Our Industry Improves with Field Engineering

You’re Never Going to Have a Great Superintendent Program Unless You Have This

Jason is driving to set up a recording studio so he can set up and record online videos for clients and for future online courses. He’s been doing a superintendent boot camp for the last couple of days and it was amazing. Now unfortunately he is driving so you get to listen to a little bit of background noise and he really apologizes for that.

He’s just finding less time where he’s sitting somewhere and has just time. But he’s committed to this podcast and staying on schedule. He loves everybody on the other end of this. He’s been researching and thinking about this topic for quite some time. Let him take you through the whole story here.

The Field Engineering Methods Manual Changed My Life

Wes Crawford is a professor emeritus at Purdue University. He taught at Purdue for a number of years in the construction department and he would teach construction surveying and layout and some other courses. He’s also a registered surveyor. Fantastic man. He wrote the book, the Field Engineering Methods Manual. It’s actually called Construction Surveying Layout: A Field Engineering Methods Manual. The company Hensel Phelps, great company, they put a cover on it and they just call it the Field Engineering Methods Manual.

Jason was able to read this book when he was a field engineer at Hensel Phelps and it changed his life. He has told everybody multiple times that he was on the way to getting fired and he read that book in addition to one more, the scriptures actually, to get ethics and morality. And then the Field Engineering Methods Manual to learn how to be a worker, a professional, and it changed everything. He went from almost getting fired to training all the way across the United States like literally within a series of months and it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

Jason gained a love for that book and started a professional relationship with Wes Crawford back at that time, calling him and interfacing with some of the boot camps that he started, quite frankly. They called them more of a mastermind or training than an actual boot camp. There would be somebody, actually a really fun friend of his back in the day, Carrie Cela, used to come out and do a day and a half training. Then Wes Crawford would come out and do another day and a half or two days and then finish it up with some really good concepts.

That’s where Jason learned how to be a professional builder, not just field engineer. That’s where he learned how to be a superintendent. That’s where he learned how to be a construction manager. Fast forward. Jason taught at Hensel Phelps for seven years all the way around the country and focused on field engineering. He taught and actually went to project sites one on one. Then he created a website with online videos. He thinks they still have those videos. He hears people from Phelps all the time saying “Hey, I know you. I went through your training videos” and he’s like “I don’t know you, but nice to meet you.” So the legacy of those videos have continued.

They actually designed a software and paid for it and had it made that did coordinate geometry. Jason made Excel sheets that he still has actually that do radial staking, as-built points, and traversing using the compass rule. They developed a lot of these things and they only got 30% saturation in a field engineering or professional builder or whatever you would call it, an assistant superintendent level saturation from a knowledge standpoint.

The Field Engineer Boot Camp Was Born in the Desert

Jeff Stewart, a general superintendent, said “Jason, why don’t you take these kids out into the wilderness, out into the desert and have them build something and lay it out.” That’s where the field engineer boot camp was born. They’ve perfected that. Jason thinks he’s run that camp like 18 times. They are geniuses at that camp. They have field engineers read three books, go through the Field Engineering Methods Manual, go through online video content, and then do two masterminds and they can be virtual or in person.

Then they come for the week of their life and actually get to lay out a building or at least two footings in a building from two points based on a set of plans. They learn how to be some of the best builders that money can buy or train or recognize. It’s great because they learn team dynamics. They learn how to be a professional. They learn how to get rid of their fears. They learn the basic habits. They learn how to study and learn early and be addicted and love learning early. They learn what it takes to be a master builder and to focus on quality and detail and components and they leave there on fire.

Some of these field engineers, whether they’re at Hensel Phelps or they’re at Oakland or any of these companies that actually do them, the Turners and the Kiewits of the world, the Skanska of the world, these builders that actually get these experiences to get real fundamental training early on, three, four or five years later they’re running jobs and they’re remarkable. Absolutely killing it, crushing it. Jason knows people that in 2018 in the beginning of the year went through a field engineer boot camp. They’re absolutely crushing it now. He knows of a guy right now running an $80 million job because he got the fundamentals as a field engineer.

This is where you learn:

• Professional development
• Personal organization
• How to use technology
• How to visualize construction plans
• How to read construction documents
• How to act and communicate
• How to keep a to-do list
• The basics of quality and quality at the source
• How to create lift drawings and to interpret drawings

Jason could just keep going on and on.

It’s Not Technology or Philosophy That Will Fix This Industry

Here’s why he’s telling you all this. Jason did another superintendent boot camp. He’s done more superintendent boot camps this year than he ever thought he would. Sold more superintendent books and done more talks about superintendents than he ever thought he would. He loves it. People love the Elevate Construction Superintendents book. People love and are raving fans for the superintendent boot camp. People love the masterminds. The one he did in Norway virtually, they love it. And it’s still not what’s going to fix this industry.

