General Contractors in the US Subcontract Out 90

I worked with a residential contractor in India. Our company self performs most of the work. We use to only sub contract the MEP works. We had an in house team for most of the designing and construction activities, thus being more self-performing. Most of the residential builders in India were only serve a specific region (neighboring states). Our company was one of them, serving only limited regions, never needed to sub the designing and construction work. The company use to relocate key members to work for the new projects. Usually for general labors in India, there are some people who manage labors, acting as a sub for labor supply. They are responsible for keeping the required number of labors on site working as per our company needs. Only the upper level of work force, such as project managers, site engineers, etc. where managed by our organization. Coming to the subcontracting of MEP works, the company does pre-qualify the sub. The company use to select the subs based on the reputation, past experience, specialization, financial situation and the quoted price. Even after pre-qualifying, we faced problems with subs not completing the work as per the schedule and quality. This was majorly because of the labor shortage, rework and lack of planning. Most of the time it was lack of planning, the sub work use to always clashes with the other works. So to avoid this, we use to ask their schedule prior to the start of their respective work and make changes or finalize the schedule and plan accordingly. One other problem was rework, this was because of lack of communication between architects and the subs. The subs project managers use to change the design or specifications of the system on site without prior notice and sometimes because of on site conditions differ from the architects plan, this resulted in delay and sometimes rework. To combat against the problem, the project managers would coordinate with the subs on weekly scheduled meetings and would communicate between the GC, subs and architects. Proper communication prior to doing the work helped us in avoiding problems. Lastly labor shortage was not usual among all subs. Subs who were doing work for our company from the past had a good coordination with managing labor and coordinating with us. When we sub the work to a different contractor than usual, we use to face problems with the quality and delay at least for the first time majorly because of lack of communication and coordination with us.