# How Much Time Do You Waste?



## Ed the Roofer (Sep 15, 2008)

Are your jobs scheduled one after another and you keep on on plugging away, or do you enjoy partial days or several days in a row to just do nothing except for the most menial and mundane tasks?

Ed


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## tinner666 (Oct 28, 2008)

Pretty much "Are your jobs scheduled one after another and you keep on on plugging away", but I have several going at once and it gets complicated.


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## Grumpy (Oct 29, 2008)

One right after the other as the weather allows when we got 'em. Often times we will have 2 or 3 going at once if we got 'em. That's the beauty of having sub crews on stand by, when you have work they work for you and when you don't they work for someone else and my customers never wait too long to get their job done so I don't lose sales for scheduling reasons. 

Tinner how do you have several going at once if you are a one man operation?


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## tinner666 (Oct 28, 2008)

Many repeat customers that either have me working on 4-5 properties at once, or calling when money for Phase(?) is available. And I fit them in best I can. Some wait 6 months or more. 
I have 3 jobs that come and go, and have been that way for 6-8 years. One is historic and going on 10 years. 

One cutomer has many properties and pulls me off in the middle to handle other clients emergencies. Might not get back for months.
I have equipment scattered all over the state.


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## Kanga Roofing (Jun 8, 2011)

tinner666 said:


> Pretty much "Are your jobs scheduled one after another and you keep on on plugging away", but I have several going at once and it gets complicated.


What have you found to be the best way to organize simultaneous jobs?


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## Kanga Roofing (Jun 8, 2011)

Grumpy said:


> One right after the other as the weather allows when we got 'em. Often times we will have 2 or 3 going at once if we got 'em. That's the beauty of having sub crews on stand by, when you have work they work for you and when you don't they work for someone else and my customers never wait too long to get their job done so I don't lose sales for scheduling reasons.
> 
> Tinner how do you have several going at once if you are a one man operation?


Do you find having sub contractors more cost efficient or is it all determined by business flow at that moment?


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## AnyMonkey (Nov 26, 2012)

the biggest concern that i have with the way we do things is that we are so quick to jump on the next one that little things get left out on the last job. As most of you know tying up these loose ends can be more of a pain than actually doing the job. We have a guy here that also doubles as our saftey officer that goes around to each job that is supposedly "finished" and picks it apart with new eyes and gives it a pre-final so to speak since most of our work is consultant based. he takes great pride in finishing up the small things so we pass final the first time and dont have to pay $500.00 for a post final. He also looks after our shingle subs. makes sure they set up properly with tarps and safety etc and when we have a project going he is there multiple times a day giving snap inspections on their work. This works well for us. in our spreadsheet we have a percentage added for callbacks and supervision that pretty much pays his wage.


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## Grumpy (Oct 29, 2008)

Kanga Roofing said:


> What have you found to be the best way to organize simultaneous jobs?


Dry-Erase board. I haven't found anything better. There are a few ways of setting it up too.

I mostly see guys do a horizontal calendar. Each calendar day will have a colum, and each crew will have a row. (think excel spread sheet layout) Pretty simple.

I did it different, like I do most things different. I did a traditional calendar. I drew in the lines with permanent market, 7 colums. I would hand write in the dates. Each crew was a color. When a job is sold and approved it would be added to the calendar. Let's say we were doing a chimney rebuild and a roof replacement and a gutter instalaltion all on the same job. Let's say I wantred to start on the 15th of december for example. So Jerry the mason is blue he'd get written in for a day. Paul is orange, the roofer, and he'd be written in for two days starting on the 16th and 17th. Then the gutter guy, Robert is purple, he would be written in on the 18th. 

A key to making this work with mutliple crews is to call each crew every single day. "What did you get done yesterday? Will you be on time to start today? Are we still on schedule for tomorrow's job or did something come up"? This is a daily ritual! 

As things change you erase and move jobs across the dry erase board. One thing Is aid though, "The calendar is a singing siren, she will woo you and lie to you. Only one person knows how to see through her lies so only one person has the authority to use it." 

If a customer calls asking, "when do you plan on starting?" the adminsitrative assistant would say "It looks like you are on for the end of next week. However I could be wrong so I'll discuss with the production manager and get back to you."


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## Grumpy (Oct 29, 2008)

AnyMonkey said:


> the biggest concern that i have with the way we do things is that we are so quick to jump on the next one that little things get left out on the last job. As most of you know tying up these loose ends can be more of a pain than actually doing the job. We have a guy here that also doubles as our saftey officer that goes around to each job that is supposedly "finished" and picks it apart with new eyes and gives it a pre-final so to speak since most of our work is consultant based. he takes great pride in finishing up the small things so we pass final the first time and dont have to pay $500.00 for a post final. He also looks after our shingle subs. makes sure they set up properly with tarps and safety etc and when we have a project going he is there multiple times a day giving snap inspections on their work. This works well for us. in our spreadsheet we have a percentage added for callbacks and supervision that pretty much pays his wage.


 MY production manager would inspect each and ever job for completion. Infact the job would not get invoiced until he has approved it. I have form documents I developed of key specific areas to inspect. Each form has to be completed and has a 1, 2, 3 rating system by each line item. 1 is fail, 2 is do better next time and 3 is pass. Any 1's and someone has to come back, too many 2's and someone has to come back, but a couple 2's are ok. If any 2's we have to have a conversation with the installation crew. 

Thsi final inspection process has saved my butt a few times. After a 14 hour day it's dark and the guys are tired and stuff can be forgotten. Sometimes a little debris left behind and I make tall promises about clean up to the customer so we always always inspect for cleanup. What I like to do when I do the remeasures is if there is a cleanup issue I put it in a bucket or paper bag or what ever. I go to the next job and while talking to the forum I will pour it out on the ground and say you forgot to clean that up on the last job. It is harsh and maybe even disrespectful to drump the chit on his shoes, but I'm damned serious about the clean up and you only ever need to do that once or twice and they get the picture. If it's just a handfull, no big deal I'm not going to embarrass him, chit happens. But if I am embarrassed by their clean up, you can be damned sure I am going to embarrass him. 


Monkey the guy you described every company NEEDS!


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## AnyMonkey (Nov 26, 2012)

sounds like we do things in a similar fashion grumpy.... the customer only really cares about the nails in the driveway or the tar in their wall at the end of the day.... they usually have no comment on the roof because they usually do not know any better.....I am also very strict about the final clean up and i actually used to go up on sbs roofs with a blower to get rid of excess granules and cigarette butts before meeting the owner on the roof for the check. Made the roofs look like a million bucks and i almost always fillled a 2.5 gallon bucket


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