In today’s modern age, homes are being built faster than ever. With the advent of nail guns and other specialized tools in the 1950’s, homes could be built nearly 30% faster than before. Since that time, however, there really haven’t been any substantial improvements. The process of building a home has stayed all but the same. Home builders follow a schedule based on the critical path method. This method means, essentially, that any delay on the critical path can cause a delay in the entire project. This forces the builder into a last-minute rush, in an effort to meet deadlines. It necessitates a reorganization of project tasks, pushing things out of the proper order and asking the trade contractors to accommodate the changed schedule at the last minute. This can lead to errors, mistakes, and rash decisions while the homeowner waits and waits to move into their dream home. It is a frustrating situation for everyone, but it is a common and accepted practice that everyone assumes they just have to live with.

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Starting now, this has all changed.

After spending nearly two decades looking at ways to streamline the process of building a home, we have finally found a way to make a significant difference in the process. With owner, Shan Jenkins‘, background in large commercial construction projects, it has been a consistent goal to always improve the construction schedule for our residential projects to be more in line with commercial schedules. In commercial projects, like large office buildings and production plants, the schedule is at the heart of the construction project, at times even sacrificing quality for the sake of the schedule. So the dilemma for custom home building has always been how to find ways to improve the schedule without sacrificing quality. Pulling ideas from industries as wide-ranging as agricultural machinery and tennis shoe production, we found the secret to be more than just better tools–it was a complete paradigm shift!  After years of research and endless hours of trial and error, we have discovered the secret. Our new Accelerated Construction Technique, or A.C.T., drastically reduces the time required to build the home.  But, best of all, it significantly reduces errors and quality issues.

What we Found

 

When we started looking closely at other industries, we noticed that keeping the site clean was a very important aspect to being efficient. Looking closer at our own job sites, we found that waste from the typical construction site added 5% to the overall cost of the project (in terms of cleanup and haul-off) and 10% was added to the schedule and overall timeline. The next thing we noticed was that the critical path could be drastically changed by lowering the number of people in each crew but allowing more crews to work in tandem. Closing down the home for large crews like painters, for instance, was extremely inefficient. Even working as fast as they could, it still caused a massive critical path in the project schedule that could not be moved or changed. Another disadvantage of large crews was the inefficiency of human movement and the re-work it often created. Think of a large grocery store packed with people. Efficiency is lost with that many people trying to move around, and items tend to get scratched or broken in the chaos. Lowering the number of staff on a crew, however, was not intuitive to our trade partners. They just don’t typically work that way. It took many conversations and much discussion to convince them that this would actually be better for them and for the overall production schedule. Several other items we noticed:

• Re-work is a significant problem on a construction job site, especially when many items on the job take 6-8 weeks to re-ship.
• Misplaced items are the cause of significant delays on a construction jobsite.
• Delayed shipments, products out of stock, broken or missing parts, or a miscalculation in material quantities are another cause of significant delays.

Builders tend to add contingency in the schedule for all of these delays. It can add up to 6 months to the schedule for these issues. For larger homes, those over 5,000 s.f., the problem is compounded, which is why you have seen some larger homes in the area under construction for up to two years or more. That’s why our system had to address all of these things.

It is so simple and makes so much sense that we are convinced it will one day be adopted by our industry as standard practice. We are passionate about improving not only the production schedule but also the quality of the homes we build. This system does both, but it does require a major paradigm shift. Although others were telling us that it couldn’t be done, we have taken our production schedule down by 30% already and plan to have it down by 40% in the next 6 months. Our Accelerated Construction Technique is the best way to faster delivery, a cleaner jobsite, and a better quality product. Call or contact us today to learn more about this revolutionary new technology for building your new home.