed to rectify the problem and hear the heated discussions that the salespeople or senior tech people have with the client.
- If our staff were going to the site to investigate the problem or to do some remedial work, I would try to have the designer at the site too. Some people have felt that sending a designer to site with their hammer and work boots was a punishment, but I’ve always emphasized that this was about learning: learning that our errors cause the client lost time; learning that mistakes require someone to do extra work to make it right; and, for the client, learning that both the company and the individual are going to make things right.
Mistakes are regrettable, but to some extent inevitable. How we respond can either make things worse or better in both the short term and long term.
Do you have any tips that you want to share on resolving design errors? I’d love to hear them!