One builder, 100 detached houses on one estate over about 32 months, one start a week, about 26 trades through each house and about 35 subcontract businesses on the job.
back across the build, for the supervisors, the trades and the builder’s office.
back for each of the three site supervisors who carry the job in their heads.
for the last house handed over, because the same three supervisors can carry more houses at once.
better off for the builder on the job, within a range of A$1.0M to A$2.7M: net margin from 6% to about 10%.
Where the figures come from. Modelled on published research and industry documents, and measured where a business’s own systems gave us the numbers. Once we model your business, your own data replaces every one of them. The time is capacity for your team.
The systems each do their job. What none of them does is the work around them: the question, the chase, the handover, the redo. It is done on foot, by phone and from memory, and nobody counts it.
A call-up fires only when the trade before has signed off with a photo and the delivery is scanned in. The claim is generated from that sign-off. A defect is a photo assigned to the trade that did the work. The supervisor’s diary writes itself from the day, and the trades, the office and the home buyer can all see where a house is up to without ringing anyone.
Ring the next trade, wait, chase, confirm, then re-plan when the last trade slips. About 4,000 times across the job.
A crew arrives to a house that is not ready. About one visit in eight today.
The supervisor drives between houses to check the last trade’s work before releasing the next one, or a payment.
Which tile, which plan, what colour. The supervisor answers the same question twenty times a day.
Invoice, match, query, chase. About 4,000 claims across the job, typed into the accounts, the job list and a message to the owner.
Rebuilt from memory at the end of the day, if there is time.
The size of the losses in this model comes from published research, not from guessing. These are the findings behind it, with where each one came from.
About 14 hours of a construction professional’s week go to looking for information, resolving conflict and redoing work. Looking for project information alone is 5.5 hours a week. Field supervisors lose 13.7.
FMI and PlanGrid, Construction Disconnected, 2018, 599 respondentsTraces back to poor data and communication. A later and larger survey of 3,900 professionals put rework from bad data at 14%, which is why the rework line is the assumption the model watches most closely.
FMI and PlanGrid 2018; Autodesk and FMI, Harnessing the Data Advantage in Construction, 2021Rework runs at about 5% of project cost on average, and from 3% to 15% across earlier studies.
Get It Right Initiative literature review, 2016; Love and Li, 2000Of weekly planned tasks are completed as planned without a reliable planning system. The top causes are prerequisite work not done, trade coordination and information. A call-up that fires only on a photo sign-off is the fix for the first two.
Ballard, The Last Planner System of Production Control, 2000Firms without construction software are three times as likely to spend more than 10 hours a week on admin.
Payapps, 2024, 1,000 firmsA handover defect list on a new home; 53 visible defects per new UK home in one study. Each item is logged, allocated, chased and re-verified by hand today.
Rotimi, Tookey and Rotimi 2015, reviewing Craig 2008Construction productivity growth from 2000 to 2022, against 2% for the economy, and 44% of 2,700 projects studied ended at a loss. The industry’s problem is coordination, not trade skill.
McKinsey, Delivering on construction productivity is no longer optional, 2024About 9 hours a week each. Less driving to look and fewer calls to chase, so the same three people carry houses that would otherwise need a fourth supervisor.
Fewer wasted trips, paid from a sign-off within days, and one compliance file for the whole estate.
Claims and variations stop being matching work. Client liaison handles exceptions only.
Sees the house without asking, signs a variation in minutes, walks a shorter handover list.
Readiness gating takes about two weeks off each house. With supervisors carrying more houses at once, starts rise and the last house hands over about six months earlier. That is where the money is: six months less overhead and finance on the job.
Rework and return visits caused by bad information fall. Half of all rework traces back to information that was wrong or never arrived.
The trades work from the same record as the builder because the subcontract says so, and what the job has learned does not leave when a supervisor does.
Nothing on this job has been measured yet. The size of the losses comes from published construction research, the minutes in each loop are working assumptions, and the dollar figures follow from them. The first job’s own call-ups, claims and defect lists replace the assumptions. The hours are capacity for the people on the job, not fewer people.
Every model is built the way an industrial engineer studies a factory floor: list every role and every task, count how often each one happens, time it as it runs today and as it runs with Kula, and multiply out. Real volumes are used where we have them and published time values where we do not. Every figure is replaced by the business’s own data before it is used for anything, and the time given back is read from what the team actually moves onto Kula, not from asking anyone to log their day.
Every loop, the minutes behind it and the sources are in the full model. We walk through it with you in a conversation, and then build yours from your own systems and a short walk-through with one of your managers.
Book a conversation →back to the team across five clubs. The biggest share is staff questions: about 460 a week, each a walk to find the manager today.
See the model →back across the production, and a shoot day that does not have to be added.
See the model →back to the team, so the business can take on more work without the next hires.
See the model →Tell us a little about your business and we will model yours. Replies come from Phil or Peter.