How does a pig know when to stop eating?

Last week was another great week.  I am excited to see the amount of work that we have received from our client in different areas.  However, with the increase in the amount of work there brings the issue of contractor capacity.  I know most of you contractors want to try and take every job possible like it was your last one.  As a result of this, we have developed some tools internally at Maxim to gauge office capacity and contractor capacity.  We are currently back testing the data to confirm our results.   What we have found out so far is that there is a diminishing return when we all take on too much work.  Work becomes sloppy and inefficient thus causing frustration for all people involved.  A great example of this was a situation in PA.  We had one contractor for a large area.  We divided that area as evenly as possible based on the past volumes.  So instead of one contractor in an area, we now have two.  You are probably thinking there goes ½ of my work to another person.  The answer is yes.  However, what we found out was that work all of a suddenly got done in half the time it normally took.  The two contractors worked together and if there was an issue with capacity, they even offered to cover one another if something went wrong.   By turning their work in on time it created the following for them.  Number 1 – fewer mistakes.  Number 2 – better cash flow. And Number 3 – more work from the client.  When work gets out of control it makes everyone’s life difficult.  Knowing your capacity of work is critical for your business to be profitable.  We will be releasing this tool as soon as we have tested to confirm accurate results