John Tooley - arguably a legend in his own time of building science and home performance - zeroes in on what might be the most overlooked aspect of home construction for many builders: "Relentless defect prevention is imperative to customer satisfaction." For the big builders, defects, or the costs to fix them, don't get included as part of the numbers reported to shareholders, but nevertheless take a decisive bite out of company profits. Regardless of the size of the builder - from the biggest franchise builder to the smallest custom builder or remodeler - "defects lead to unsatisfied customers and have a negative impact on the bottom line for a contractor and his [or her] trade allies."
The "article" John posts to LinkedIn here is a bit list-like; it is a think piece built on the need to create a quality control plan. It can work for nearly any company, but is aimed at the bigger, franchise companies that struggle with this more and have a driving need to bring customer satisfaction into a scalable process that interfaces with operations. The operations-customer relations link is maybe one of the great pitfalls of large building companies ... but the pitfall doesn't elude smaller builders either. For companies large and small - franchise, custom, spec - this list-like article is a good litmus test for asking, at each point, "do we have this covered?"
(For those who don't already know John Tooley, he stands among a small crowd of influential engineers, researchers, and building professionals - peers, past and present: Neal Moyer, Gary Nelson, Larry Palmier, John Proctor, Michael Blasnik, Joe Lstiburek, Keith Aldridge, Jim Cummings, Tom Hines, Colby Swanson, Rick Davenport, Brad Townsend.)
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