While most contractors have probably heard of “cycle time” some may not be comfortable or used to measuring cycle time. Cycle time is the time that it takes for a work process to be successfully completed, from start to finish. In the end crew cycle time, or CCT for short, is a measure of your crew’s speed at work.
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Cycle time is closely monitored in most manufacturing facilities. Plant managers realize that if the cycle time to produce a product should be fifteen minutes, and the actual time is taking more like twenty or thirty minutes, something is preventing the expected time to produce the product. Such interruptions to the expected cycle time might be the result of faulty equipment, lack of preventive maintenance, or poorly trained operators.
Measuring You Construction Team’s Speed
Speed, or more accurately, cycle time, should be just as critical to you as a contractor and should be measured. Why? Consider how much more effective and accurate you can be with your estimates when creating proposals for customers. If you can predict, within a reasonable tolerance of time, the time that it takes for your crews to complete different work processes you can provide more accurate estimates of costs and scheduled completion dates for your customers.
How do you measure your crew’s speed or cycle time? Well, to begin trying writing the steps involved with completing the work your crews perform. We call this “mapping” the workflow. Mapping can include simply listing each step in the order that the step is to be performed or you can create “work flow charts” that utilize symbols to represent action, decisions, begin points, end points, etc.
No matter whether you list your job procedures line by line or with graphics, make sure that your entire job process is complete and takes into account each individual step. For the paving crew this first effort might identify each step in cleaning a job site as one work process to measure. Then, you might then list each step involved with laying the asphalt for a particular square footage of space. You might follow-up this effort with the steps involved with rolling out the newly placed material. Finally, you might actually identify the needed steps to clean-up and pull off the lot.
The second effort requires you to identify the actual time that it takes to complete each process step described in the previous paragraph. If you do not have this information, or you are not confident that the time is accurate, you will need to complete a time study of any step in question.
Over the years I’ve had contractors challenge how difficult it is to measure the time when performing work. For many of these same challenges I’ve found that some contractors never attempt to measure any work process. Another reason that contractors balk is due to their feeling that they already know how much time it should take a crew to complete a work process.
Yet a third reason some contractors protest is that “no two jobs are ever the same.” While most jobs are a bit different we still need to get an accurate picture of how effective and efficient our crews are working. Are they only productive on the big, open, and easy to lay asphalt jobs but we loose our shorts on any islands or funky landscaping pattern in the lot? This is even more reason why we need to have an idea as to what our crews are capable of producing.
Completing a Time Study
Completing a time study is not difficult. Using a stopwatch, record the beginning time you or your crew begins a particular step and the completion time. To provide you with some level of confidence about the cycle time of a process step, you should measure the same process step on several jobs and then take the average of the times recorded. Once you are confident that the average time for a particular step is secure, establish this time as your cycle time for the step or process that was timed.
One secret measuring effort I’ve used before is to measure the average time a paving crew can place eight ton, then sixteen ton, then thirty-two ton, etc. Having a breakdown of tonnage can then help me to be more accurate, and faster, when putting estimates together. You might measure your seal coat crew on applying one coat per ten thousand square feet or other increments of square footage often completed.
When you are developing a cycle time standard for a process, be sure that the steps used to complete the process are the same. If you record the same process three different times, and the order of completing the process is different each time, you will potentially bias the average time arrived at. Such a miscalculation could prevent you from establishing a dependable time to base your customer bids and job scheduling on. In other words, compare lots that have no islands as an example against each other. Then, measure your crews on similar size lots with two to four islands. Bunch similar type jobs together so you are confident in the benchmarking of lots.
Cycle times can be established for any process within your business. Once you have established cycle times, make sure that you inform your employees. Cycle times should become the standard operating goals for completing jobs. Therefore, when processes take longer than expected to complete, compared to the established cycle time standard, questions should be raised as to the possible causes for the additional time. Remember, time is money…I mean speed is money!
Using cycle times as goals can be very motivational for your crews. In fact, as you seek to improve your company’s performance, any changes in techniques or use of a newer tool or piece of equipment should be compared against the cycle time. Did any new technique or equipment help you perform your work faster? Did the shorter time frame also include maintaining or improve the level of quality in the job?
Cycle times can assist you to monitor whether your crews are following the proper work procedures, or are using the proper amount of materials, or whether the equipment used is operating properly. Tracking cycle times will strengthen your proof that your company procedures and values are being conformed to by your employees.
First measuring your firm’s various cycle times and then tracking the cycle times for jobs will add to your understanding of your business. When cycle times are disproportionately higher or lower than your standards, you should begin to inquire as to the reason for such differences. While not every job will meet the exact cycle time established, you should expect that most jobs will be completed within an acceptable tolerance of the cycle time.
If you have never considered cycle times as necessary to running a better business or have traditionally “guesstimated” completion times, you have prevented yourself from bringing greater accuracy to you effort. Try taking a few processes that your crews perform and establishing cycle times. Then, monitor all future similar processes by recording your cycle time trends. Keep your crews informed about the trends and watch the level of perfection begin to improve!
