One point of contact, no surprises

This concern has a precise root: the Italian manufacturer is almost always born for the retail market. It is focused on the product, not the project; on the piece, not the project-management process. We know this problem well, because we spent over 10 years in Contract working for furniture manufacturers. Our company was born precisely to fill the need a Contractor has when it meets an Italian furniture company. First, we are not tied to a specific brand, so we can choose according to the Interior Designer’s specifications; and we are specialized in contract supply, which lets us put attention where it belongs — on the project and the processes. Our method is built on continuous improvement, and it has a single point of reference: the jobsite.

1. Supplier or partner: the difference shows on the jobsite

A supplier delivers a container and disappears. From that moment the risk belongs to the jobsite: a piece that won’t fit in the elevator, a measurement out of tolerance, material delivered to the wrong unit become the project manager’s problem — problems he didn’t cause but inherits and must solve.

A partner does the opposite: it looks at the jobsite already during design, because that is where layouts and project matrices are defined, where packing is decided and installation is industrialized. And it then follows the logistics: packing, labeling, loading the container by apartment, unloading and distribution right into the units.

Even when we don’t handle the installation and it isn’t a turnkey project, we still provide project-management support on site: we brief the installers and supervise the assembly. This is where partnership is born. We are no longer a supplier, because the client’s goal becomes ours.

2. We plug into the cadence that already exists

Every jobsite has a defined, complex plan, because it fits the activities of different installers together like Tetris. Contractors alternate with their own times and rhythms, to be coordinated day by day. Adapting to the site’s rhythm — with installation and with the arrival of material — is therefore decisive. All the more so because there is almost never storage space or margin to deliver early: everything must be coordinated upstream.

That is also why, even without a turnkey contract and without an installation assignment, we field a Site PM, an Installation Manager, or a Supervisor. They take part in the daily and weekly coordination meetings, produce the weekly reports, and plan the following week’s activities, aligning logistics and production upstream. The punctuality of an update is worth as much as the punctuality of a delivery: both take work off whoever coordinates.

This approach almost always leads to a partnership rather than a supply relationship, because it is a merging of processes that goes beyond the client-supplier relationship: two organizations working toward the same goal.

3. Ninety days behind every installation

The Italy–United States complexity hides risks the jobsite can’t see. A specification that changes at the last minute, a delay in a supply or in production, a quality problem, a ship that slips, a customs procedure that stalls: each of these is the trigger for damage on site. That is why we keep them in a risk register shared with the jobsite, not in an internal archive of our own.

These are processes months long. Roughly: 20–40 days to source the raw material, about twenty days of production, 35–40 days of sailing to the West Coast and about twenty to the East Coast, plus about ten days between road transport in Italy and the United States and customs clearance. It means that behind every installation there are ninety days of lead time, and that a significant delay — or an early arrival — can create big problems.

An anecdote, from a project our team followed. On a large San Francisco jobsite, over 500 apartments, the installation sequence was this:

1. Installation of kitchen and bathroom base units
2. Floor laying (another contractor)
3. Installation of kitchen islands
4. Backsplash laying (another contractor)
5. Installation of wall units

Phase two suddenly slips: another contractor doesn’t have the floors, and phase four can’t be brought forward. Result: a month of the jobsite on standby. The problem hadn’t been communicated in advance, and the next material was already sailing on two ships. Not knowing earlier didn’t even allow us to air-freight the material for the upper floors to bring it forward.

In the end the client had to be informed and charged for the stoppage: fifteen people for twenty days.

4. No surprises on the budget

On a jobsite the only certainty is that nothing is certain. Unforeseen events and change orders are the order of the day on every project: anyone who claims otherwise has never seen a jobsite.

What the project manager cannot accept is discovering them after the fact. Every deviation that touches cost or time we bring to the table before executing it, with the number attached and the effect on the schedule. Ownership decides with the data in hand, not after the fact. This is where a quiet interface proves it is not passive: we speak when it matters, early, not when it’s convenient.

Back to the anecdote for a moment. Had the fellow floor contractor brought the problem to the weekly meetings, it could have been managed and a solution found. He behaved like a supplier, not a partner.

It is also why at LA Venice we brought Interior Fit-Out and FF&E together. A single project manager follows everything, sets the pace, and adapts the work so as not to lose time or generate extra costs. Problems like that don’t arise: the client saves time and money, and from that saving we gain too.

5. The reference always closes on the punch list

The punch list isn’t only the client’s problem: it’s above all ours. These are adjustments no quote ever accounts for. As long as they’re small interventions, the margin holds.

It’s different when they arise from diverging interpretations of the specifications or from changes during the work. There the problem becomes systematic and repeats across hundreds of apartments. It happened in Los Angeles, on a project of over 650 apartments: despite the approvals and code-compliant installations, a box was required to house the transformer for the LED lights. That error cost a replacement in every single apartment.

An orderly closeout is the best reference we can leave, because it’s the one the project manager remembers — and tells on the next project.

Making the product and running the jobsite are two different crafts. The first is the maker’s. The second is ours.

For the next project

If you’re bringing Italian furniture and finishes onto an American jobsite, the question that separates a partner from a supplier isn’t how much the container costs. It’s who warns you ninety days before something won’t line up, and who shows up at Monday’s meeting with the problem already on the table instead of the extras invoice at the end. Because the cost no one budgets for isn’t the product: it’s the time of whoever coordinates.

— Davide Semprini · LA Venice