De-risking the Labor Shortage — It’s All About Flow
By Sandy Hamby, AIA, CCM, FCMAA, NAC, CEO, President at MOCA Systems, Inc.
Persistent labor shortages combined with ongoing supply
This happens when supply chain data is out of sync with labor
chain uncertainty can greatly increase the risks of construction
availability data and when master schedulers and production
project delays, accidents and litigation. In years past, materials
planners lack a shared, timely, collaborative view of all project
and equipment were more readily available, as were the
data.
sufficient trade skills needed for their installation. Now, those
Rework — Data in the contract schedule about the
supply chain inputs have long lead times and volatile delivery
work to be done on the project can be quite general and is
schedules and it has never been harder to flow the right skills
often ambiguous and production planners must frequently
to the right place at the right time to install them efficiently
implement their best guess regarding labor scheduling and
and safely.
assignment. As a result, it is not uncommon for certain work
The labor flow problem is a data problem. When the
to be done out of sequence with other integral tasks. That work
information in the contract schedule and production plan
must then be redone, resulting in needlessly increased project
are out of sync, the quality and timeliness of critical decisions
costs and delays.
suffer, both in the office and in the field. And this is inevitable
Productivity Loss Litigation — With costly trade skills
with the manual, ad hoc production planning methods
in such short supply, specialty contractors must use their
traditionally used in the field. Superintendents and trade
available workforce more carefully than ever. But when a
foremen often struggle with the efficient task assignment,
general contractor uses manual production planning, errors in
sequencing and execution needed to match the unpredictable
trade crew scheduling can easily occur. Sometimes this results
arrival of materials and equipment and master planners
in a large trade crew idle on the jobsite for hours or hastily
and schedulers lack the timely, accurate visibility of labor
relocated to other, often faraway projects. This can bring
availability and utilization needed to maintain the contract
significant additional costs to the specialty contractor that they
schedule.
must try to claw back through litigation against the general
Across the industry, the consequences of this data problem are many, including: Trade Stacking — Worker productivity declines and safety
contractor. The solution to these and many other problems is what we call Digital Labor Flow Optimization. DLFO replaces
risks increase when multiple trade crews must be assigned to
ad hoc, manual production planning with easy-to-use
work in the same area at the same time to stay on schedule.
software that can be shared by owners, master schedulers
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22 • Vol. 17 / Issue 4 • International Surface Fabricators Association
