Wednesday's news, Monday's problem
Team two is on a large kitchen with an island. On Wednesday the fitter rings: the floor under the island is not level, the plasterer has to come back, and they will be there until Tuesday. The diary shows them starting a bathroom on Monday and another kitchen the week after. The Monday customer has taken time off work. Their units are being delivered on Friday. The worktop templater is booked for the kitchen after.
The office spends Thursday phoning people and moving boxes on a wall planner. Something always gets missed.
Why one overrun spreads
The fitting diary in most businesses is a list of start dates per team, on a whiteboard, a paper planner or a shared calendar. It does not show how long each job is expected to take, what has been booked around it, or which other team has a gap.
- Job durations are in the fitters' heads, not the diary.
- Deliveries, templating and trades are booked separately from the fitting slot.
- There is no view of which team has capacity to take a moved job.
- Customers learn about changes when someone gets round to calling them.
- Skills differ between teams, and the diary does not show who can fit what.
What a messy reshuffle costs
Customers who have booked time off or arranged to live without a kitchen are let down. Deliveries arrive at houses where nobody is ready. Trades are paid for visits that cannot happen. The office loses a day to rearranging, and the fitting teams are left unsure of their next week.
A fitting planner that shows the ripple
- Each job is scheduled as a block with an expected number of days, not just a start date, based on the job type and your fitters' estimate.
- Bookings that hang off the fit, such as unit and appliance deliveries, templating, trades and skip hire, are linked to it.
- When a fitter reports an overrun from their phone, the planner shows every later job and booking that moves as a result.
- It highlights teams with a gap who have the skills for the job being moved, so you can choose to swap rather than delay.
- Once you accept a change, messages to customers, suppliers and trades are drafted with the new dates, for the office to check and send.
- The wall planner view stays, on a screen in the office, but now it updates itself.
| After an overrun | Diary with start dates | Planner with durations |
|---|---|---|
| Seeing the knock-on | Work it out on the phone | Shown immediately |
| Finding another team | Ask around | Teams with gaps and skills listed |
| Moving deliveries | Remembered, or not | Linked bookings flagged |
| Telling customers | When someone has time | Messages drafted with new dates |
The planner does not decide how to reshuffle. It shows the options and the consequences, and your office makes the call.
How the office runs after
An overrun still happens. What changes is that its effects are clear within minutes, the best option is visible, and everyone affected hears about it the same day. Fitting teams see their next few weeks on their phones and trust them. Customers get warnings, not surprises.
The planner also changes how you quote durations. Because every overrun is recorded with a reason, you can see which job types, layouts or floors tend to take longer than expected. Quotes and diary blocks for those jobs can be set more realistically, which means fewer overruns in the first place and fewer difficult calls to customers who had planned around a date.
Is your diary this fragile?
- One overrun takes a day of phone calls to sort out.
- The diary shows start dates but not how long jobs take.
- Deliveries have arrived for jobs that had been moved.
- Customers have been told about a delay the day before.
- Only one person truly understands the fitting schedule.