Jason keeps telling people that it’s not going to be technology. It’s not going to be some new method. It’s not going to be some philosophy, even lean unless you interpret lean as learning. It’s not going to be anything like that that fixes the industry. It’s going to be the fundamentals. It’s going to be when our builders start keeping to-do lists again. It’s going to be when our builders stop wasting time again. It’s going to be when our builders start creating flow in their schedules again. It’s going to be when our companies, our builder companies, start having superintendents and project managers pre-plan their projects and pre-construction again. It’s going to be when we stabilize our projects again with cleanliness, organization and safety.

This is when it’s going to get remarkable again. How do we get back to those basics? How do we get back to that stability? How do we get back to that respect? How do we get back to the fundamentals of how to actually be a builder? How do we get back to the fundamentals of communication? How do we get back to the fundamentals of quality?

The answer in Jason’s mind, and he’s thought about this a lot, is to correct the situation right out of the gate when somebody becomes a foreman or when they’re transitioning from a foreman to a professional, meaning a salaried position. Foreman is a professional hourly position. Jason’s talking about a professional salary position. When they make that transition, when somebody’s hired out of college, when somebody’s just hired, that is when we need to grab folks and give them the wonderful, beautiful training that they deserve.

Doctrines of Salvation in Construction vs. High Priest Topics

If somebody said “Hey, Jason, I love this podcast. Where did this podcast come from?” It didn’t come from him being a superintendent. It didn’t come from him being a director. He could have started Elevate Construction and could have started training and could have started all of the things he’s doing now 15 years ago. In fact, he remembers his brother-in-law, Jake Wilden, they were down at the Whole Foods World Headquarters and they both worked for Hensel Phelps and they actually had a sponsor. This guy was rich. He was from church and he was a professional entrepreneur. They just happened to meet him and he was like “Hey, I’ll provide the funding. You go get this business started and I want to reap a certain percentage, like 30% once you’re up and running. I believe in this.”

They were going to start a business back then. Why were they able to start a business 15 years ago just like they would be today? Because they had read the Field Engineering Methods Manual and knew all of the successful keys to construction. They knew everything they needed to know. They knew the gospel of construction, meaning the fundamentals of salvation in construction. Those religious people listening will know what Jason’s talking about. There are certain doctrines of truth in the world or in religion. There are certain doctrines of salvation. If you’re a Christian person, you only need to know about faith, repentance, humility, and service. Those are doctrines of salvation. Those are the basics. Those are the fundamentals. When you start talking about other things or the creation of the world or this or that, those might be true but they’re not crucial to your salvation.

There are also doctrines of salvation in construction. The doctrines of salvation in construction are, like Jason said:

• To-do lists
• Organization
• Working with a team
• Quality control
• Fundamentals of safety and cleanliness
• How to create flow in schedules

The other stuff, when we talk about finances, which are an outgrowth, when we talk about negotiation for project managers, when we talk about projections, when we talk about risk analyses, all of these other things, they’re true but they’re not doctrines of salvation.We’re starting to focus more on the doctrines than the doctrines of salvation.

There’s a joke. Back in the day when Jesus was alive, whether you believe in Him or not, He was a historical figure. Back in the day there were these high priests. They would talk about all of these complex things and these issues and how many steps you could walk on Sunday and all of these things. They weren’t talking about the fundamental doctrines of kindness, of charity, of love. They were talking about “Can I walk forward or backwards on the Sabbath day?” They were getting into the weird high priest topic.

Anytime somebody says “Oh, that’s a high priest topic,” that means these are people that are attempting to either make it more complex than it needs to be or they’re focusing on the true but non-essential doctrines, or what somebody would call the advanced concepts, and they might be ignoring the fundamentals. In construction, we’re doing the same thing. We’re taking the high priest route and we’re like “Oh, let’s go talk about continuous improvement. Oh, let’s go talk about IPD. Oh, let’s go talk about all these things.” Jason wishes you would talk about those things but they’re not doctrines of salvation.

This you ought to have done and not to have left the other undone. Meaning that if you have a job that’s engaging in integrated project delivery or if you’re going to go implement Scrum or if you’re going to go implement continuous improvement, all of these high priest doctrines, you need to have the doctrines of salvation implemented first, which is cleanliness, organization, safety, flow in construction, flow in your schedule, how to build the team, quality. These are the fundamentals.

