Case Study: Construction Craig Construction: A Home Improvement Project

Nash, an engineer by professionand a good onewith principles of process deeply rooted in all his work, decided that a process for quality and cost is needed for the room addition project. In the next meeting with Craig, he decided to investigate whether Craig Construction's employees follow any process.

Craig, the mild-mannered owner of Craig Construction, told Nash, "We do not follow a specific process. If you have a proven model, I am willing to follow it as long as it does not cost us any extra money."

Nash tried to impress upon Craig the fundamental aspects of CIM. Nash said, "Craig, have you heard of CIM?" Craig replied no.

Nash said, "Many small businesses follow a process known as CIM, which will benefit your customers with higher customer satisfaction and better quality products. It requires a complete turnaround in corporate culture and management approach compared to the traditional way of management giving orders and employees merely obeying those orders. Each person in Craig Construction should consider the needs of the next person in line who may use that person's output. What I mean is that if you do a small job like sanding, you should consider what the painter will need when you sand, as the painter is the next one in line. One more thing: Key measurements need to be established to find out how well the organization is meeting its customer needs and expectations. To succeed, you must be involved and fully committed to the success of the CIM project by focusing on what does not go well within the organization rather than what is going well. Your employees should be willing to work as a team and should have the quality mentality."

Craig said, "Well, I think we can learn all that if it helps us to gain customer satisfaction and implement quality work. Nash, I have formed supplier partnerships with local companies who have quality materials and also work toward total customer satisfaction. Will that help as well?"

Nash concurred, "Good supplier partnerships and working toward quality are good foundations for CIM. Make sure that your suppliers follow CIM as well. Both of you can elevate process improvement in your organizations, which will be beneficial to you both."

Craig asked Nash, "Can you tell me more about CIM? I mean, more about CIM pertaining to construction?"

Nash said, "Sure. You see, Japanese construction companies, benefiting from the experiences of Japanese manufacturers, began implementing CIM during the 1970s. Even though construction is a creative, one-time process, the Japanese construction industry embraced the CIM concepts that some argued could only apply to mass production.56 Now, before we start CIM, how would you proceed with construction? What are the major phases of construction?"

Craig replied, "We have three phases: design, construction, and final project completion."

Nash said, "In that case, let me describe a simple overall CIM for construction. But you need to figure out from the overall CIM process how you can incorporate CIM in Craig Construction."

Figure 2-21 illustrates a generic construction process using CIM. Satisfying the requirements of customers, who may be either internal or external, is an important part of the process of supplying the owner, the final external customer, with a quality product.57 The architect/engineer firm has to receive the project requirements from the owner in order to provide a feasible design. The designer supplies plans and specifications to the construction company. The construction company finally completes the project and the owner becomes its customer. The CIM process involves quality in each phase, which is affected by the quality in the preceding phases. Therefore, evaluation and feedback from the customer, architect/engineer firm, and the construction company team are required for the overall quality performance of the process.

Case Questions

1. Which of the seven CIM principles would you ask Craig to follow?
2. What quality factors would you recommend that Craig's organization consider? What quality standards would you recommend that Craig's organization follow?
3. What quality factors would you recommend that the architect/engineer organization consider? What quality standards would you recommend that the architect/engineer organization follow?