{"id":722,"date":"2023-10-02T02:53:49","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T02:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/?page_id=722"},"modified":"2023-12-07T21:19:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T21:19:00","slug":"time-gaps-application","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/?page_id=722","title":{"rendered":"Time Gaps Application"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Newco Homes was a group house builder offering house packages and making multiple homes a year. At any point in time, Newco Homes had many houses under construction. These houses would each take three to six months to complete, all going well, and the building of these houses does overlap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its environment, Newco Homes was running what we call projects. Newco installed a project time gap, called a buffer. On a house built, Newco Homes would have multiple chains of parallel activity converging over the build duration, each with their own mini buffers. It had two to three of these complex house builds going at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the factory, Newco Homes had a project plan up on a visual board, with pieces of string on it, to represent the \u2018now\u2019 status. The purpose of this was to help identify where each project was up to, and where they were falling behind. From this visualisation, the team could clearly see when the project started, where each build was up to, and could state how much buffer they had left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Each project\u2019s time gap, its buffer, represented the build\u2019s ability to absorb delays, termed \u2018safety,\u2019 essentially a contingency allowance build into routine operations. If everything went well, a build would finish early. However, there was almost always some form of delay. For example, the weather might go bad and contractors grumble and might be late turning up, so contingency was needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The major risk in a house build project is subcontractors, and there are a lot of subcontractors involved in house building, such as the plumber and electrician and, if they are not in-house, the roofer, painters, and fit-out people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The subcontractors were given dates, but they rarely turned up on those dates. They would ask the builder, \u201cIs it ready for me?\u201d and the builder would reply, \u201cNo, it\u2019s another week away, unfortunately.\u201d The subcontractor would then leave the site and go work on a different job. Then, when they finished that job, the subcontractor would come back to the builder. The builder has had that week, plus another week pass by, and they have lost a significant amount of time. Alternatively, the builder would ask \u201cAre you ready to start Monday?\u201d and the subcontractor would reply, \u201cNo, I\u2019ve another three days work here to finish up first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newco Homes had its own building team for framing and cladding, and used subcontractors for painting and wiring, etc. Typically, the team installed batts, put the roof on a house, and subcontractors would have done the plumbing, landscaping, and digger work to cut out the base to lay the concrete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The time gap was an application to protect the delivery performance to the customer. Newco Homes could quote to a customer a date which was the duration of the build, if everything went well, plus contingency, saying, \u201cThis is how long it\u2019s going to be,\u201d and could hit it every time. Before this, any quoted date was just a complete guess. Previously, to be competitive in the market, Newco Homes would quote how short it can be, not what was reliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While one application of \u2018a buffer is a time gap\u2019 is to absorb the variation so a house finishes on time, in a Newco Homes project, there were other builds to consider. This caused key resources\u2019 availability to become limited. If resources were being used on one house, it meant the team couldn\u2019t work on another house, and this was something Newco Homes had to manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With many different people, any losses on those subcontractors completing their work rippled through the build in question and into the other builds. For example, if one party was slow to pour the concrete, this meant the plumber putting the piping through the pouring area\u2019s date had passed, and so the plumber starts losing time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Newco Homes used \u2018a buffer is a time gap\u2019 to create reliability. It put a buffer with each of the subcontractors whenever they joined the project. The key was to make sure the subcontractor was on site when required, but meant some subcontractors were standing around doing nothing. Of course, subcontractors don\u2019t want to stand around doing nothing as most have a queue of other projects and other customers to go see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To overcome this dilemma, a conversation was required. It went something like, \u201cRight, we require you to be here, available, three days before x<\/em> date! Don\u2019t start anything that will take you longer than that x<\/em> date.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subcontractor was allowed to ask, \u201cWhere are we up to?… Good, I can fit a one-day job in,\u201d and go back to it. Yet, the subcontractor wouldn\u2019t start a four-day project as it would burn their time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Newco Homes needed to add to the time gap conversation and figured out it needed a subcontractor to be on site three days beforehand, saying, \u201cDon\u2019t start anything new, so that you are available when we need you to start.\u201d Newco Homes wanted a rapid handover. In other words, \u2018go\u2019 and the subcontractor starts, not \u2018go\u2019 and the subcontractor thinks about wrapping up their current job and coming over, plus a few days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As a result of this, Newco Homes had the subcontractors move to a different commercial relationship, where they were paid from the day they became available. So, if it was in the window of time when they needed to be available, it was, \u201cI\u2019m available, I\u2019m on site, I\u2019m \u2018tools down\u2019 doing nothing but I\u2019m being paid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newco Homes experienced that subcontractors who were used a lot were more willing to play. On the other hand, subcontractors that were used for \u2018one-offs\u2019 were not interested, saying \u201cI\u2019ve got other stuff to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With \u2018a buffer is a time gap,\u2019 Newco Homes found that it could start quoting shorter and shorter project lead times to its customers. What used to be six months, and the industry norm at the time, went down to three months as a reliable build lead time, complete from the ground all the way to the completed house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newco Homes was a group house builder offering house packages and making multiple homes a year. At any point in time, Newco Homes had many houses under construction. These houses would each take three to six months to complete, all going well, and the building of these houses does overlap. In its environment, Newco Homes …<\/p>\n

Time Gaps Application<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-722","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2522,"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/722\/revisions\/2522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keypractices.viagointernational.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}