Tailgate Talk

High Productivity Means Shorter Cycle Time

Cycle time is the time it takes for a work process to be successfully completed, from start to finish. For Pavement Maintenance professionals, crew cycle time (CCT) is a measure of a crew’s speed at work.

For the seal coating contractor, one cycle time measured is the time needed to completely clean and prepare a lot for seal coating. For the paving contractor, one CCT could be the time it takes to complete the ground preparation and a second CCT, the time spent placing the base for a 2-in. overlay. For the sweeping contractor, it could represent the time used for a truck to sweep the average 50,000 sq. ft. of parking space at a strip mall.

In manufacturing, a plant manager realizes that if the cycle time to produce a product should be 15 minutes, and the actual time is taking 20 or 30 minutes, something is preventing the estimated completion. Such interruptions could be the result of faulty equipment, lack of maintenance, or poorly trained operators. Such interruptions are common to pavement maintenance contractors.

If you could more accurately predict, within a reasonable tolerance of time, the time it takes for your crews to complete each work process, you would provide more accurate estimates of costs and schedule.

To begin, write the steps involved with the processes employed to complete work, such as ground prep, installing materials, clean-up, etc. Create workflow charts that use symbols for actions, decisions, beginning points, etc.

No matter whether you list your job procedures line-by-line or use graphics, ensure the entire job process is complete, and each step is included. For the paving crew, this first effort might identify each step in cleaning a jobsite as one work process. Then, you might list each step involved with laying asphalt for a particular square footage of space. Follow-up this effort with the steps involved with rolling out new material. Finally, you could identify the needed steps to cleanup and pull off the lot.

The second effort requires you to identify the actual time that it takes to complete each process step. If you don’t have this information, you need to complete a time study.

Many contractors have never attempted to measure the time to complete a work process. Some contractors balk at timing work processes because they think they already know how much time a process takes.

A third challenge some contractors raise is that “no two jobs are ever the same.” While most jobs are a bit different, we still need to get an accurate picture of how effective and efficient our crews are working. Are they only productive on the big, open, and easy-topave jobs but we lose our shorts on islands or funky landscaping patterns? This is more reason why we need to measure our crews’ capabilities.

Completing a time study is not difficult. Using a stopwatch, record the start time your crew begins a particular step and the completion time. To provide you with some level of confidence about the cycle time of a process, you should measure the same process step on several jobs and then take the average of the times recorded. Once you are confident that the average time for a particular step is secure, establish this as your cycle time for the step.

One secret measuring effort I’ve used before is to measure the average time a paving crew can place 8 ton, then 16 ton, then 32 ton, etc. Having a breakdown of tonnage can then help estimates be more accurate. You could measure your seal coat crew on applying one coat per 10,000 sq. ft. or other increments of square footage that you find more common.

Cycle times should become the standard operating goals for completing jobs. Then, when processes take longer than expected to complete, compared to your cycle time standard, questions should be raised as to the causes for the additional time. ■

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Known as The Contractor’s Best Friend, Brad Humphrey continues to write and speak in support of the construction industry. His international podcast, sponsored by A.C. Business Media and Caterpillar, continues to be one of the favorites of suppliers and contractors alike. As Vice President of Pavecon Ltd., a large and growing pavement maintenance contractor, Brad continues to develop, teach, write, and share his 35-plus years of industry knowledge. Visit Brad via several industry groups on Facebook.com.