Will Team Building Lead To Better Built Modular Homes?
Seems that Champion Enterprises held training seminars
during its leadership conference in January.CEO William C. Griffiths became convinced that company-wide training was
the answer he was looking for.What he
needed was a process to improve execution and promote greater teamwork between
management teams at its manufacturing plants.The purpose was to close the gap between planning and execution.According to Mr. Griffiths, “Champion’s
strategy is sound; however, we noticed a gap between planning and execution.” A gap? Anyone who has purchased a Champion Genesis modular home knows it much bigger than a GAP!
Why is it when solutions are so obvious, that people tend to
overlook them and try so hard to complicate the issues?They bring in experts, otherwise known as
consultants, to offer remedies.
In Champion Enterprise’s case, the problem is not hard to
identify.They have continually built
poor quality modular homes and then market them as the best buy for the
dollar.
Instead of management teambuilding,
how about a little training for the workers on the line,
what about improving supervision on the line and
inspections that amount to something other
than a rubber stamp.
As has been mentioned here previously, Champion Genesis as
well as the rest of Champion is looking for ways to cut costs.This is aptly demonstrated by what was said
and reported by Champion management on July 17, 2008.
“Our core domestic housing markets is California, Arizona,
and Florida continued to lose ground during the quarter putting further
pressure on our U.S. results…The average selling price for modular units was
$70,800 compared to $75,000 last year and $69,100 last quarter.
In light of this, we continue to streamline our operations
and focus on opportunities to reduce costs wherever possible. Total head count
was reduced by a further 25% in the first half of this year after a 21%
reduction last year. Process improvement and waste elimination are at the
forefront of our cost reduction efforts as we begin to see significant
increases in the price of raw materials…
If you go to California, Arizona, and Florida, as we’ve said
before, it’s 28% of our capacity and industry shipments are down by 30% this
year in the first five months.We have,
as Bill said earlier, taking huge staffing reductions in all of our plants…
As a result, we will continue to balance our resources so
that while we continue to contain costs in our weaker, yet strategically
important markets, we will invest further in new market segments as we continue
to diversify our revenue-base…
As a
result of significantly reduced sales levels caused by difficult California
housing markets, the retail segment reported a loss of $1.0 million for the
quarter compared to segment income of $0.7 million in the second quarter of
2007…
Retail
segment second quarter 2008 revenues totaled $9.4 million, down from $21.4
million for the same period last year.”
Champion
Enterprises stock closed today, Friday 18, 2008 at $2.93 per share.Keep in mind that in April it was $14.59 per
share.
Champion
stated they have cut head count by an additional 25% in the first half of this
year following last year’s cut of 21%.If quality was bad last year, what do you think it will be like now?
Just some
things to consider when buying a modular home other than how it looks from the
outside.
