We live in an era of fast changes and continuous research of high efficiency, quality and zero defect. It does not really matter which industry, market or product we look at!
Efficiency and quality, which are by definition always working hand in hand, carry along another huge advantage for all business owners, a great impact on the bottom line of all entrepreneurs, the profit!
Quality As The Way To Go
Years ago, all the “Business Excellence & Success Gurus” were already underlining the strategic importance of moving towards operational excellence and high-quality output while reducing the risks of defects. This can only be realised when all parties of a business team are on the same page, working in a synchronised way and sharing the same “Quality Culture”.
The story below is a very clear example of one of the many “dramas” happening daily at construction sites. It has been posted in LinkedIn by Ms. Pui Mun Teoh and carries her solution brand SpeeBrick, you can see what her ConTech solution is here.
The drama between site and office is real.
“A company’s purchaser shared with me an actual story. The existing purchaser had worked for over 10 years and the director began to doubt her effectiveness in controlling material and costs.
He decided to hire a younger purchaser to help with control. She (the new employee) set a new SOP, Material Request Form needs to be submitted 7 days in advance for purchasing department to process.She state that this will allow all purchasers to cross check with budget and have more time to negotiate a better price. The boss agrees. New SOP is imposed.
One day, site was doing concreting work. Site called, requesting to top up concrete bulk order as the quantity in previous order had finished. Supplier refused to release concrete.
She said “No. Follow SOP”. Best part is, all heavy machineries and workers were at site, waiting for concrete.
So, who’s at fault here?
The site claimed that they have no visibility on bulk order finishing up. The purchaser claimed that site needs to do proper planning. So, in the end, who do you think is paying the cost of this drama?
Takeaways
The first message of the short story above is: when the left-hand doesn’t talk properly to the right-hand mess happens! The paradigm efficiency / lower cost has been applied too much in favour of the latter totally forgetting the needs of subcons and machinery providers.
The second important teaching is: at the moment related parties in a project are not talking to each other and, even worst, leverage on SOPs to avoid proper transmission of data, updates and information then is when all of them are failing in the main mission of all businesses, making money while reducing defects and problems!
From Pain-point To Solution For Developers/Buyers
Several PropTech solution providers have been resolving the delicate equation of sharing information and data between property developers, employers when we talk about a construction site, and its buyers. They have been serving plenty of local and overseas property developers achieving high satisfaction in terms of efficiency of the whole sales process and even touching the final, often crucial, turn point of delivering the Vacant Possession of completed units and defect checking.
This last common, construction-to-developer and developer-to-buyers, “pain point” of the property ecosystem, and Malaysia is in very good company worldwide at this regard, is where, finally, construction meets the property market. As many property developers and property buyers have, unfortunately, experienced, plenty of defects are always found while checking the new property, this area still has plenty of room for further improvement!
Efficient Communication Is The Key
In other words, the less efficiently a construction site is manned the higher is the chance of having plenty of defect claims from the purchasers, and not only! What about those defects becoming “exposed” in the main structure or in one of the common area years after the actual delivery of VP?
Recently, one of the mainstream media in Malaysia, has reported about the above as one of the unknown nightmare strata owners might be finding themselves in! It is a very interesting reading, highly recommended for current and future strata owners, read the full text here. It all comes from a lack of focus on delivering quality while aiming torero defects, from within instead of taking care only of the visible appearance or exteriority!
Since the 80s the manufacturing world, doesn’t really matter which specific industry, has been moving towards quality control, ISO and more, what about the construction industry? For sure, in Malaysia, there has been a continuous improvement with CIDB introducing QLassic first and recently implementing the CIS7 as an industry standard and requirement to certify an almost defect-free construction quality. It is a good beginning, but the feeling is, there is still much more that could be done!
The PropTech-ConTech Solution, ProHouse
PropTech, or better ConTech might be offering a helping hand in this process of bringing construction towards a “zero defect” industry. Starting from the very beginning of each issue by working with the final deliverable in mind!
Translating this in practice, ProSales has been working with construction consultants, property developers and construction companies identifying possible solutions based on the cause-effect rule. Few new Con-Tech apps, designed to revolutionise the “brick & mortar” mindset of sub-cons, main-cons, consultants and developers, will be rolled out this year as a result of the work done!
All these new Tech solutions or apps, are leveraging on the power of setting rules, getting the players to fill in information and letting automation to do the rest! The first New Solution, ProHouse, developed by the ProSales team will be released soon and will help easing the communication process between all relevant parties, related to defect tracing and repairing, main-con-consultants-developer, with highly efficient time management and a huge raise of productivity!
Often is really only matter of knowing what the consequence of a job not properly done might be or, connecting the dots of cement, sand, steel and bricks with developer’s commitment, the official paper signed under the name of Sale & Purchase Agreement, and finally buyers’ expectations.
Remember to follow us for more detailed information and drop a note below, we would like to hear more about buyers’ expectations from one side and project’s stakeholders commitment on quality from the other side!
