In my travels in Florida meeting with prospective clients, I hear continued complaints about the performance of their contractors. I get that, it is difficult, particularly in Florida. So what is the solution? We have found five primary factors:
- Over supervise on projects. This adds to general conditions, which nobody likes, but with high risk, highly leveraged, significant capital investments, such as these, it’s cheap insurance.
- Keep ironclad control over details—every day. The smallest detail can derail a project.
- Ensure every activity that needs to occur on each job’s schedule occurs each day.
- Hire quality subcontractors and suppliers who commit the resources to do the job well. They don’t need to be gold plated, but they may not be the cheapest.
- Have a cooperative, team and problem-solving orientation. Every project will have its challenges. The key is how teams work together to solve them.
I would love to tell you we are perfect in our performance, but we are fighting the same challenges as other contractors. But I believe that with our processes and our people we are doing better than most.
Peter Douglas, P.E.
President
The Douglas Company
