Gray Construction: Success Means Being More Than Dependable
...and suppliers as opposed to self-performing construction work. But the merit-shop firm does its best to provide full-time employment for craft workers.
“Our safety program comes right out of Toyota and we pride ourselves on a safe and clean workplace, which draws the best workers, fosters higher productivity, and creates greater customer satisfaction and repeat business,” says Jim Gray.
When Gray renovated an empty downtown department store building in 1997 as its headquarters, it adopted the Toyota model of an open floor plan office, which it calls an “idea factory” because the firm “manufactures” projects. “Years ago, my father had a partners’ desk, facing another manager where they would talk about issues while I listened,” says Jim Gray. “Private offices limit that learning, especially in a team environment. Our open floor is not for cosmetic purposes or egalitarianism but because it is efficient. People learn by hearing and observing.”
Gray also has embraced a zero punchlist philosophy and adopted building information modeling technology. The firm obtained ISO 9001 quality certification in 1999, and in May 2006 wrapped up its first design-build silver LEED certification for Toyota’s North American Production Service Center.
Gray management revels in a more intelligent approach to design. “The technology has finally caught up with the vision and it doesn’t wear us out in accommodating it,” says Bob Lowry, senior vice president. “We did a Webinar the other day with Innovaya that integrates Timberline estimating, Primavera or MS Project with Autodesk Revit and, using our model, we could do quantity take-offs in seconds. This is the same vision we had in 1992 when we set out to create InteGraytion and how we could walk into a customer’s office, design their building and give them a preliminary budget in the same day.”
Like Toyota, the firm may not always be cutting edge but it optimizes the technology that it has. “We were trying to push too quick, too fast in 1992,” says Jim Gray. “Now, we have come to advocate soft technology, such as making an effort to understand cross-cultural business and making European and Korean firms feel welcome in America. And we always try to confirm our understanding of an agreement or an action.”
The Japanese commitment to correcting problems “on the line” also has been adopted at Gray. “The architecture department employs a 19-point quality checklist to make sure that these critical items are properly executed, and project audits are conducted regularly with results posted internally,” says John Thorne, director of architecture. “And at least three times during the production of drawings, a peer review is conducted. Drawings are placed in a common area and team members from design, project management and site staff spend time reviewing the documents and make suggestions for improvement.”
With over seven Toyota and 45 Toyota-related projects now under its belt, Gray’s marketing and delivery skills are still improving. But “the expectations of always meeting schedules and budgets, the ‘word is your bond’ trust relationship that develop between vendor and customer, and the absolute expectation that high quality is always the result of every project” are deeply ingrained, says Scott Parker, vice president and CFO. Still, he believes other owners are swayed by a commodity purchasing mentality where price is king. “The industry needs to do a better job of educating customers with regard to quality and performance on the front end of a project, as well as cost-benefit trade-offs,” he says.