Tankersley Construction Behind the Business: Bringing commercial precision to residential construction (Part 3 of 5)

Behind the business series: In part three of our Tankersley Construction Behind the Business series, we dive into their journey going from commercial construction to residential – and how to bring the commercial sector’s more efficient processes into the realm of home building.

Heather and Steve Tankersley are husband and wife as well as co-founders of their general contracting firm located in Rancho Cordova, California.

“We were in commercial construction, Heather and myself, and we were running $100, $200, $300 million projects,” Steve said. “These are big projects with eight trailers and 100-200 craft people onsite. So, when I started doing residential projects on my own, I was like this process is so broken.”

The first thing Steve noticed when managing a landscaping project at his home was the challenges of bidding and getting workers to show up. It was hard enough getting someone to come out to do a bid, but then actually getting the bid back took even longer.

Seeing how disjointed the processes were once the project started led Steve to a realization. Bringing the documentation, communication and critical path scheduling he was used to in commercial construction to residential projects would be a game changer.

Commercial vs. residential

Commercial and residential construction projects stand as two distinct realms within the industry, each with their own unique challenges, requirements and objectives.

Commercial construction projects tend to be larger and more complex as they involve erecting structures intended for business purposes. Think office buildings, shopping centers or industrial facilities. These jobs typically demand more coordination, adherence to safety regulations and specialized expertise in areas like HVAC systems and fire safety.

Residential construction projects primarily focus on building homes and dwellings for individuals and families. These jobs involve more personalized living spaces, design aspects and compliance with local zoning regulations. While residential construction builds are typically smaller in scale, they require a deeper understanding of how to work with clients, knowledge of local building codes and attention to detail in crafting comfortable and functional living spaces.

Ultimately, the distinction between commercial and residential construction lies in size of the project and the specific requirements needed to achieve their purpose.

How to incorporate commercial techniques into residential builds

“There are so many fluid things that commercial has done, and we’ve taken the same design-build approach and we’ve brought that to residential with how we do our pre-construction and how we work with the team,” Heather said. “It’s a collaborative approach.”

The best way to improve collaboration in residential construction is by incorporating the following into daily processes:

Documentation

Organized and accessible documentation of files, photos and videos is key to keeping everyone in the loop. By centralizing job details in one place, team members, subs and clients can easily find what they need – when they need it.

Communication

Don’t let important updates fall through the cracks. Communication between all parties involved in a project should be quick, efficient and easy. When you’re not sifting through hand-written notes, emails and text messages, projects can keep moving forward thanks to a simplified message inbox in one platform.

Critical path scheduling

A critical path schedule outlines the series of minimum tasks required to complete a job on time. This allows project managers to see what’s urgent, what can’t be delayed and what items are more flexible.

Steve is an advocate for the critical path method

Critical path scheduling is a project management method used to finish projects quicker and more efficiently. Each task on the critical path is, well… critical to the project’s timeline, and a delay on even one of them would directly impact the completion date.

This method involves identifying the most important tasks in a project, what tasks they directly affect and the total time required to wrap up the job. By focusing on this series of events, resources can be allocated more effectively, tasks can be correctly prioritized and the project has a greater chance of staying on schedule.

Critical path scheduling also allows for proactive management of potential delays and better coordination with subs.

“If there’s a critical activity and it takes five days instead of four, your duration of the final completion pushes one day,” Steve said.

Using the critical path method in commercial construction has been the norm for a while. But with software becoming more prevalent in the residential realm, it’s now available to home builders and remodelers as well.

Using technology to improve processes

Residential construction management software, like Buildertrend, makes running a project simpler.

Buildertrend uses a collection of tools that work and link together in order to enhance not only communication and documentation, but also project and financial management. By combining these processes into one centralized platform, teams, subs and clients can work more efficiently to ensure a job well done, a job done on time – and a job done on budget.

“So, what’s great with Buildertrend’s scheduling software is you can identify the critical path and highlight it in red,” Steve said. “So, we can see if concrete pushes a day, our actual completion date pushes a day, and how are we gonna make that up? Are we gonna shrink up framing? Or where on that critical path are we gonna shrink up to maintain our finish date?”

Schedule a demo to see Buildertrend’s critical path functionality in action. Our platform and mobile app are designed for residential builders looking to scale their business through enhanced communication, documentation and general construction.