What Actually Happens During a Material Pickup?

Contractors often think about the drive time while overlooking everything surrounding it.

A typical material pickup can include:

• Stopping work and preparing to leave the project
• Driving from the jobsite to the supplier
• Finding or ordering the needed material
• Waiting for the order
• Loading the truck
• Securing the load
• Driving back to the project
• Unloading the material
• Getting tools and employees back into production

The true cost is not simply the miles between the jobsite and the supplier.

Let's Put Some Numbers to a Material Run

Consider a hypothetical siding contractor who discovers that the crew needs additional material.

That example turns one supposedly quick material pickup into 1 hour and 45 minutes away from production.

The actual time will vary by project, traffic, supplier location, order size and wait time. The point is to measure the entire interruption rather than just the drive.

Now Calculate the Labor Cost

Contractors should calculate this using their own fully burdened labor cost—not simply an employee's hourly wage.

For illustration only, suppose your true cost for an employee is $35 per hour after considering wages and applicable payroll-related costs.

And that still does not include the operating cost of the truck or the value of the installation work that did not get completed.

Don't Forget the Truck

A company truck is not free transportation.

Vehicle costs can include:

• Fuel
• Maintenance
• Tires
• Insurance
• Registration
• Repairs
• Depreciation or vehicle payments

That means every unnecessary supply run creates both a labor expense and a vehicle expense.

The Biggest Cost May Be Lost Production

This is where contractors should look beyond payroll.

What could your installer have accomplished during those 105 minutes?

Could another wall have been sided? Could more windows have been wrapped? Could soffit have been completed? Could the crew have finished the project that afternoon instead of returning the next morning?

The value of productive installation time can be substantially greater than the employee's hourly wage.

What If This Happens Twice a Week?

Small inefficiencies become expensive when they are repeated.

Using our 1.75-hour example:

• 2 material runs per week = 3.5 hours
• 50 working weeks = 175 hours per year

For one employee, that is more than four 40-hour workweeks spent making material runs.

If two employees regularly make those trips together, the number doubles to approximately:

350 labor hours per year.

Again, this is only an illustration. Every contractor should run the calculation using their actual number of material trips and actual trip times.

Planning the Complete Order Matters Too

Delivery solves only part of the problem.

The better strategy is preventing unnecessary emergency trips in the first place.

For a siding project, that means thinking beyond the siding panels and making sure the order includes appropriate quantities of:

• Starter strip
• Outside corners
• Inside corners when required
• J-channel
• Utility trim
• Soffit
• Fascia
• Trim coil
• Insulation
• Fasteners
• Flashing and water-management components
• Other project-specific accessories

A knowledgeable building material distributor can help contractors review orders and identify commonly overlooked components before the crew reaches the jobsite.

Why Jobsite Delivery Matters

When your building material supplier delivers directly to the project, your skilled employees can remain where they create the most value.

On the jobsite.

Suburban Wholesale & Supply has trucks and drivers available to deliver materials to contractors throughout the Quad Cities and surrounding Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois communities.

Whether you are ordering vinyl siding, steel siding, aluminum siding, ASCEND Composite Cladding, Progressive Foam or other exterior building materials, ask our team about coordinating delivery with your project schedule.

Keep Your Installers Installing

There is a simple way to look at this.

Your installers make money for your company when they install.

They do not generate installation production while sitting in traffic, waiting at a supply counter or loading a truck.

Not every material pickup can be eliminated. Unexpected situations happen on construction projects.

But reducing unnecessary supply runs through better estimating, better ordering, local inventory and jobsite delivery can return valuable hours to your production team.