We are SAI Consulting.

Since 1987, we have served the interests of clients intent on improving business performance, by providing focus and direction to their efforts to improve operating performance, profitability, and economic return.

In that capacity, we have been leaders in our field, having assisted dozens of companies in their efforts to re-focus, re-structure, and redesign their business operations, including winners of the Malcolm Baldrige Award and the National Housing Quality Award. Since 1995, most of our consulting work has been conducted on behalf of clients in the residential construction and development industry. While most of our clients have been major homebuilding companies, the list also includes building material suppliers, architects, commercial banks, and real estate investment trusts. Since 2001, we have been engaged exclusively on behalf of clients in the residential construction value stream (residential development, construction, and building materials).

For the past 20 years, we have been afforded the opportunity to serve our clients’ interests, in large part, because we have solved problems and implemented solutions as senior managers in companies just like theirs. This industry-specific management experience, combined with the ability to focus a distinctive constraints-based problem-solving approach to each client’s specific set of circumstances, has set us apart from other consulting firms.

Clients have engaged us because we have a firm grasp of the operational performance issues affecting their industries, and because we have the ability to focus their efforts to improve operational performance directly on the solutions that translate into increased profitability and higher economic return. Clients have engaged us, because we are the leading experts in our chosen areas of consulting practice, and because we are able to synthesize different management tools into customized business solutions.

In specific areas (like process redesign and documentation, and production management systems), SAI’s knowledge, experience, capability, and expertise is unique, exclusive, and world-class.

Fletcher L. Groves, III, is Vice President and a senior consultant at SAI. For the past 12 years, he has been the lead consultant for SAI professional staff engaged in the real estate and construction industries.

His qualifications include a thirty-five year background in homebuilding, real estate development, management consulting, and commercial banking, and his experience includes commercial and real estate lending positions with Bank of America (Barnett Bank) and management positions at Arthur Rutenberg Homes (ranked 65^th in the 2007 Professional Builder Survey of Housing Giants and selected 1987 Professional Builder of the Year). Groves received his Florida Real Estate Brokers license in 1984 and his Florida Certified Residential Contractors license in 1990.

He is highly-knowledgeable in all areas of SAI’s expertise, and he was a prime contributor in the development of the firm’s consulting model, which applies that expertise in the context of a results-based, constraint-management approach to continuous improvement.

He is an author and a featured speaker at NAHB’s International Builders Show and other conferences, writing and talking on issues affecting operating performance, profitability, and economic return. He also designs and directs Reference Point®, the firm’s periodic survey of management practices in the homebuilding industry.

Fletcher chooses to work where he lives – in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida – with his wife Devany. His college-age daughters, Henley and Lauren, visit whenever they need money or miss their dog.

We are SAI Consulting.

Our consulting firm is engaged exclusively in the residential construction value stream (residential development and construction, and building materials industries), on behalf of clients intent on improving operating performance, profitability, and economic return.

Our focus is on improving operating performance and resolving the particular set of core problems that affect the homebuilding operations of each individual client. We focus our clients’ efforts to resolve those core problems on solutions that translate into increased profitability and higher economic return.

We are focused on operations.

We are focused on our clients’ operating models. We are focused on helping our clients match their systems, processes, organizational structure, employees, and culture to the requirements of a narrowly-defined segment of the home-buying value spectrum.

We help our clients fix their processes. We help them connect value to the work that creates it. We help our clients eliminate work that doesn’t create value. We help them create even-flow production. We help them optimize production capacity and utilization. We help clients improve productivity. We help them shorten lead times and make schedules more stable. We help clients control the level of work-in-process and increase the rate of throughput. We help them break constraints. We help clients connect operating performance to business outcomes. We help them link compensation to performance.

We are focused on teaching homebuilders the business of homebuilding.

Which means we are also disciplined in what we don’t do.

We don’t do sales training. We don’t write marketing brochures. We don’t write job descriptions. We don’t manage Information technology systems. We don’t design websites. We don’t do market research. We don’t write vision and mission statements.

We define our engagements by the results that are achieved, not the product or the expertise we offer. We take the complex and often conflicting ideas, issues, problems, measures, and objectives that confront our clients, link them to an underlying cause, figure out how to resolve the problem, and then help our clients design and implement a manageable range of operating strategies, policies, processes, and practices that increase profitability and improve economic return.

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We are SAI Consulting.

We work with you under either a traditional, fee-for-service consulting model, or under a Results-Based Consulting model. However, we prefer to work with you (and be compensated) on the basis of the results – on the basis of the business outcomes – that our consulting produces.

