BF Joy

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A Century in Our Nation’s Capital

Working construction contracts in Washington D.C. is a unique privilege. As our nation’s capital, the district houses many of the most important buildings in the country, ranging from the Smithsonian museums to the White House. But it’s often what you don’t see that keeps the political center of the U.S. locations running.

BF Joy LLC, a veteran-owned small business specializing in the installation, maintenance, and rehabilitation of underground infrastructure for the public and private sectors, has been a part of the makeup of Washington D.C. and surrounding areas since 1917. From its humble beginnings hauling wood and feed to D.C. homes via horse-drawn wagons to becoming the first contractor to install underground conduit and manholes in D.C., BF Joy has worked on—or rather, under—major locations running from the U.S. Capitol and FedEx Field to the White House and Pentagon.

“We’re coming up on 100 years in 2017. Not many companies can say they have 100 years of experience,” said Kevin Joy, BF Joy Owner. “It’s quite a history we have here. And the fact that it’s remained a family company since my great grandfather founded it provides me with a great sense of pride.”

As the company begins to plan for its centennial celebration, it continues to devote its attention to being a leader in efficiency and Lean Six Sigma while providing the legendary service for which BF Joy is known.

The focus on efficiency is driven by BF Joy’s desire to be as cost competitive as possible. It can be challenging to come up with new lean ideas, so the company employs people from all levels of the company to propose anything that they believe will help improve the workflow. Those with good ideas are recognized, which means there’s always a little healthy competition to see who can come up with the next great idea.

The result of this has been a lot of little things that have added up to big changes.

“A lot of it comes down to simple things like moving away from paper-pushing to utilizing more electronic platforms and databases. But it also goes beyond that,” shared Joy.

“We look at every process we do and trim the fat to get down to what is essential. It can be a challenge to come up with new ideas, which is why we opened it up to the whole company.”

Although BF Joy does a range of different types of projects, a lot of the work they do is very similar. This allows the company to streamline their processes further, employing cross application from project to project.

Other tools create efficiencies for BF Joy too. They have implemented a company-wide mobile application that allows people in the field to enter notes on the status of construction, giving employees from the top down a chance to see where a project is status-wise in real-time.

“Construction companies are notoriously slow to adapt to change, it’s kind of a dinosaur industry. Our mobile application has been an incredible tool to help us catch up on the technology side of things. It eliminates paperwork in the field, and gives supervisors instant feedback to if they are on, ahead of, or behind schedule with a project.”