Achieving the Impossible: Going Solar in 3 Days – Blue Raven Solar

Blue Raven Solar is guided by a list of 12 values. We believe that to succeed, we have to develop a high-trust culture, to be efficient, and to continuously improve.

To do this, we keep commitments to homeowners and employees, we respect and empower one another, and we are go-getters, to name a few.

We reference our mission and values daily and celebrate employees that live these values. Today, I want to talk about one in particular: Obsessively reduce cycle times in every area.

Sitting in an operations meeting one day, I jokingly suggested that we put ourselves to the test and see if we could pull off appointment to installation in 3 days. Ben Peterson, our COO, loves a good challenge.

Thus, Project Flash was born.

The Goal

Take a customer from pitch appointment to installation in three days. THREE. DAYS.

To understand the scope of this challenge, an average timeline from the pitch to the installation can be anywhere from 8 weeks to 6 months depending on the solar company and how long the city takes to approve permits.

Blue Raven Solar, true to its value of obsessively reducing cycle time, averages just under 6 weeks for installation, which is well under industry standard. But three days…that’s bonkers.

The Purpose

To learn which parts of our process could be tightened up even more to reduce cycle times while maintaining the highest quality of workmanship and professionalism.

And also, because it sounded fun!

Here’s What Happened…

Tuesday

7:30 PM – Our sales rep has an appointment. The customer likes what he sees and signs the agreement on the spot.

Wednesday

1:00 PM – Our technician does a site evaluation. Basically, he takes some photos for our design team so that they can make sure we’re building the optimal system, meeting building/electrical code, etc.

2:00 PM – Those photos come back to our design team and they finalize the design and create all of the permitting documents.

3:30 PM – The permit application is submitted to the city.

Thursday

11:00 AM – The city calls to notify us that the permit has been approved.

11:30 AM – The customer is contacted and his installation is scheduled for tomorrow.

Friday

8:00 AM – Our installation crew begins their work.

4:00 PM – Installation complete!

Project Flash was a massive success. Not only did we pull off a miraculous high quality and fast 3-day installation with an extremely satisfied customer, but we also learned some valuable lessons that changed the way we do some things.