Profile:
The business:
Weatherguard Metal Construction
Inc.
5065 E. Buffalo Soldier Trail,
Sierra Vista; (800)678-3853
sales@wgmetal.com
Founded:
1990
The owners:
Lynn
and Jerilee Mattingly.
The
products:
Metal roof and metal
building construction.
Annual
revenue:
$2.5 million.
The
challenge: Computerize to increase
efficiency and profits. |
Computerizing makes it easier
Arizona Daily Star; Tucson, Ariz.;
Oct 2, 2000; Charlie Rochman;
Copyright The Arizona Daily Star
Oct 2, 2000
Lynn Mattingly built his metal
construction business piece by
piece. As the business grew,
Mattingly found it increasingly
difficult to stay organized and
keep his finger on the pulse of
the business.
Needing help, he called the
Service Corps of Retired
Executives (SCORE) and got hooked
up with Don McArthur, a former oil
company executive and a graduate
of the Harvard Business School's
MBA program. McArthur is now
chairman of SCORE's Tucson
chapter.
The story
Lynn Mattingly worked 15 years in
Buffalo, N.Y., as foreman for a
metal building construction
company. When work in Buffalo
became scarce in the winter of
1977, Mattingly came to Tucson and
was given an assignment in Bisbee.
He returned to Buffalo in the
spring but never forgot Arizona.
In 1986, he moved to Sierra Vista.
At first, Mattingly earned a
living from home improvement work
but soon realized there was demand
in Sierra Vista and the
surrounding area for the type of
metal roofing and construction
work he'd done in New York.
In July 1990, Mattingly and his
wife, Jerilee, formed Weatherguard
Metal Construction and set up a
home office. Lynn Mattingly did
estimates, materials purchasing
and job supervision. A graphic
designer by trade, Jerilee became
the bookkeeper and office manager.
"I worked from dawn to dusk, six
and a half days per week," says
Lynn Mattingly.
Mattingly's bootstrap-built
business is no longer run from a
home office. Weatherguard serves a
market that extends across
Southern Arizona. Business has
been good, and the company now
employs more than 20 people.
But all that growth stretched
Mattingly's ability to keep his
company moving forward. His
experience as a foreman had not
provided him with general business
skills. He was computer-illiterate
and candidly admits, "I wasn't
smart enough to know I was winging
it."
The advice
Don McArthur recognized right away
that Lynn Mattingly's tight
control of his business was the
reason for success. Mattingly was
expert at the critical tasks of
the business: estimating, pricing,
ordering and job troubleshooting.
However, rapid growth made it
difficult for Mattingly to attend
to critical tasks and details of
each job on a timely basis, says
McArthur. Another barrier to
efficiency was the manner in which
Mattingly did job estimates - the
old fashioned way, pencil on
paper.
At their first meeting, McArthur
recommended a personal time
management system he hoped would
organize Mattingly's priorities
and allow him to spend 20 percent
more time on long-term business
issues. Mattingly immediately got
on the phone and ordered the
Franklin Covey planner system. He
uses the system on a daily basis
and says he does a better job of
tracking priorities, planning
activities, and delegating and
tracking assigned work.
At the same meeting, McArthur
showed Mattingly the spreadsheet
program already installed on his
wife's computer. McArthur pointed
out that standard job estimates
could be simplified and made more
accurate by using a computer.
Despite resistance to computers in
the past, Mattingly readily
understood the speed and accuracy
potential of the spreadsheets.
Mattingly says he had a hidden
inclination for spreadsheets, and
McArthur agrees. It wasn't long
before he automated his standard
estimates and had a number of
office computers networked to
facilitate sharing of information
with other members of the
construction teams.
Mattingly also uses the
spreadsheets to facilitate
ordering materials. A metal
roofing estimate spreadsheet he
created will account for 25
separate roof types, identifying
materials and parts by number and
estimating direct labor and
administrative costs, Mattingly
says.
Another homemade spreadsheet
accounts for individual
construction jobs using the
percentage of completion method,
an accounting method used in the
construction business.
In subsequent meetings, McArthur
recommended use of spreadsheets to
track the status of materials
purchases. Mattingly is
enthusiastic about this idea and
plans to track purchase orders in
a way that ties material shipments
to job scheduling. That will
improve cash flow, Mattingly says.
Mattingly also conceived an
incentive system for his
employees. He consulted with
McArthur, who helped him refine
the idea. Using spreadsheets he'd
developed to estimate the cost of
jobs, he calculates variances that
compare actual labor hours to
estimates. Mattingly combines
favorable labor variances with
safety and quality guidelines to
derive pay incentives for jobs
completed under budget.
McArthur recommends the use of
hand-held computer technology to
gain time management capabilities
in the field. By having his
schedule in the palm of his hand,
Mattingly can keep top priorities
at his fingertips, input entries
in the field and synchronize the
data with the desk top computer.
Thanks to newly discovered
computer literacy, the company now
transfers "blueprints," or
computer-assisted design files,
over the Internet. The company has
enthusiasm for learning new
software tools, says Mattingly.
Most important, Weatherguard's
refinement of estimating and
tracking tools has resulted in
consistent profitability of jobs
and higher overall profit.
[Illustration]
Photos by Aaron J. Latham / Staff:
Shining up their business:
Jerilee, left,and Lynn Mattingly
are reflected in a copper roof
element made by Weatherguard Metal
Construction. The consultant: Don
McArthur is a business consultant
and chairman of the Tucson chapter
of the Service Corps of Retired
Executives. SCORE is a not-for-
profit business consulting group
made up of volunteer retired
executives who offer advice to
businesses at no fee. McArthur can
be reached at (520)670-5008 or
(520)792-4737.
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