Why Superintendents Should Not Be Doing Layout

When Jason was thinking about it the other day, he laments sometimes because companies call him and they’re like “Jason, I want the superintendent boot camp. I want the learning. I want the lean.” And he’s like “Yes, yes, I love it.” And he cringes a little bit and he says “And what you have to start doing is continually recruiting, hiring and training and start a killer, absolutely murderously killer, wonderful field engineer program.”

Nobody knows what field engineer means. Well, some people do. A field engineer is the equivalent of a really high level foreman or an assistant superintendent or a project engineer with a field focus. A field engineer is somebody that goes out there and learns the fundamentals of building. Let Jason say a couple things. A superintendent should not be doing a few things when they’re actually focused on their projects.

Number one, they shouldn’t be doing the things that a general foreman should be doing. A general foreman, as a part of the general conditions, should be taking care of traffic control, SWPPP, dust protection, the calling off of dumpsters for trash removal, all of the fundamental logistical items that keeps a project running. A superintendent should not be worried about that, especially on larger projects. That is delegated to a very confident foreman who is learning in his or her role that needs that kind of organizational practice.

A superintendent should be keeping the ship in orbit, seeing the future, allocating manpower, aligning procurement, and really managing that schedule and planning and preparing work. That’s what the superintendent does. There’s another thing that a superintendent should not have to do day in and day out because he or she is focused on the schedule. Those tasks that the superintendent should not have to focus on are:

• The creation of lift drawings
• Doing layout
• Double-checking every component on the project site
• Doing pour checks and in-wall inspections

Now let Jason clarify. A superintendent will come out with a field engineer when we’re ready to pour that wall and pull a tape and check that lift drawing and verify the embeds and do a final sign-off every time. That’s the only way we’re going to start to get things right.

But the legwork, the lift drawings, the research, the integration of the submittals, the actual snapping of the lines on the wall, a superintendent has no business doing that. A superintendent has no business running and getting stuff at Home Depot.

A superintendent has to be seeing the future, planning the work, making sure that everything is in line and ready to go, and making sure that all resources that are needed are actually on the job site: the material, the information, the manpower, the equipment.

How Are We Going to Fix This Industry?

How are we going to fix this industry? Number one, we’re going to get field engineers in a field engineer program and create capacity for our superintendents so they can implement lean and IPD and all of these wonderful systems. The other thing is we are going to train future superintendents and we are going to train all of these construction professionals in a way that they will be able to run remarkable jobs.

If we say “Hey, I don’t like that projects are finishing behind schedule, I don’t like that projects these days are dirty, I don’t like that there’s a lack of respect,” Jason’s not saying that we should blame ourselves and feel guilty, but did we train anybody? In 2007, 8, 9, 10, when the economy crashed, were we hiring? Did we pause and train? Or did we just throw our hands up? Now all of our really great general superintendents are retiring.

Jason’s seeing in most of our companies, and he loves it, like “Hey, if you’re qualified, get it done.” But most of our general superintendents are 36 or 39 or 32. We used to have the really experienced, build the Empire State Building kind of general superintendents around the industry that knew how to create flow that knew the fundamentals of organization that knew that a clean job was a good job.

And they’re gone. They’re mostly gone. They’ve either retired or they’ve done something else or they’ve said construction is not for me anymore. We stopped hiring in 2007, 8, 9, 10 and now we’re in trouble and we don’t have anybody to pass it on.

That’s why Jason’s doing his best to take the distilled information from them and passing it along to you. But the point is, and he’ll just say this: you’re never going to have a great superintendent program unless you have a great field engineer program.

Why Field Engineers Do Survey and Lift Drawings

There’s a couple of things. Why do field engineers create lift drawings? It’s not to provide coordination drawings to the field. It’s literally so that the field engineer and the builder can learn the building and the plans and so they can find problems in the drawings before they build it. And then third and final goal for lift drawings is to actually create a lift drawing for people to use in the field.

Why do field engineers do survey? People are like “Oh, we don’t need survey.” No, no, no. Field engineers do survey for some very specific reasons:

• So they can mentally, neurologically program their mind to think in a coordinate geometry system
• So they can in the future interact with BIM and 3D and visualize the plans in BIM and visualize the plans in 3D
• So they can actually understand the tolerances
• So they can know the fundamentals of actually piecing something together from a quality standpoint

You’re not going to build anything right in your building unless it’s laid out right. Why do they do survey? So they can learn how to be a builder.

Jason would very seriously question if a superintendent can really be that good of a builder if they don’t understand X, Y, and Z, if they don’t understand the basics of coordinate geometry, if they don’t understand how to translate construction dimensions and measurements into a 3D image, if they can’t visualize the drawings, if they can’t go out there and piece together components and actually know how to build.

