It is an all too common problem for too many managers and sales staff; hours are spent wasting so much time trying to find up-to-date information for any given project being processed by the company. Ask yourself one simple question. How much time each day do you spend looking for information about a project status or trying to gauge the productivity of any individual or group?
Below is a simple solution that can help your company stop wasting so much time and start using everyone’s time performing the tasks that make money for the company.
Schedules – Every department, such as production, delivery, or a group like the design team, should create a schedule that shows allocated resources for each area! Then in each department, have the department manager create a schedule for individual workstations and team members such as designers using allotted resources. Allocated resources simply means that the schedule shows how much time (man-hours, BF, pieces, or any unit) are being used versus what is available. Display the schedules in the cloud, so anyone with access rights can view them from anywhere. And because they are displayed on the web, it is live data, so any change is instantly shown. By sharing on the web, it saves a lot of time compared to waiting on e-mails or phone calls.
Create a milestone task checklist for all project processes. Every project has similar tasks that need to be completed in a step-by-step manner. Why not list the task milestones and then link them all, so they are each relying on the previous task as a dependency? For example, an order may not be able to proceed unless seals are obtained from the engineer. Therefore, seals may be a dependent task that is required to proceed to the next stage of design or production. And since you are creating the milestone process checklist, add in automated reminders so that the right people are notified when something is reaching a critical date. Another example of a common task that should have an auto reminder are change order sign-offs. Again, just as the schedules are displayed on the web, display this process task list for all projects in an easy-to-use checklist shared by everyone. That way everyone will be able to see the status or stage of any given project with a mouse click. Think about how much more informed department managers will be for their areas of responsibility.
All project information should be linked to each project. Let’s face some basic facts about project processing. Normally even the smallest projects have a lot of information that is related to them so that everything is done as the customer has requested. And, of course, the more people who are involved, the easier it is for critical information to be lost or overlooked. Tie all the different information communications together for each project so that prints, e-mails, notes, change orders, truss and wall panel files, schedules, people, and task lists are all connected to each project. A lot less information gets lost or overlooked when all of the information is simplified and tied together like this. (“Pssst!” … Share this on the web to decrease employee information searching.)
Okay, at this point you may be saying to yourself this sounds like an easy-to-create shared database. Wrong! It is not an easy-to-create shared database no matter what your IT guru is telling you. Since when is your company an expert software development and communication company that you think this is something you should try to develop on your own? Let me help you here by telling you far too many small and large companies have wasted a lot of money trying to do it on their own. Some of the largest lumberyard and component companies have spent hundreds-of-thousand dollars and failed. So stop trying to reinvent the wheel and do what they and so many others have done. Contact David Beach at AppWright and use what thousands of users are using every day in our industry. AppWright has been used since 2001, and there are too many features that I can list in this short article that you as a manager or salesperson will find invaluable.
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