TCI (Total Company Integration) means starting at the beginning. And regarding the beginning, training needs to start with itemization.  This process flows from the estimate, then the contract, then submittals, production, loading, unloading, installation, acceptance and close-out.

 

DMC has been selling the features and benefits of the TCI program for many years and invented the concept. Historically, when TCI is not implemented, many companies fail.  Our industry is too competitive for the old way of doing business. With a level of urgency, I recommend that TCI be accepted and trained into the minds of the employees.  And, if one key person does not embrace the concept and will not be a part of the solution, a change must be made.  Also, once training is scheduled it is important that key people attend through the process.  If someone is ill, there must be someone else in attendance in that department that has equal or greater authority and does the same job.  A one-person department, where no one really knows what that person does, must be avoided at all costs. 

 

Here Is the Training Schedule:

 

Arrive Monday night -    If time permits and you are available, I’d like to meet you for dinner.  We can discuss the next few days and review the purpose of the visit and what is to be accomplished. 

 

Tuesday -  A meeting must take place at the beginning of the day.  This would be attended by all estimators, engineers, project managers, purchasing, clerical, production and installation management staff.  Key production staff attendance is important for the success of the program. This will be a short meeting whereby I explain the TCI program and sell its features and benefits to all present.  I am looking for resistance.  This provides me with focus and direction for the next few days.  Sometimes this can be in the form of body behavior.  Sometimes objections are vocal.  As someone who has been through this before, I cannot begin to tell you how important this meeting is to the success of the program.  If resistance does not change through the next few days, the solution will be a personnel change, either by transfer, demotion or dismissal.

 

Once the morning meeting is concluded all estimators must be present in the conference room for an actual project estimate. We will choose a smaller estimate or a portion of a larger estimate as our test case for the training. This will be a project or part of a project already won and in production or beyond that level. At this time, objections are raised that must be addressed.  I hear the same words all the time; “we don’t do things that way here.”  And the objectors must be convinced or humble themselves enough to learn new concepts.  We are using the programs that you have purchased.  During this time, we will be discussing the nuts and bolts of itemization, and why this will dramatically affect winning the project.  We will also discuss zingers and when to use them, arriving at hours for each function, and concluding the estimate in such a way as to communicate why a customer would want to use your company.  This meeting is intense, and generally concludes the day, and may spill into the next day depending on the amount of interaction and discussion with each other.  Chatty people sometimes take a lot of time away from training; and at a point I will intercede and require everyone to move on with training. 

 

Wednesday/Thursday - Now it is time for training of the project managers, drafters and purchasing personnel. There will be another hand-off meeting to the project manager that I will critique. We will start with the actual contract received based upon the estimate noted above, and will red-line it for negotiation purposes, even though it may have already been signed by the company.   We will teach from the contract red-lines in learning what to look for with a future contract. 

 

We will then move into red-line review of actual shop drawings that have previously been submitted.  There will be objections here.  We will hear that certain communication must be included on shop drawings. On the other hand, we will hear that it takes too long to do the detail that I am proposing.  We will hear that there is a rush, and we must get it submitted or production may not have anything to do.  This is hard to understand by many, but the TCI goal is to free up production for added work.  The entire concept, when production is freed up, is that more work can go through the shop in the same amount of time.  The objection will be that I am advocating using a higher paid individual to do the work that lower paid people were previously performing.  I will address that objection by showing actual calculations of time required at a bench vs. on a drafter’s computer.  We will discuss material optimization in detail also. And there will be some discussion about sample submittal.

 

Using the DMC software application as an example only, we will move into defining itemization changes if not properly itemized within the estimate.  We will also show how to begin the process of actual values as opposed to estimated values.  At this point we must move the classroom to the shop, and walk the shop showing the differences in the way the shop is performing compared to the itemized estimate.  A production manager and lead persons should be with us while we are in the shop. 

 

Now, many attendees begin to see the benefits of itemization.  They start to offer suggestions for better production flow.  A good amount of discussion will be directed at job costing. This becomes a free-wheeling discussion which is channeled by myself into the direction that the company must go.  When key personnel start to see the benefit, they now start to come on-board with the plan and then want the changes to occur.  This is the most important milestone in the training process for the owner. 

 

We then move back into the office for more class time.  Production people can remain in the shop. 

 

We will heavily train the use of the Critical Path Report.  And, at this point a good project manager now wants to fill these out.  If they do not want to, this shows a lack of desire to come on board, and shows who is willing to change and who is not willing to change.  As an owner, this gives you invaluable information for the future of your company.  Without me telling you first, you have already started to see the personnel training or changes that need to be made.  We move on to the other reports, and how they tie into invoicing, and when invoices must be transmitted.  The most important report a company has is the job cost report, or Profit and Loss Statement by project, by item.  If a PM does not use this type of report almost constantly, he will not be able to grasp the concept of “free employee positions.”  There will be discussion of this concept for the PM as well as purchasing.

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The next part of this training will be to again review every aspect of what we just learned, and come up with a completely new TCI chart that meets the needs of the training.  I will first define the types of production, and where your company fits into that methodology.

 

At this time, we will work exclusively with your production manager for at least ½ day.  He will have to work with me as I show and tell of the problems.

 

For all class time, everyone in the class will be a part of the process, directed and channeled by me.  Everyone will be learning and then using TCI starting the next day.  There are the nay-sayers that may go back to their own way of doing things.  Senior management must therefore attend all the training, and require adherence when DMC leaves.  As the senior management for the company, you will soon see benefits coming quite quickly from the process.   

 

On Friday, I will return to the DMC office.

 

And, as you can see, this is an intense training program.  The structure of the program is defined in such a way as to bring the key company employees on-board with the concept.  There will be grumblers, and in most cases, it comes from those who are territorial in that they like to keep things to themselves about what they do.  Almost in every case this is because of a lack of caring, insecurity or personal pride.  We must transfer that pride into company pride.

 

Our weeks are scheduled in advance, and we recommend that you schedule this with us as soon as possible. Please email or call 719-755-8897 for all cost information, and how to register for the program. You may call also for a more in-depth review of TCI.