Friday, March 25, 2022

March 2022 State of the Industry Report (Vol. X, Issue 1)

Industry at a glance:

  • Quantum Computing will be potentially the next disruption for the contracting industry.
  • Simply put, the industry is as strong as it gets despite the following:
    • Persistent Supply Chain issues
      • Which are caused by:
                                            -  Naturally, the supply chain is not able to handle full production                                                          after COVID 19. We predicted will hit by the end of 2021
                                            -  Hoarding of the material by some distributors to take advantage of                                                   the price increases
                                            -  Increased material pricing
                                            -  Delayed switchgear and fixture deliveries
      • What to do about it:
                                            -  Our prediction is that these issues will persist for another 12-18                                                        months - be prepared!
                                            -  Order ahead
                                            -  In case of Design Build order as soon as you can and if the                                                               design changes you can protect your profits by reordering
                                            -  Build some backlog of material
                                            -  Use prefabrication as much as you can
                                            -  Count on some of your supplier’s services NOT TO BE available                                                     for a while, since they can sell to anyone and they may prefer                                                           not to service if they can avoid it
    • Inflation is here to stay for a bit ~ at least 12-18 months
      • It is caused by:
                                            - The money that the government has poured into the economy in                                                   the last 24 months
                                            -  People's buying power has increased without any economic                                                             reasons
                                            -  Wage increases
                                            -  Supply chain issues
                                            -  Lack of willingness for the workforce to go back to work
      • What to do about it:
                                            -  Don’t pay down or pay off your fixed (lower) rate loans
                                            -  Convert some of your Lines of Credit to fixed-rate loans
                                            -  Don’t borrow if you can help it
                                            -  Increase your sales revenue per electrician
                                            -  Use more prefabrication
                                            -  Get out of your Lines of Credit
    • War in Ukraine will linger
      • It is caused by:
                                            -  A crazy man
                                            -  Lack of historical barriers for the crazy man (no one has tried to                                                       stop him)
                                            -  The crazy man’s need for Oil money
      • What to do about it:
                                            -  Donate if you can 
                                            -  Support our troops if they get deployed
                                            -  If you're so inclined, Pray
    • Jobs and getting larger and the backlogs are growing
      • It is caused by:
                                            -  GC consolidation
                                            -  Big capital is swimming in money including the banks
                                            -  Population increase
                                            -  Data centers feeders protects and projects to support their                                                                infrastructure
                                            -  Online shopping and the need for larger storage/distribution                                                             centers
      • What to do about it:
                                            -  Train and retrain your project managers
                                            -  Use prefabrication
                                            -  Use Agile Construction®
                                            -  Learn from others
                                            -  Close your jobs as quickly as possible
                                            -  Work with data
                                            -  Come to MCA’s Symposiums (One is coming up see below)
    • The labor shortage is fake news (Read CFMA Article on this topic)
      • It's caused by:
                                            -  Lack of labor management
                                            -  Lack of prefab usage
                                            -  Lack of using a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
                                            -  The required work to be performed in unknown 
                                            - Construction is not joining the Industrialization plan
      • What to do about it:
                                            - Reverse the causes
                                            -  Apply Agile Construction®
                                            -  Train your people to see the work and make a plan
                                            -  Manage scope creep on the job
  • The Unions are losing more ground. You can all guess why this is happening. Just reread the above items

*Please place your comments in the comment section at the end of the SOTI below.

MCA Symposium 2022 Highlights:











Join us on June 16th, 2022, for our 27th Annual Symposium.
Agile Construction® as a Path to Industrialization. Agile Construction®: Data Driven Project Closure

Please join us for this Symposium, where you will gain:
  • A plan for a closeout that can save or recover profits.
  • An understanding on how to apply the data from your projects and apply the findings to future estimates.
  • An understanding of the data driven job close-out process and how it leads to long term benefits in your processes on future jobs.
  • An ability to identify risks and develop processes to limit or eliminate them.

