A tiler with nothing to tile
The tiler arrives on Wednesday as booked. The plasterer, who was due Monday, got held up on another job and has not boarded the walls. So the tiler goes home, and their next free day is the week after. The electrician's second fix, the plumber's second fix and the final clean all shift with it, but only in the project manager's head, and each one needs a phone call to rebook.
Meanwhile the family has no working bathroom, and they are counting the days.
Why sequencing keeps going wrong
A bathroom is a small room with a long chain of dependent trades, and many of them are subcontractors with other customers. Their availability changes weekly. The job plan exists as a diary, a whiteboard or a WhatsApp group, which shows dates but not what depends on what.
- Bookings are made trade by trade, without a view of the whole job.
- Nobody has written down which stages must finish before the next starts.
- When one trade slips, the knock-on changes rely on one person's memory.
- Subcontractors confirm by text, and confirmations are not recorded anywhere.
- Drying and curing times for screed, tanking or adhesive are not built into the plan.
What the lost days cost
Every wasted visit is a trade you either pay for anyway or lose goodwill with. Each slip adds days to a job the customer has already planned around. The project manager spends their week on the phone rearranging. And on a job with a fixed price, the extra days come straight out of your margin.
A job plan that knows what depends on what
- We set up bathroom job templates with your usual stages, such as strip-out, first fix plumbing and electrics, boarding or plastering, tanking, tiling, second fix, silicone and clean.
- Each stage records which stages must finish first and any waiting time your team allows for materials to dry or cure.
- Trades, employed or subcontracted, are assigned to stages and receive a text or email asking them to confirm the date.
- When a stage moves, the plan recalculates the later stages and lists every trade whose booking now needs changing, with a one-click message to ask them.
- Trades mark their stage complete from their phone, with a photo if your process asks for one, which releases the next stage.
- The customer receives an honest update when dates change.
| Stage | Depends on | Who is told if it slips |
|---|---|---|
| First fix plumbing and electrics | Strip-out complete | Plasterer, tiler, second fix trades |
| Boarding or plastering | First fix signed off | Tiler |
| Tanking in the wet zone | Boards fixed | Tiler |
| Tiling | Tanking ready for tiling | Second fix plumber and electrician |
| Second fix | Tiling and grout complete | Customer and cleaner |
Drying and waiting times are set by your team and your product suppliers' instructions. The plan simply holds them so they are not forgotten.
How the week looks with the plan in place
The project manager sees every bathroom in progress, stage by stage, with who is booked and who has confirmed. A slip on Monday produces a list of the three people to call, not a morning of working it out. Trades stop turning up to rooms that are not ready. And the customer hears from you when a date moves.
Recognise any of these?
- A trade has turned up to a bathroom that was not ready for them.
- The job plan lives in one person's head or a WhatsApp group.
- Rebooking after a slip takes a morning of phone calls.
- Subcontractors say they never got the new date.
- Customers are told about delays after they have noticed them.