<h1>Turning things around with a new SOP system</h1><p class="deck">The Millwork Specialist solves its consistency problems from the inside out</p><p>When the only consistency among your problems is that none of them are consistent, how do you solve the problem? You start from scratch, just like The Millwork Specialist in Richmond, Va.</p><p>After realizing the company was having problems creating consistent results in terms of quality and completion on its projects, Mike Karn, president of The Millwork Specialist, says the company decided to analyze the situation.</p><p>"Every time we went to try and solve the problem, we had very little luck. It was very frustrating. We had a group of very well intentioned, bright people getting frustrated by the lack of success or minimal success. Every attempt to improve was short lived," Karn says.</p><p>The company analyzed what was common across the board and whether it could find an overall solution. It was at this point the company discovered inconsistency was its only constant.</p><p>"That really led us to believe we had to start from scratch and start building with every department and every operation that we do," Karn says.</p><p>To start, TMS re-established the company's mission and then established the roles of each individual department and the tasks that fell within those departments.</p><p>"Gradually it came down to all the activities, tasks and writing procedures, and re-establishing or establishing [procedures] if they weren't there, procedures for just about every task that we do," Karn says. "We broke this down and did it at the department and individual level. We didn't try to do it at the top level, and that way we were able to bring in participation from everybody involved."</p><h2>Fixing the problems</h2><p>In January 2008, the same time TMS started working on creating the new operating system, it also installed TradeSoft's ShopPak project management software. Installing the software pointed out the severity of the other problems. "It was very obvious, very quickly that it was going to be a disaster if we didn't work on a lot of other things to get them in the systems," Karn says.</p><p>The system TMS created works like this: There is a "To Do List" that is available to everyone within the company. When a problem comes up and there is no current solution or procedure in place, an employee adds it to the to do list. "It gives us a chance to see what procedure is not there or isn't clear. That's how we keep building our lists," Karn explains.</p><p>Each department has one or more procedure authors who take the job on from that point.</p><p>The new system has been in place for nearly nine months now and results can already be seen. "That whole process engages people more in what they are doing; so you accomplish the buy-in, but you also train as you go because they are involved in the whole process. The biggest thing that is noticeable is less indecision.</p><p>"Before you even see the results of this, you immediately notice that people stop wondering what they're supposed to do," Karn says. "There are a lot less forks in the road where they have to make a decision every time something comes up. So therefore, they are less paralyzed. That's been noticeable. They don't have to reinvent what they do every time an issue comes up, basically every day."</p><p>An undertaking like this doesn't come without some apprehension from those involved. However, Karn says resistance to the change was fairly minimal. "Most people would express possibly a concern that we would get too overcome by procedures, but then they reflect back on the way it was and get over that hurdle pretty quickly. There was no major resistance at all. Some habits have been overcome, but philosophically they agree with the concept," he says.</p><h2>Communication is key</h2><p>One of the major challenges TMS faces is communicating clearly with its customers. The majority of that burden falls on the project managers, who are responsible for managing communication with customers once the sales department has sold the work. It is their responsibility to make it clear to the rest of the team what the customers need and want and making it clear to the customers what TMS needs from them.</p><p>"Managing the customers to get them to understand what is needed [from them] for us to get our work done in the right time frame and at the right quality level is a daily and definitely weekly process.</p><p>"We are continuing to work on defining methods and, in a lot of ways, sharing methods that work. The biggest thing is the philosophy that you have to manage that customer relationship; you can't just let it exist," says Karn.</p><p>About 70 to 80 percent of The Millwork Specialists' customers are general contractors. Another 15 percent or so are made up of designers and about 15 percent are the end users. Each sector of customer brings a different work experience.</p><p>"Contractors' priorities are much more schedule related, so it's easier to get them to understand the schedule; they are probably fighting the same battles we are with designers and owners, but you know they understand at least. It's definitely different than how you go about it with designers and owners," Karn says.</p><h2>Managing the project</h2><p>Once TMS is awarded a project, it is handed off to a project manager. To help avoid problems down the road, there is a specific list of requirements and information that the sales and estimating department must provide the project manager with before it can get rolling.</p><p>"One of the things we found out in the past is project managers would start running with a job, would find out they were missing information, and were really handicapped," Karn says. "In order for it to be in a project manager's court, certain things have to be provided with the package. It's up to sales and estimating to get that all sorted out and not wait until down the road."</p><p>Once a project manager is handed a project, it is set up in ShopPak.</p><p>"The biggest part of it is he has to make customer contact and immediately try to find out what the customer's needs are in terms of schedule, confirming scope and that kind of thing — what we are actually providing. Then, he schedules the job through our system and goes back and confirms customer expectations. That's basically where you define if we know what the customer is going to want, and are we going to be able to meet their needs and if so how."</p><p>Once the customer's schedule is established, the project manager determines when submittals need to be done and approved, when field measurements need to be taken and when the materials need to be purchased, explains Karn. Each product in the project essentially has its own timeline, and Karn says this is what is used to manage the customer through the schedule.</p><p>Through all of this, the project manager is continuing to build the database for the specific job.</p><p>"He's continuing to add information details into what we call the information hub, which is the database, and that allows everyone else in the organization to do their job, take on whatever part of this job is theirs, whether its engineering, drafting, whoever has to follow along in what we call our preproduction department, which is engineering, drafting and purchasing. They do everything that has to be done to get the products ready to be put into production," Karn says.</p><p>On average, TMS gives a lead time of approximately eight weeks. However, the lead times vary depending on the scope of the project. Karn says the majority of that time is used to gather and process all the information that is needed to get the project made.</p><p>"It's one of the anomalies of our industry in that we can make about anything we need to make in about a week, but by the time it gets through all the processing of information and getting the right information, it takes all the time. It's not the manufacturing," he says.</p><p>As TMS continues to grow and adjust its new system of operating, it will continue to improve the quality of its service by adding or developing quality people, Karn says.</p><p>"I think the biggest thing is to keep turning it out as we start putting these systems into place to train the people and keep getting good people.</p><p>"Everything we've done so far has validated the belief that systems are what are going to allow us to provide consistently good service and products."</p><table width="33%" frame="box" rules="all"><caption>THE MILLWORK SPECIALIST, LLC</caption><col width="50%" align="left" /><col width="50%" align="left" /><tbody><tr><td><b>Year established</b></td><td>1968</td></tr><tr><td><b>Location</b></td><td>Richmond, Va.</td></tr><tr><td><b>Products</b></td><td>Architectural millwork</td></tr><tr><td><b>Market area</b></td><td>Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina</td></tr><tr><td><b>Facility size</b></td><td>65,000 sq. ft.</td></tr><tr><td><b>Employees</b></td><td>60</td></tr><tr><td><b>President &amp; CEO</b></td><td>Mike Karn</td></tr><tr><td><b>Yearly sales volume</b></td><td>$8 million</td></tr></tbody></table>