At a glance the covered topics are:
  • Data Driven Project Closure
    • Planning for Closure can help you shut off the (money) faucet
    • Recognizing that the end of the project is truly the beginning
    • Using Closure to build the corporate memory
  • The Pitfalls of Project Closure
    • Perception of lower risks
    • Shifting focus to other projects
    • Reassigned Personnel
    • Lack of Process
  • Considerations for Project Closure
    • What project closure entails
    • Planning for Closure
  • When to Closeout
  • Capturing Lessons Learned
  • Personnel reassignment and Customer Service

To learn more about our 2022 Symposium and more upcoming events please visit our website frequently.

Progressive Contactors:


Staff Electric 

With five years into the journey to transformation, Staff Electric is now preparing to truly perform using their lead indicators to manage their projects with data. MCA, Inc. and Staff Electric have worked collaboratively on the process of DCI™ to take the company’s processes and automate them in a way that allows their systems to talk to each other but, more importantly, that the data and structure behind those systems are based on what has brought them success. It’s not just “building software;” it’s translating the tacit know-how in the company into digitalized and interconnected systems.

The Future

        Staff Electric’s theme for 2022 is “building a foundation for the future,” with plans to revisit some basics learned in 2016 at the start of the transformation. Now that the team has ingrained and hand-built the processes and tools, each process in the company will have a maintenance plan, and the folks that were just learning to work with the Agile Construction® processes and tools five years ago will be able to teach it, getting the maximum benefit for themselves, their jobs, and the company now that they own it.

Allfab Electric

Allfab is now providing plumbing services as well. The objective of Allfab is threefold:

  • Companies can order prefabrication directly from Allfab 
  • Allfab can layout and build prefabrication facilities for contractors
  • Allfab can build prefabrication assemblies for suppliers

Reach out to Kevin at (531 867-3823), or visit their website at (www.allfabelectric.com) to find out more.

Lemberg Electric

Lemberg Electric has embarked on larger projects due to their increased capabilities in project management by using Agile Construction®, leading to larger, faster, and overall, more projects.

A full-scale project management training and project scheduling training for all their project managers has enabled LEC to become a larger player in the market. Please reach out to us here if you'd like to have these courses for your company.

Electric Company of Omaha 

ECO is successfully transitioning to a selfsustained Agile Construction® Contractor. Their steering committee is now run by experienced field and office managers. The are embarking on data-based management by analyzing their jobs through Estimating Analysis Enhancement (EAE®). They are also applying the well-known and successful model of Single Point of Review™ & Single Point of Launch™ by using the Audit process to review startups on the jobs

 Aldridge

As mentioned in the opening, ALD is embarking on larger and larger jobs with their confidence in the Agile Construction® model for expansion. Their involvement in    
          • DCI™ Mapping
          • VP training immersion
          • Large Job Process

Will enable them to expand across the country very successfully.

Work Environment Management LLC:



Work Environment Management, LLC, or WEM® Software, is now registered in Wisconsin as well, maintaining its WBENC status nationwide. Take advantage of WEM® Software, scheduling, and planning services to fulfill your Minority Business requirements on the job.

WBENC is the nation’s largest third-party certifier of businesses owned, controlled, and operated by women in the United States. 

JPAC® & SIS®  


JPAC® and SIS® have some major enhancements planned for 2022!  
This year, updates will focus on further improving Automation and Interconnection.   

 New Features to look forward to in 2022: 

  • SIS® Interconnects with JPAC® To Pull: 
    • Job-To-Date Accounting Hours 
    • Ability to select a project WBS task while scheduling 
  • SIS® Management Report 
    • Enhanced visibility into the week’s obstacles on the job site
    • Ability to coordinate on and resolve obstacles 
  • JPAC® Composite Rate Bulk Import 
  • WBS Additives Bulk Import 
  • Allow multiple JPAC® projects to “roll-up” charts to a parent project. 
  • SIS® Timesheets Integration 
  • JPAC® User interface updates to improve ease of use and data entry. 
 Click here or contact our Sales Department to request your demo today! 

