3 Ways Contractors Can Improve Production Meetings

What is a production meeting? Daily production meetings are a critical tool for construction teams to align and ensure everyone on the team is working together to keep projects on track. Unfortunately, there are many ways that production meetings can become derailed or simply not deliver answers to key questions. We have put together three steps you can take to improve the quality of your team’s production meetings.

1. Define Ownership and Accountability
2. Use Data and Facts to Assess Issues
3. Shift From Being Reactive to Becoming Proactive

Define Ownership and Accountability

Creating clear owners for each aspect of a project allows you to hold team members accountable for their defined area of the project. If each defined owner knows what they are expected to report on during weekly meetings and delivers on their aspect of the project, the whole team benefits. Construction meetings are less likely to get derailed and if they do, you have a designated person to hold accountable. In logistics, we see the foreman responsible for the flow at the job-site, scale and loader operations for flow at the plant, then the trucker for everywhere in between.

Use Data and Facts to Assess Issues

It isn’t enough to define ownership, you also need to arm the team with the data they need to accurately report back to the team on progress. Let’s face it, there are always going to be things that don’t go according to plan on a project; however, many contractors only have the number of tons laid down or distance paved as their view into progress and the root cause of delays remains unknown. Was it a hauler not showing up for scheduled work? Was the job site poorly managed? Was the plant backed up? Up until now, there haven’t been concrete answers to these questions, making it easy for account owners to shift blame to another portion of the project. Many contractors are turning to app-based solutions to help bring data into their production meetings. Digital punch-in/out for haulers, real-time GPS route verification data, bulk communication, and real-time cost reconciliation help take some of the questions out of your day. Choosing to bring on a technology partner can go a long way to arm your team with the information they need to accurately manage company-owned trucks and hired hauling. Letting facts lead the discussion removes the emotion and means there is less room for inaccurate blame in production meetings. 

Shift From Being Reactive to Becoming Proactive

Armed with owners for each aspect of your project and the real-time data you gain from technology, you can start to shift your focus from what happened in the past to what needs to happen in real-time and in the future to keep projects moving forward on time and on budget. For many contractors, this may seem like a pipe dream but with the right tools, you can more accurately track progress and focus less on what did or didn’t happen yesterday and think about what needs to happen tomorrow.

Without clearly defined ownership and real-time data to assess issues, you can’t hold the right people accountable for delays on the job or celebrate the success of key team members. If you are ready to start improving your production meetings, the best thing you can do is align with a technology partner that can arm you with the data you need to support your team. TRUX works with contractors across the country, providing real-time data for all their hauling - not to mention, the nation’s largest network of dump truck drivers. Schedule a call with a local team member today to learn more about our trucking logistics platform.