Fundamental #3. Budgets and schedules are accepted facts of life on a construction project. And, if you don’t know already, you’ll quickly understand that they’re a fact of every foreman’s life. Everyone pays close attention to budgets and schedules — and the pressure is always on.
But having budgets and schedules will not, by themselves, cause your crew or your project to be successful. They’re the short term productivity benchmarks your crew and your company must meet as they also reach high standards of safety and quality — targets you and your crew must pursue with a sharp day-to-day focus.
And first-rate quality practices must be in place to ensure that budget- beating numbers and schedule-beating completion dates aren’t undone by rework. It doesn’t work the other way around if hidden defects appear and deferred problems show up after your crew has moved on:
- “Well, we were on schedule and under budget — until we saw the punch list.”
- “The drywallers closed up everything before we could pressure check the plumbing, and we had to open up two walls when we found leaks.”
- “Weren’t we supposed to patch the deck before we stripped off the bridge overhang brackets?”
No foreman can expect to be consistently successful without giving a strong focus to safety, quality, and productivity. All three. No exceptions.
Stuff To Think About. What will be your standards for safety and how will you achieve them? What will be your limits for safety and how will you enforce them? What will be your standards for quality and how will you achieve them? What will be your standards for productivity and how will you achieve them?
What special actions can you take to maintain safe practice and meet specs when the heat is on to hit your numbers and close out on time?