Under a traditional, fee-for-service consulting approach, the work specified in a contract is delivered and the consultant is paid a fee, either a fixed amount, or an amount based on time. As the consultant, we are careful to only recommend and deliver consulting work that satisfies a true need or solves a real problem, but, under a traditional consulting arrangement, we are paid – like every other consulting firm – on the basis of the work product delivered, not the value or the results that it ultimately generates.

Every time you engage a consultant, there is a risk/reward ratio associated with that decision. For some clients, the risk/reward ratio associated with a traditional, fee-for-service approach is acceptable. A traditional consulting arrangement involves less cost. The risk is that the project may not produce the intended benefit. In addition to risk/reward ratios that turn upside-down, there are limitations associated with a traditional consulting approach.

The type of high-yield, value-driven, results-based consulting we want to deliver often requires more than a traditional consulting approach can provide – a whole host of requirements that make a traditional consulting approach problematic. It often requires (from us) a more comprehensive approach, more flexibility, longer timeframes, more attention to capabilities, more risk tolerance, more working capital, and a willingness to wean you off a dependency on us. If high-yield, value-driven, results-based consulting was structured under a traditional consulting arrangement, the risk/reward ratio would be unacceptable.

The work consultants do should make a difference, their consulting should contribute value (in the form of benefits that exceed costs), and the consultant-client relationship should be based on partnering that produces meaningful results (not on intent or meeting work product specifications). Consultants need to provide more than expertise. Consultants need to obtain results, they need to share accountability for those results, and – in terms of compensation – they need to share in those results.

We would prefer to focus our work with you (and base our compensation) solely on the value that our consulting creates on your behalf. We would prefer to work with you (and be compensated) solely on the basis of the results that our consulting enables you to achieve, measured in terms of the actual improvements to business (financial) outcomes.

That’s why we offer Results-based Consulting®.

Regardless of the approach – whether you choose a conventional consulting arrangement or a Results-Based Consulting® arrangement – you receive the same, high-level expertise, experience, industry knowledge, and consulting capability that distinguishes SAI Consulting.

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We enable our clients to achieve measurable improvements in operating performance, by focusing the improvement effort on resolving the core operational problems that affect profitability and economic return, and blending our deeply-rooted understanding of systems-thinking and constraint-management into a process of continuous improvement.

 We start by helping a client understand the ‘current reality’ with which it is dealing, with an objective analysis/assessment (Current Reality Assessment®) of a client’s current condition – its performance, its resources, and its capabilities – and establishing that reality as a performance baseline. We then take the complex and conflicting ideas, issues, problems, measures, and objectives that stem from that reality, link them to an underlying cause, figure out how to resolve the problem, and help them design and implement a manageable range of operating strategies, policies, processes, and practices that increase profitability and improve economic return.

At its heart, assessing current reality (and deciding what to do about it) is simply root cause analysis directed at identifying the limitations – the constraints – to the business outcome a client seeks, namely, higher Gross Income or Contribution (and by extension, cash flow, profit, and return on investment). Understanding which issues constrain a client’s ability to generate more of the business outcome it wants – generate it now – focuses the effort.

Understanding limitations and constraints prioritizes the problems and issues that a client has to resolve.

The ability to understand current reality (and what to do about it) is rooted in what we call systems-thinking; rooted in the way things work, rooted in the way problems are solved, rooted in the ordered behavior of the business environment in which we must operate, in order to achieve what we want. Systems-thinking is about improving the performance of the system, not the performance of its pieces or parts – not any of the parts, not some of the parts, not even all of the parts, independent of one another. You improve a system by focusing the improvement efforts on identifying and resolving the problems that affect the performance of the entire system.

We live in a world of systems. Our world is homebuilding. The vast majority of our clients are homebuilding companies.

The homebuilding industry, the housing and real estate market, and the local and national economies in which a homebuilding company operates – they are all part of a system. The business environment in which a homebuilding company must operate – it’s a system. A homebuilding company is not a loosely-connected set of independent and unrelated parts – a collection of processes, departments, systems, resources, policies, and other isolated pieces of a whole. It is a system – a set of interdependent parts, ordered by cause-and-effect relationships, that must work together in order to accomplish the system’s purpose.

The system within which every homebuilding company must operate does not provide unlimited capacity, unlimited resources, unlimited capital, or unlimited opportunities; homebuilding companies do not have limitless capabilities to manage change. Which means that any effort to improve operating performance and business outcomes has to be prioritized, has to be focused. It means that not every problem has to be solved right now. It means that efforts to solve some problems and exploit some opportunities must be subordinated to efforts to solve more important problems and exploit better opportunities.

There may be a lot of problems (and a lot of undesirable effects stemming from those problems), but they don’t all constrain a homebuilding company’s ability to achieve more of its purpose; a homebuilding company’s ability to achieve its purpose is not determined by the sum of the capabilities or capacities of its dependent parts.