DCI™ - Digitalization, Commonization, and Interconnection

DCI™ is the next-generation Agile Construction® software application for the construction industry providing a digital solution to translate each of your team members’ tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. Through consistency of processes, procedures, and tools and by interconnecting all involved functions and data sources, such as Estimating, Procurement, Project Scheduling, Work Breakdown Structure, JPAC®, Accounting, Financial Reporting you gain a seamless data-driven tool for work environment management (WEM®), data analytics, and strategic decision-making.

Last year, in August 2021, MCA Inc. released the “Pipeline & Backlog” module as the first component of DCI™.  This component was further improved in November to include features to manage multiple proposals per project, bid versioning, and bid revisions. Ask us for a demo now!

Exciting releases to look forward to in 2022 include:

  • Change Management – track all contract changes (pre & post contract).  Track all financial and scope changes to your projects, along with the reason for the change and who requested the change for a clear picture of what was negotiated on bid day vs. the official signed contract amount vs. change orders requested after the project begins.  This tracking allows ultimate collaboration between the contractor and customer to maximize profits and prevent cost overruns.
  • Customer Management – easily access your customers and contact information for each project.
  • Document Management – store all documents for each phase of the project organized in the appropriate place.  Never worry about the project proceeding without the required documentation on file or the versions being out-of-date.
  • Interconnection Features between JPAC® and SIS®– DCI™ will further enhance the experience of MCA JPAC® and SIS® customers for a more seamless login & navigational experience.
Click here or contact our Sales Department to request your DCI™ demo today!

Publications:

We are always excited to share our latest articles and contributions with the construction industry! See our latest publications below: 
    • CFMA Building Profits  (November/December): How Industrialized are you: Using the framework contained in this article to evaluate where your company stands will help to see where it lies on the trajectory of industrialization. It will also help organizations prepare as more work will be done off-site, and the role of suppliers and distributors will shift from product providers to logistics and service providers. 
    • EC&M Jobsite Intelligence (December): A walk in the Job-Site Wilderness: New ways of performing work can undoubtedly come with challenges and growing pains. Rather than sweeping issues under the rug — or going back to traditional familiar methods of installation — it is critical to capture feedback when issues or difficulties occur so that the organization can learn and improve their operations in the shop on the next job.
    • EC&M (January): Rise of the Machines: Dr. Heather Moore had the opportunity to sit down with author Tim Kridel recently to discuss the importance of jobsite intelligence and the use of robotics on the construction job site. See what Dr. Heather has to say about using robotics on the job site to gain intelligence to the work environment.  
    • CFMA Building Profits (January/February): Keeping an Eye on the Money: Rather than looking in the rearview mirror to identify what has happened in the past, this article introduces a means of increasing company-wide visibility to improve the future by allowing more time to detect anomalies, recognizing explicit processes and procedures, and understanding where time is spent and if it’s transferring value to the customer before moving to IT solutions.
    • CFMA Building Profits (March/April): What Workforce Shortage? The Problem Is in the Planning: Prior to, and exaggerated by, COVID-19, the problem among the construction workforce has been described as a “shortage.” However, the construction industry has not changed how its skilled tradespeople perform the work that does not explicitly require their skill, knowledge, or experience, resulting in a stagnant $0.38 of labor cost for every $1 spent on construction while industrialized industries (farming, automotive, manufacturing, banking, etc.) experience $0.09 to $0.15 on the $1.

Visit our MCA publication section to view and read all of our latest articles and publications (and more)!

Other publications you might also be interested in:

  • Industrialization of Construction® Books Click here!

Get Involved:

We are excited to announce we have been focusing on expanding on our partnerships with associations like Independent Electrical Contractors, Great Service Forums, and National Center for Employee Ownership. We will be participating in various speaking engagements, webinars, and classes throughout the year! To stay up to date on the latest upcoming events, speaking engagements, and webinars we’ll be participating in please visit our website.


We are also excited to announce that we are bringing our class offerings back to in-person in 2022, to stay up to date on upcoming classes being offered near you, please visit our website. To see our full list of course offerings visit our Course Catalog! Is there a class you'd like us to offer? Please let us know at (810) 232-9797








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