‘What do you consult on?’

Grammar notwithstanding, it’s a natural question which we hear a lot. Under our preferred approach to delivering consulting services – Results-Based Consulting® – our preferred answer is, ‘We do whatever it takes.’

The nature of a true client-consultant partnership is a determination to do whatever it takes to help foster a willingness and capacity for change, to create a sustainable capability for implementing the things that would continuously improve operating performance and business outcomes, to increase innovation and learning, and to make our client less dependent on us.

Under either consulting approach – results-based or conventional – the question persists. There is still that interest in ‘what kind of consulting’ we do. In other words, ‘What are you good at?’

Flat out, we are the homebuilding industry’s leading expert, when it comes to the documentation, analysis, measurement, design and redesign, improvement, and management of operating and business processes.

It is our tour de force.

It is the area for which we are most recognized. Every consulting engagement we have ever accepted has dealt – in some way – with a client’s need to structure itself around its critical business processes.  SAI Consulting has done more work with processes – and done it longer – than anyone in the homebuilding industry.

• Before the creation of the National Housing Quality (NHQ) Award, we were already assisting Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners in their efforts to refocus, restructure, and redesign their business operations around their processes. 

• Before the current interest in the homebuilding industry on the documentation and management of business and operating processes, we were already recognized experts in that field.

• We have assisted dozens of homebuilding companies in their efforts to understand and improve the manner in which work is performed, and the way value - to their employees, trade partners, shareholders, and, in particular, their customers – is generated. 

Our process toolbox is the best in the industry. We pioneered the development of many of the tools and techniques we use in this area.

• We use the most advanced process flowcharting and modeling software available – after having participated in its development. We are adept at every form of process documentation, including cross-functional flowcharting and IDEF process modeling.

• We are able to synthesize a wide range of management tools – including Total Quality Management, Lean-Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, and Lean/TPS – into an effective program for improving critical business processes.

Our experience in the real estate and construction industry – together with our deep understanding of processes and the impact they have on a homebuilding company’s operating and financial performance – makes SAI Consulting the logical choice for any process-related project.

The goal of a homebuilding company is to ‘make money’. It is ‘in business’ to make a reasonable profit, generate adequate cash flow, and produce an acceptable return on their investment.

That is not to say that we are homebuilders simply to make money. Most of us are (or have been) builders because we find a deep level of satisfaction in building homes and creating communities; if ‘making money’ was the only criteria, we might all very well choose a different business. However – profitability, cash generation, and economic return are more than necessary conditions, and the owners, managers, and employees of a homebuilding company need to intuitively and instinctively understand the underlying production, operating, and business principles.

SAI Consulting has a comprehensive approach to describing and explaining how financial information is presented, analyzed, and used. It is an approach that recognizes the historical nature of financial performance, and relates it to what a homebuilding company actually does (buy land, sell, start, build, and close homes), so that it is able to see – from both an operational and production standpoint – what ‘happens to money’.

By necessity, our approach also links both operating and financial performance to the underlying production physics, so that our clients develop both a physical and financial perspective of throughput, inventory, production capacity, productivity, and cycle time.

Our approach to describing, explaining, and teaching business (production, operating, and financial) principles flows from our deep understanding of managerial and throughput (Theory of Constraints) accounting. In particular, it focuses on variable costing, which includes the behavior of variable (direct) and non-variable (indirect) costs, cost/volume/profit decision-making, and the Contribution Income Statement format.

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Outside of Results-Based Consulting®, our analysis/assessment work takes more of a measurement (performance scorecard) and comparative (trend) analysis approach.  Competitive Assessment Scorecards® also use root cause (cause-and-effect) analysis for problem-solving and prioritizing improvement efforts, but not to the same extent that a Current Reality Assessment® does.  

Competitive Assessment Scorecards® offer our clients the ability to look at all of the critical factors that affect their operating and business (financial) performance, in the form of a broad, objective, unfiltered assessment of the company’s current capabilities and performance.

The design of Competitive Assessment Scorecards® pulls from the concept of Balanced Scorecards and Strategy Maps.

Performance Measurement and Reporting Systems

Referred to as dashboards or heads-up displays, we help our clients design performance measurement and reporting systems that reflect the cause-and-effect relationships between different key measures of operating and business performance, and assist them in setting up and automating the reporting and display systems, utilizing the data gathering and reporting capabilities contained in different business intelligence applications, like Crystal Reports and CorBusiness (CorVu) .

These dashboards and displays are often associated with Balanced Scorecards and Strategy Maps, but the scorecards and maps are more a part of strategic planning initiatives.

Production and Project Management Systems

We have a comprehensive understanding of the production physics that underlie even-flow production (planning and management) systems, as well as project management and scheduling (in multi-project environments), particularly as it relates to the Theory of Constraints (including Critical Chain Project Management) and Lean Production.

We not only provide guidance in the design and set up, we also deliver the accompanying education on production and project management, as well as provide on-going assistance in the measurement and management of the production and scheduling processes and systems.

Team-Based Performance Compensation Systems

SAI Consulting has one of the homebuilding industry’s most innovative and effective approaches to performance compensation, an approach that is simple, visible, compelling, and self-funding.

We help our clients develop savvy, accountable, and motivated teams working toward a common goal.  Our approach stands in sharp contrast to performance compensation systems that treat managers and employees as a collection of teammates and leaders, working toward individual goals.   

Clearly, performance compensation is about reward, but it is not simply about an exchange of money for service.  In order to become a savvy, accountable, and motivated team, teammates and leaders have to understand the ‘business’ of homebuilding;  they have to understand their individual responsibilities as part of an overall team, one in which they are mutually responsible for the intended outcome;  they have to understand what is at stake;  and they have to have a stake in that outcome, individually and collectively.

SAI’s approach to performance compensation systems embraces principles collectively referred to as Open-Book Management.