Constraints are what determine the capacity and capability of any homebuilding company to improve the performance of that system. At any point in time, a homebuilding company will have very few real constraints, very few things that actually limit the rate at which it generates additional Gross Income (and, thereby, generates cash flow, makes a profit, and produces a return on investment).

In reality, homebuilding companies usually do have more than one constraint, but only because they have more than one chain of dependencies. There are external (market) constraints, there are internal (production) constraints. There are constraints to higher margins, there are constraints to higher productivity, constraints on capital. But, all of these limitations – all of these chains, each with their own weak-and-weakest links – are part of a homebuilding company’s overall system. And – a homebuilding company’s overall system can only be constrained by one limitation at a time, one that is currently more limiting relative to achieving more of its goal than any of the others.

And – that is where SAI’s approach to consulting always starts.

We focus on constraints. We determine whether something that’s ‘not right’ is really the constraint. We recognize the difference between a symptom (of a problem) and the real problem. We understand the difference between the root cause of a problem, and something that is the effect of the problem. We understand the nature of constraints, that some are physical, but most are limitations imposed by a homebuilding company’s policies and beliefs.

Our approach to consulting – and the understanding of the current reality and the systems-thinking from which it flows – digs beneath the surface, digs beneath the appearance of things, and constantly and repetitiously asks ‘why?’. It does not settle for the first answer that it hears. It expresses legitimate reservation. It challenges assumptions.

The recurring – and continuous – process of improving operating and business performance can be stated in very simple and straightforward terms:

What are the core problems?
What is the simple, practical solution?
How do we get there from here?

A Partial List of Clients Who Have Engaged Us

• Algoma Steel (Ontario, Canada)

• American Metro/Study (Tampa, FL)

• Bentley Homes (West Chester, PA)

• BKM (Richmond, VA)

• Buffington Homes (Austin, TX)

• Charter Homes (Lancaster, PA)

• Chesapeake Homes (Chesapeake, VA)

• Christopher Homes (Las Vegas, NV)

• Cunat (McHenry, IL)

• Davis Bews Design Group (Odessa, FL)

• Eagle Construction of Virginia (Richmond, VA)

• Fidelity Homes (Venice, FL)

• Florida Rock Industries (Jacksonville, FL)

• Fortress Group (Tysons Corner, VA)

• Fortress Homes of Florida (Jacksonville, FL)

• FMI Corporation (Tampa, FL)

• The Genesee Company (Golden, CO)

• Henderson Brothers Homes (Tampa, FL)

• Inland Homebuilding Group (Tampa, FL)

• Jagoe Homes (Owensboro, KY)

• Keller Homes (Colorado Springs, CO)

• Lambie Geer Homes (Overland Park, KS)

• Matthews Brothers (Memphis, TN)

• Nohl Crest Homes (Odessa, FL)

• Regency Realty Corporation (Jacksonville, FL)

• Village Homes of Colorado (Englewood, CO)

• Vintage Homes (Memphis, TN)

• Wilshire Homes (Austin, TX)

What Our Clients Say About Us

‘Part of the Black Belt discipline at General Electric is to use process mapping to weed out unnecessary activities and streamline processes. [our SAI consultant] was a terrific process mapping facilitator, every bit the equal of a G.E. Black Belt. [our SAI consultant] was extremely gifted with focusing on the matter at hand and defining the most important need. He helped us in areas we didn’t realize we could use help in. The service was invaluable for any company that truly wants to run efficiently.’

• David Hunihan, Steward, Fidelity Homes

‘You intuitively understand our business like few consultants I have seen. You have one of the best minds in the industry.’

• Jack Suarez, President, Inland Homebuilding Group

‘Work style and ethics were superb. Our mapping of the process improved our contract-to-close with respect to the days involved and the human resource required to fulfill the complete process with a superior end product. In the final analysis, our customer satisfaction has increased, generating more referrals on the ease of building a home.’

• Marvin Galloway, EVP, Wilshire Homes

‘This was an outstanding process. It directly contributed to improvements in our processes, and ultimately, to improvement in our financial performance. The process itself can be difficult, but it is well worth it. [SAI] not only helped map our processes, but helped with concepts of even-flow and throughput. Our company has made a real breakthrough in performance, and SAI was a key component in our improvement.’

• Jim Clark, CEO, Inland Homebuilding Group

‘Congratulations – you’re the first consultant we’ve had in here that has lasted more than a day.’

• John Geer, Executive Vice President, Lambie Geer Homes

‘Thanks for a very fruitful day . . . I’m sure your ideas will have an impact on us.’

• Tom Adams, Vice President – Operations, Keller Homes

‘We enjoyed figuring out what was wrong and how to fix it, as much as the results. Great value.’

• Tom Bentley, President, Bentley Homes