You learn that as a field engineer when doing layout and control. Can you be a great builder if you’ve never had to be in the front lines with safety and quality? If you’ve never had to go out there and measure embeds, actually create a lift drawing and then transform that from the spiritual, conceptual world to an actual physical world. Can you be a true builder if you haven’t ever been able to do that?

This Is a Rally Cry: Get These Systems in Place

What Jason’s saying is for companies, this is a rally cry, we have to get these systems in place. You don’t have to use the Jason Schroeder field engineer boot camp method but we have to get back to that book. A couple of recommendations. To get away from the industry norm of us not training great builders, project managers, and superintendents:

• We have to start using that book, the Field Engineering Methods Manual
• We have to get down to the basics
• We have to understand that respect and stability come before total participation and continuous improvement
• We have to understand that if we’re ever going to be effective, we have to have builders actually have the time to spend time in a builder position
• We have to have builders actually spend time visualizing plans and learning quality
• We have to give people time to actually do these things

Because here’s what’s happening. You’re hiring these people from foreman level or from school or from wherever or from the industry. And you’re saying “Go run work.” And they become finger pointers and they become security guards and they don’t know what they’re doing.

A superintendent project manager position is not a builder position. It’s a coordinating and a leader position. How can people coordinate if they don’t know how to be personally organized? How can they coordinate if they don’t know how to build what they’re coordinating? How can they actually lead if they don’t know the fundamentals of what a builder does?

Jason’s not criticizing these people. He’s saying he loves them and we should love them. The first thing we should do is implement fundamental field engineer builder programs inside our companies. That is how we’re going to shift this industry in addition to Takt planning, in addition to lean principles, in addition to everything else. But it starts there.

Jason’s just hoping that we can get our focus back eventually and he can plant a seed and enough people can listen to this podcast for this topic and say “You know what, Jason’s right. I’m going to start dabbling with it.”

And then after you start the program, one, two, three, four years after, he wants you to be like, because it will happen: “Oh my gosh, these are the best builders that I’ve ever seen. They’re coming from the ranks of the field engineering program. We’ve never had builders like this. This is absolutely fantastic and amazing.”

That’s when you’ll get it. You’ll strengthen your programs and things will really start to get remarkable. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What are the doctrines of salvation in construction?

To-do lists, organization, working with a team, quality control, fundamentals of safety and cleanliness, how to create flow in schedules. When we talk about finances, negotiation for project managers, projections, risk analyses, all of these other things, they’re true but they’re not doctrines of salvation. We’re starting to focus more on the doctrines than the doctrines of salvation. If you have a job engaging in IPD or implementing Scrum or continuous improvement, all of these high priest doctrines, you need to have the doctrines of salvation implemented first: cleanliness, organization, safety, flow in construction, flow in your schedule, how to build the team, quality.

Q: Why do field engineers create lift drawings?

It’s not to provide coordination drawings to the field. It’s literally so that the field engineer and the builder can learn the building and the plans and so they can find problems in the drawings before they build it. And then third and final goal for lift drawings is to actually create a lift drawing for people to use in the field. A superintendent project manager position is not a builder position. It’s a coordinating and a leader position. How can people coordinate if they don’t know how to be personally organized? How can they coordinate if they don’t know how to build what they’re coordinating?

Q: Why do field engineers do survey?

Field engineers do survey for very specific reasons: so they can mentally, neurologically program their mind to think in a coordinate geometry system, so they can in the future interact with BIM and 3D and visualize the plans in BIM and visualize the plans in 3D, so they can actually understand the tolerances, so they can know the fundamentals of actually piecing something together from a quality standpoint. You’re not going to build anything right in your building unless it’s laid out right. Why do they do survey? So they can learn how to be a builder.

Q: What should superintendents NOT be doing?

Superintendents should not be doing things that a general foreman should be doing: traffic control, SWPPP, dust protection, calling off of dumpsters for trash removal, all the fundamental logistical items that keeps a project running. Superintendents should not have to do the creation of lift drawings, doing layout, double-checking every component on the project site, doing pour checks and in-wall inspections day in and day out. Superintendents should be keeping the ship in orbit, seeing the future, allocating manpower, aligning procurement, and really managing that schedule and planning and preparing work.

Q: How are we going to fix this industry?

Get field engineers in a field engineer program and create capacity for our superintendents so they can implement lean and IPD and all of these wonderful systems. Train future superintendents and all of these construction professionals in a way that they will be able to run remarkable jobs. You’re never going to have a great superintendent program unless you have a great field engineer program. We have to start using the Field Engineering Methods Manual. We have to get down to the basics. We have to understand that respect and stability come before total participation and continuous improvement.

On we go.