Masonry Magazine July 2006 Page. 18
Contractor
The wind has been a constant factor my whole life. Combine that with the cold weather and it can really test your ability to maintain winter protection in enclosures. I had it drilled into my head when I was young that there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. The same is true for the winter protection. You have to put the right kind of suit on your building, so to speak, to maintain the heat. Sometimes you just can't do it.
Masonry: You are a Certified Mason Contractor through the Rocky Mountain Masonry Institute. How has this certification aided you in your business?
Johnson: When I saw that they were making this program, I thought it was a good idea. And from a personal point of view, I wanted them to do it from the beginning, just for my own satisfaction. I also thought that the industry needed to.
The Numbers Game
MASONRY NEWS CONTRACTOR TIP
Have you ever wondered if you're more productive with smaller crews or larger crews? In our 20-plus years of experience, we've found that using smaller crews increases productivity, as long as your overhead doesn't kill you. (By the way, you may have to read this tip twice to determine the real difference in what scheduling of workers will cost you!)
Let's say we are doing work on a large school project. The general contractor says you must have at least 30 employees (including masons and laborers) on the job site at all times. Should we work these 30 employees all in one area or break them into smaller crews and work on different areas of the project?
Lang Masonry Contractors' productivity studies show the ideal number of employees to put in each area is four to six (three to four masons and one to three laborers). Using four to six employees in each area will make the job the most profitable for us. Of course, it isn't always easy to break a job up in this many parts; some projects may only have one location ready for your people to work in. But the more locations we have set up for our employees to work, the more these employees can turn per hour per worker.
Here's the difference: When you have 10 bricklayers on one wall, they must all wait until the line is up to lay the next course. If the lead person on either end doesn't have his lead up, or all the bricklayers don't finish laying the course of block at the same time, the rest of the bricklayers wait on the line to start laying block or brick again. Or, maybe a couple of the bricklayers are working around an electrical box or arch. If you have 10 bricklayers on the same wall, you could potentially have eight of them waiting, which results in lost production time.
However, if you have four bricklayers on the wall, you would potentially only have two of them waiting-that's where the extra time is saved by breaking a larger job into smaller parts.
Now, let's say you have some smaller projects to do. Would it be more profitable to use only four to six men on each project? No, unless there is no room to put more employees on the project. Obviously, we need to make sure there is plenty of work laid out in front of our people, or we don't want to put more on the job.
Keep in mind that you need to watch your overhead on single projects with four to six employees on each project. We've found that it is more profitable to work eight or more men on every project. Then, we break them down into four to six man crews. Why? Because the overhead will kill you if you're working too many different projects.
Think about this: Can you run eight projects with four men on each cheaper than four projects with eight men on each? On every project, you need a forklift, scaffolding, mortar mixer, management and so on. So, with four projects instead of eight, you save a tremendous amount on overhead.
It is a double-edge sword. To stay competitive, we must watch every aspect of scheduling our employees on each project.
Damlan Lang is the author of the book "Rewarding and Challenging Employees for Profits in Masonry" To order a copy of his book or to amend one of his seminars held specifically for mason contractors, call Kem Huck at Lang Masonry at (800) 417-9272.