Construction Company

Company Background:

A small construction company, less than five years old and achieving income of around $2 million, knew they could be doing better but couldn’t put their finger on what the issue was.

Challenge: Information

The problem was they did not know for certain, where their resources were being consumed. They just hoped there was a margin at the end. Bowman Associates' identified their challenges as being:

• Improving productivity
• Managing people well (communication)
• Efficient business systems and effective use of technology
• Managing cash flow
• Too much time spent ‘fighting fires’ 

All of the above are symptoms of an underlying issue: complexity, which was pervasive.

Solution:

Bowman Associates’ initial engagement was to literally map the complexity in the business, using state-of-the-art software to give an ‘as is’ model of the business, analyse what we found, then recommend a ‘future state’ model.

Results:

Over several sessions with the client, we were able to build a dynamic model of the business that captured all their information inputs, actions and information assets (outputs), the people involved along the way (and their cost), plus the systems that were used i.e. more than process mapping. We also captured the duration and frequency of actions, to give a value and cost for every action taken. This proved to be most insightful. For example, one of the directors (a key person in the business), was shown to support 19 outcomes by performing 85 actions, using 30 systems and producing 94 information assets. Complexity was at play!

With a visual map of the business and having identified where complexity was hiding, it was a straightforward task to bring simplicity. Bowman Associates' did this by dramatically consolidating the systems used down to five, and by doing so, automating many of the actions. By eliminating virtually all the low value actions, this freed up the director’s time to manage his staff and suppliers well and work on his business. Cash flow is now under control. Our next area of focus is client growth and profit improvement.