Working Smarter, Not Harder: How AP’s Director of Project Operations Finds Little Ways to Make Big Progress

Let’s say it together: work smarter, not harder. It may be cliché, but it’s a mantra I follow and encourage across AP. One of the biggest goals I have in my position is to help our operations do just that so everyone can achieve their objectives. Working smarter also translates into cost efficiency for our clients.

Working out of the Dallas office, I also support the Arizona office and have my hands in lots of buckets. One of my main areas of focus is making sure people adopt the best operational practices; again, it’s all about working smarter not harder.

To help work smarter company-wide, AP has a Construction Management and Processes (CMaP) Steering Committee with 14 of us working on initiatives that involve safety and quality improvements, financial processes, and field documentation standards. This group meets weekly to develop these programs. The latest iteration, CMaP IV, includes quality control, inspection checklists, and safety observations. We will then move further into defining the quality assurance program to create standardized procedures for recording, measurement, reporting, and analysis, all for continuous improvement. For instance, when we are starting a concrete pour, the project team can pull up an inspection checklist to ensure we’re meeting our company-defined expectations. There is both a safety and quality component, such as inspecting the safety guardrails and ensuring the concrete truck cycle time is being monitored.

These protocols and processes are the new standard operating procedures for all AP regions, not just Texas or Arizona. We recently rolled out CMaP IV and are now focused on making sure our project teams understand how to use it and its benefits.

Creating a standardized system for quality and safety translates to better end-products, and often, fewer delays.

Our Dallas region has begun building a warehouse to provide our project teams and clients with an efficient and sustainable resource for equipment and tools. Rather than rent equipment from a third party, we are now able to quickly assist our project teams with equipment and tool needs, ensuring that we’re supporting our projects in a timely manner. AP’s Colorado region has been successful as a trendsetter in this practice, and we are now seeing it throughout the industry.

I’m leading the charge on equipment acquisitions, logistics coordination, determining costs and maintenance, and creating budgets. We are still in the initial stages but are buying small pieces of equipment, fencing, and small tools, and then we will provide them to our projects instead of sourcing from another organization. This allows us to be cost-competitive and resource-nimble, which benefits both AP and our clients.

A recent example of our warehouse in use is when a project site quickly needed fencing to protect the site during construction. In the past, a fencing company would be contracted to rent and install the fencing materials, but now AP is able to provide the fencing with the budget and turnaround required by the project.

Part of the beauty of the warehouse project is that we can reuse these materials, which goes toward our sustainability efforts of creating less waste. We are being very intentional in purchasing items with a longer life, rather than consumables with shorter lifespans. While we are building our inventory, we are constantly reviewing and assessing new ideas provided to us by our project teams. AP’s operations group is filled with creative, forward-thinking team members.

These initiatives fit well with our sustainability and innovation efforts while being financially advantageous, but the ultimate goal is to help the operations teams work smarter, not harder. Their jobs are hard enough.