Sl.
no Reasons for missing billing targets
1. 100% of billing was based on Approval and 0% of submission.
2. Approval timeline was not in our control
3. Proof checker comments come randomly at any time and we
would not have engineer ready to work on revisions and
resubmissions. Delay in allocation of engineer to the work
causes lag in submission. Delayed resubmission causes proof
checker to further delay the review and approval unless there
is site related pressure
4. Proper checking of drawing takes time. This time was not
allotted by me at the start of the day. That leads to 2
possibilities: either delay the work in hand or submit drawing
without proper checking. Both hurt the billing plan in different
ways
5. Target of billing in such short span (1 month) is not helping
predictability. On the contrary, when dealing with govt clients,
any small issue will need 7-10 days for solution or opinions of
all stake holders. That will make it impossible to make up for
the lost time in the same month.
6. Taking up exhaustive works that need continuous and focused
work (modelling in sofistik, shell design of NDCT etc) demand
keeping all other works waiting until these works are done.
That causes the billing/ Project management process to stand
still, leading to delays. If that focus is disturbed by involving in
this project tracking activity (which will involve lot of drafting
involvement and phone calls), the work at hand will be delayed
and worse, erratic. That causes the same problem we are
trying to avoid.
7. REWORKS AND SITE QUERIES come all of a sudden and
take up many days sometimes. And the biggest reason they
come back is substandard output in the first place.
Remedies
Avoid signing one-sided contracts
Taking 1 hour time twice a week to monitor drawings/ submissions/
approvals of the items only from billing perspective and actively
following up with customer irrespective of the urgency of that
drawing at site
Always have to be able to allot work to junior engineer readily to
revise and resubmit documents within 7 days of receipt of
comments. Prompt resubmission will help in speeding up the entire
cycle and will give us authority to follow up for approvals
proactively.
Prepare checklists of things to be checked in 10 minute time when
a new drawing comes from juniors/ drafting checker. Be that good
Plan entire work of Month 1 to give billing planning at end of Month
1 for Month 2
Delegate laborious work to juniors. Don’t hesitate to ask for extra
manpower if not available. And keep discussing with them the
technical details. Technical checklist will help.
Also, seek ways to improve focus on the “major work at hand for
the day” while handling miscellaneous items elsewhere.
Track how many completed drawings have had queries from site
about discrepancies & mistakes