A brilliant idea wins awards and gets our production leader onto a Tim Faller podcast

Our very own Rick Swanquist, Production Manager Extraordinaire at Mainstreet Design Build was thrilled to be a guest on The Tim Faller Show! [Listen to the episode here.] Fresh off winning an award in front of his industry peers, Rick was invited on the podcast to share his innovative “Control Your Own Destiny” through metrics, guidelines, and tracking idea that’s already sweeping the nation.

“As head of production, my goals are to optimize efficiencies and reduce costs, and do so while maintaining quality through superb team dynamics,” beams Rick. “So I created a system of goals, performance indicators, and metrics that will allow me to track individual and team performance. I’m very excited that Tim invited me to participate in his podcast and share these ideas with the rest of the industry!”

With the mission “to light the path of greater success for motivated remodeling professionals,” for more than 30 years Remodelers Advantage has brought together smart, savvy, non-competing remodeling experts to share their experiences and help one another improve company performance. At their recent workshopping event, Rick presented his ideas around Construction Build Teams to a crowd of 138 other production professionals from firms throughout the country.

Taking first prize, Rick got the podcast invite to discuss some of the performance metrics included in the build teams to help improve the bottom line through production training for remodeling companies eager to learn and benefit. “We loved Rick’s idea of ‘gamifying’ production by assembling two teams to engage in friendly competition with each other,” says Tim. “They even came up with team names and logos, and the audience of his peers went wild!”

Comprised of a project manager and two carpenters, each respective Mainstreet Design Build team was assigned success metrics and tracked, the results compared after project completion. “The Miter Ducks were pitted against Speed Squared!” smiles Rick. “You should have seen how eager they were to kick each other’s butts every step of the way. And we all had so much fun.”

Careful monitoring and measuring of both teams then sharing the results enabled Rick to transparently observe their performance and share areas where they could both improve. Focusing on production scheduling, task management, and forecasting, communication was streamlined between PMs and carpenters thanks to the sharing of best practices.

Comparative metrics included schedule slippage, store trip frequency, deadline completion, logging of jobs and photos, and of course client satisfaction. In one specific example, trips to the store were cut down by 40% by simply bringing their frequency to the teams’ attention. The competition provided key performance indicators and a new baseline for optimization.

“Rick’s ingenious idea increased speed and efficiency without compromising quality,” observes MainStreet Design Build founder Steve Ramaekers. “That’s not only brought positive change to our company but offers innovative and effective ideas for all Remodelers Advantage members.” Tim Faller adds, “I loved having Rick as an expert guest on my podcast where he discussed his great idea.”

 

 

Remodeling firms across the country have already started to apply Rick’s “Team Building” competition to optimize their own production departments. Sharing is caring, and the feedback so far reveals there’s no better way to inspire success than by offering useful techniques to actually make that happen. The result: Cost savings without compromise for our customers!

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