Masonry Magazine June 2004 Page. 16
Contractor
to Contractor
toward residential masonry promotions. The union mason went on strike, and developers immediately turned their track homes to wood studs. The entire industry was caught by surprise. We have been trying to recapture that market for 25 years. Seldom do you see masonry homes in Arizona anymore. Today, only about half the fireplaces are masonry. Once it's gone, it can't be recovered.
Masonry: What do you feel are the most critical issues you'll face with future government regulations?
Nessler: There isn't any way the labor pool in the United States can compete with the labor pool in Third World countries. That's where the manual labor jobs are going. Without labor there will not be a need for factories and office buildings we build today. I am not a proponent of restrictive trade agreements this is a world economy now however, something has to be done to preserve jobs in this country. Without jobs, the tax base will be depleted. Depleting the tax base will have an impact on schools, prisons and other public buildings we are building. We need to find nonrestrictive legislation to solve this problem.
Masonry: Which group do you feel has the bigger impact on masonry's future: architects, engineers or general contractors?
Nessler: I have seen general contractors engineer masonry out of projects to be replaced with their self-performed concrete. I have also experienced general contractors value engineering masonry walls to steel studs and wood. Most architects and engineers in Arizona prefer masonry. If a project is over budget, masonry always seems to be the first thing to go with value engineering. That is almost always done at the general contracting level.
If a project is over budget, masonry always seems to be the first thing to go with value engineering.
Masonry: What do you like most about being a member of MCAA?
Nessler: I believe the Mason Contractors Association of America is currently the only national organization attempting to pull all mason contractors' problems together under on unified hat. It also provides a foundation for mason contractors from all over the country to meet and address problems. We will always support the national Mason Contractors Association of America, and I will encourage others to do the same. We contractors are the industry. It will only be as good as we make it.
"Keeping score - What gets measured gets done"
MASONRY NEWS CONTRACTOR TIP
Imagine this, you are a bricklayer and just came off the job at the end of the day. You're a little tired because you along with four other bricklayers just laid 5000 brick that day. That's a good day by any contractor's standards. However, no one counted the brick that was laid that day, so you're not really sure it was 5000. You never got any solid feedback telling you it was a good day. How could you possibly keep up the spirit to go out and do it again the next day? The truth is, you probably couldn't and neither can your own people. If we are not measuring what is being done each day our people will think we don't care, and sooner or later production will drop.
Measuring each day makes the masonry trade more like a sport. Think about it. Would you sit down on a Sunday and watch a football game if the players just keep running up and down the field without goal post or end zones? A game where there was no scoreboard up, so you could not see what the score is, and you were expected to guess? I am getting ready to go to Bristol, Tenn., tomorrow to the race. I don't think I would go if they were going to just run the cars around the track for four hours, stop the race and never tell us how many laps they ran, or who ran the most laps. What if the owners expected the race fans to keep track of the laps on their own? I would not go tomorrow and I don't think the other 140,000 people would show up either.
On the other hand if we are measuring by counting units laid each day it becomes like a game to our people. They want to get more done today than they did yesterday. At Lang Masonry we take this a step further and pay all our people a percentage of what we measure. This keeps everyone results oriented and enjoying their successes. From time to time I do seminars to explain this to contractors in more detail. We even take those who come back the second time to our jobsites to show the quality and efficiency our incentive plans have produced. Whether you ever come to one of my seminars or not, if you're not counting what is being done each day, you are probably settling for much less production than you could get if you were measuring, We need to keep score to show our employees whether we are winning or losing the game!