Electrical Contractors Consulting

JDE & Associates consulting services are conducted on an as needed basis. Often electrical contractors realize a benefit by having an outsider review an electrical contractors office practices with the intention of reorganization their office procedures. In our experience we have seen many practices that are repetitive and cumbersome to work with. We walked into a residential electrical contractor's office to see the owner manually making multiple worksheets for the same residence. Upon review of this worksheet we stopped making these in a manual method and designed a spreadsheet where we could enter the items once and three forms were developed. They included an underground, rough and trim sheet, on the worksheet we had a cell indicating dacora or standard devices and another cell to state what color trim was to be. We added a cell for each room for the electrician completing the work to initial that they had finished the task. In the completion of this one tool we accomplished the following for this contractor,

1. Eliminated making multiple forms for the same project
2. Mistakes caused by transferring one number from one form to another manually were reduced
3. Help stop installing the wrong trim
4. Reduced wiring mistakes by having the person that completed the work initial the worksheet causing ownership in the work

Based on this one worksheet the contractor in question reduced his office time, increased accuracy both in the office / field and increased productivity in the field by reducing wiring mistakes. This worksheet was a winning solution for this contractor. Sometimes it is not that easy, often we look at contractor's procedures and start to tweak them. Over time some contractors complicate matters that do not need to be complicated. Sometimes an outsider can step into your environment and see these road blocks easier as we do not live with the same company stress that the contractor does every day.

Items that we routinely review include the following,

1. Business plan
2. Estimating - Pre-bid evaluation - Estimating procedures - Bid Review - Cap sheet (summary of bid)
3. Labor burden and overhead calculator
4. Proposals
5. Negotiations
6. Contracts
7. Purchase Orders
8. Submittals
9. Scheduling
10. Job start-up meetings
11. Productivity both in the field and office
12. Material delivery
13. Change order estimating and change order proposals
14. Job closeout
15. Warranty letters

We tailor our consulting to the items that are most important to you. Upon our review other items may surface that we feel may benefit those items that caused the consulting in the first place. We will bring those items to your attention, at which time you decide whether to proceed with the new items or leave them alone. Our only aim is to please you with positive results.