Time is money. In the construction industry especially, the faster homes, buildings, and barns go up, the more efficient and more profitable your company becomes. Nearly every construction professional is on a constant quest to streamline operations, but one aspect of the building process that’s often overlooked is your supplier’s truck turnaround time.
It makes sense that some construction pros may not think about truck turnaround time when it comes to their supplier. Many feel it’s out of their control, and as such, it’s hard to think about how you could optimize it. In reality, the time it takes to get your supplies can have a major impact on your company’s efficiency. Let’s take a look at a few of the ways truck turnaround times can impact your business, and why it’s so important to choose a supplier who’s dedicated to shortening truck turnaround times:
How Truck Turnaround Time Affects Your Construction Business
Truck turnarounds can affect your construction company in quite a few ways:
- The Time it Takes to Receive Materials — The obvious impact of a long turnaround time is that you have to wait longer to get your materials. That means it’ll take longer to get started on your next job, and take longer to complete. All of that time adds up, and can quickly eat into your bottom line.
- Quality of Your Work — If the project you’re working on is nearly framed in, but you’re still waiting on roof trusses so your framer can get started, you’ll have problems. If your materials don’t arrive on time, then you can’t get subcontractors in when they’re scheduled. If you’re building during the busy season, a missed appointment with a subcontractor can put you weeks behind schedule.
- Overall Job Efficiency — When you wait for materials, or when materials aren’t delivered at their expected time, your team loses efficiency through no real fault of their own. You need your supplies delivered on time and in full, otherwise you’re losing time, and thus money.
- Customer Satisfaction — All of the problems that come with poor truck turnaround times affect your relationships with your clients. The longer you wait for materials, and the further out that pushes your timeline, the more upset your clients will become. Purchasing a house is a major investment, and new homeowners are very concerned about the allocation of their funds. Short truck turnaround times ensure you get the materials you need, when you need them, and when your team is ready to unload them quickly. The faster you complete your job, the happier your clients will be.
How Zeeland Lumber & Supply Measures and Manages Truck Turnaround Times
Here at Zeeland Lumber & Supply, we know that everything we do impacts our clients. That’s why our primary focus is providing exceptional customer experience. We have a fleet of over 35 trucks that we track every single day to ensure we’re delivering materials efficiently, and on time.
We start by tracking each vehicle — flatbeds, box trucks, forklifts, skytraks, and moffetts — the moment they leave any of our lumber & supply yards. We measure how long it takes to arrive at their destination, how long it takes to unload, and, once back to our yard, how much time it takes to reload and move out to the next job site. With every run, we identify any bottlenecks, analyze the problem, and apply the data we’ve gathered to all of our future shipments and truck schedules.
We call this data-based decision making, and it’s at the core of everything we do. At Zeeland Lumber & Supply, we know that being your supplier is about a lot more than just having the materials you want. It’s also about getting those materials to you as quickly as possible, every single time.
We also share our data with you. Because we measure everything, we’re able to tell you in very specific terms when you can expect your shipment; our customers can sign up for alerts that are sent electronically which give updates on their deliveries.
Short truck turnaround times improve your efficiency and ours. We’re always working with our professional construction clients to share data, so we can affect efficiencies and grow everyone’s business.
Let us show you how the Zeeland Lumber & Supply process for measuring and managing truck turnaround time can benefit you. Contact us today or give us a call at (888) 772-2119 to start the discussion.
