This is a story about failure demand.

Failure demand is a work product that does not meet the customers need and generates additional work. It is opposed to value demand, which is the customer wanting something new.

A couple of months ago we moved into our new house. I didn’t take long before we started noticing small things like missing paint, wrong paint, and a shower that didn’t close properly and so on. We contacted the contractor and they sent people (sub contractors) to improve on the issues. The painter has been here four times now, and there are still issues with the painting.

In the bathroom they have mounted the lighting in the wrong place. This means they have to replace the tiles, and mount the light again. How do they solve this problem?

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First they made an appointment with us to come inspect the problem, then they sent the plumber, which among other things, took down the light. Then they made a new appointment for the mason to come and remove the tile. He didn’t show up on the first appointment, so we rescheduled. The next day, he showed up. After taking down the tiles and messing up the bathroom, a carpenter came to fix the hole in the wall. Then the mason came back to put up the new tiles. Now we’re waiting for the plumber to come back and mount the lighting. The plumber does a little bit of the electrician work as you might have noticed. This is just one of several “work flows” I have seen in the process of getting my house up to par.

There are multiple problems with this way of working, as you’ve probably noticed.  The two big ones are unsatisfied customers and waste of money.

I don’t really like spending all my time waiting for people to show up for appointments. It kind of sucks. I don’t like cleaning up after the workers either.

Since we have already paid for the house, all this rework does not cost us anything (not, true but stick with me). The contractor needs to pay for all this rework.

My experience with the contractors is not unique. It’s seems to be the way they all operate. Handled properly the contractor could have made away with half the work, and in addition they would have had happy customers as well. Half the work you say? Well, then maybe the house would have been cheaper in the first place. So maybe I am loosing A LOT of money on this modus operandi.

What are the obvious issues with this workflow?

Inspection, inspection, inspection

In the process of taking over the house, we were invited to an “inspection”. We had a session with the supervisor, who wrote down all the obvious issues on a list. After the inspection the list was maybe 20-3o items plus.

This is a major issue. We, as laymen, were supposed to find all the problems in a short meeting. We found more than 20 without even trying! This means that the contractor had no plans to make a flawless house before we moved in. This leads me to believe the workflow is as follows:

  1. Sell the house before it’s built
  2. Make a half assed attempt to complete it
  3. As the new house owner finds new problems repeat the following:
    1. Send a man to attempt to fix the problem in a half assed manner
    2. Send more men
    3. Repeat

This cannot be the best workflow.

Let’s attempt a better workflow:

  1. Sell the house before it’s built (I guess we can’t do without this one)
  2. Build the house while carefully and continuously verifying the quality of the work done
  3. Have a thouroug final inspection
  4. Let the new owners inspect the house, knowing there are no issues.
  5. Take a cup of coffee

What is missing from the contractors workflow is careful and continuous inspection, and workers that take pride in their work. I guess the last one might be a problem, but the first one should be easily implemented.

It is not uncommon that work like this lacks proper inspections. I believe it has to do with the fact that you don’t get immediate feedback. Good work and inspections done right manifests  itself as nothing happening. No customer complaints. Who would like to spend a lot of time to make nothing happen. Seems counter intuitive. However, monetary gains and satisfied customers is the result you should strive for. So why not work better and inspect more ?

There is a phrase I like to use

You should build quality into your product. Not inspect it in later.

…but If inspection is your only option, do it all the time.

For my readers interested in software development, most of this applies to you as well Smilefjes

What’s next? Well, I am waiting for a sub contractor to come fix our leaky window

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