Hard to Make: Kevin and Nate discuss “Baseline”

Introducing a series we’re calling “Hard to Make.” This is a story Kevin’s been wanting to tell for decades, the culmination of a lifetime of experiences as a carpenter, woodworker, and general contractor. And so periodically, we’ll drop one of these short episodes into the feed. 

Our first episode has to do with the concept of “baseline,” as discussed in Jason Schroeder’s book, The Art of the Builder: Elevating Construction Superintendents. KCB Director of Construction Nate McBride had gifted this book to Kevin who, after reading it thought, “Okay, I’m not crazy.” Kevin ended up reading parts of it aloud at an all-company meeting. 

We revisited clips of this meeting, which covered concepts such as the importance of cleanliness, physical organization, and minimal inventory on a job site. We also discussed how to use baseline to check the pulse of a site. “If it’s not clean,” explains Kevin, “it’s in trouble.”