Traditional tools for representing and understanding the whole of a project can overwhelm people with data. A digital construction model can be of great help. Three case studies were pursued to explore the utility.

Multidimensional Modeling: A Mechanism for Improving Construction Project Management

Luis Izaguirre and Luis Alarcon

They reviewed two lines of research: Virtual Design and Construction (Stanford) and nD¹ Modelling (Salford Univ). They chose the first approach because the tools are commercially available. They connected this work to the lean construction principles. This allowed them to make assessments of the utility of those principles and to set goals.

Companies need to promote a positive approach to avoid perceptions of punishment when errors are found.

The model allowed them to detect errors in quantities, space, time, and execution strategy. In addition, they incorporated concerns for safety. In another study, just using a 3D model they saved 40% in the schedule along with a reduction of 287 design defects that were resolved before construction.

Use of the multidimensional model offers a simple and transparent coordination, control, and planning process. They found dramatic reductions in variation and uncertainty. Along the way they learned to create 3D models from scratch in short or very reasonable times. Even late interventions with modeling are worthwhile investments.

1. Refers to dimensions beyond 3D and 4D (time) to incorporate concerns for safety, operations, maintenance, etc. [ ⇑ back ]

There is never enough time to design the production system for construction, yet there is more than enough time for making do. Simulations offer promise for changing that.

Simulation as a Tool for Production System Design

Thais da C.L. Alves, et al (presented by Prof. Iris Tommelein)

Using the design and fabrication of ductwork and ductwork fittings to They used Stroboscope¹ to model the process. They modelled the process on both deterministic and stochastic basis. The results produced large inventories on the construction site. By adding a "supermarket" rule² to initiate new work orders. Inventory dropped. They then ran the model by allowing variation. As anticipated when they ran the model they eventually got a stockout of ready work (in the 76th period). Based on this they reset their supermarket level.

The simulation models can be wonderful learning tools. Teams can experiment with production system designs before actually doing the work. The effects of variation on production system performance is highlighted.

1. Discreet event simulation environment developed by Julio Martinez, Ph.D. for the construction market. [ ⇑ back ]
2. The simplest form is to replenish stock when a certain level is achieved. [ ⇑ back ]

Residential home construction suffers from the same non-standard designs of commercial construction. But in residential construction there has been far too little time to do operations engineering to take the waste out. 3D (and 4D) design tools are changing that.

Concurrent Design for Production

James Folkstad¹

James recognized that design is a social process. As players change, the house will change. 3D CAD tools can enable that social process. Learning happens for individuals and may only reside in one person's head. Finding ways to share that learning across a subdivision is critical to driving the waste out of construction.

"There were so many slap-in-the-face problems to solve that we never got to the root causes."

James created a team of researchers-as-detailers to do the work of modeling design elements. As the team learned with the subcontractors they began to see they needed different tools for detailing and conveying construction documents. They couldn't build the models fast enough to keep up with framers and other trades. The company would not slow down to learn and avoid errors.

Early modeling took tremendous time. They have now learned to use methods to dramatically cut the time for creating objects and models. This is resulting in far more reliance on good details by the craft labor.

1. Associate Professor, Colorado State University, Industrial Engineering and Construction Management [ ⇑ back ]

Why are construction companies reluctant to adopt new ideas? This UK-based study suggests it is a matter of habits.

Drivers for Innovation in Production Management

Carl Abbot, et al

The researchers compared the construction industry to all other industries. They found that in the areas of product innovation, process innovation, and long term views construction firms exhibit far less innovative actions than others. They conclude that the big majority of companies are focused on survival.

"Small involvement with innovation can move firms out of the survival mode."

Looking at different innovation processes and the results, it is easy to focus on the improvements. The researchers claim that what firms learn while innovating is far more important to on-going improvement. (That doesn't seem quite right to me.)

"Notions of learning and knowledge sharing have much to contribute towards achieving organizational performance."

Indonesian Contractors' Readiness towards Lean Construction

Muhamad Abdu and Hengki a Roza (Muhamad made this presentation via a Skype connection.)

Academia in Indonesia is leading the way to introduce lean construction. Indonesian firms have the same problems in construction as found elsewhere: late projects, high waste, breaking budgets, rework, etc. Lean construction has been identified as the means to address this. Like other countries, Indonesians are showing some hesitance towards adopting lean.

Use the survey questions to gauge your own readiness for lean construction.

They are using an assessment tool coupled with a relationship map to make their assessments. They performed a case study involving 3 major ISO 9000 certified contractors. They are interested to gauge how contractors' current efforts in four major areas influenced their readiness to adopt lean approaches. Those areas are:

• Reducing Cycle Time
• Reducing Variability
• Increasing Transparency
• Continuous Improvement

In these firms they found a high adoption of continuous improvement practices, yet they showed a lower level of familiarity with reducing cycle time. From these assessments they made predictions about the challenges the firms would encounter when they adopt lean practices.

I found the study and approach to be a good way to assess a starting-off condition for the basis of an implementation approach.

I got a little burned out posting last week while in Santiago. Look for more postings in the next few days.

Subcontractors have a different focus from contractors derived in part from working on multiple projects simultaneously rather than one at a time. The researchers used a computer simulation to examine resource allocation behaviors.

Subcontractor Resource Allocation in a MultiProject Environment

Michael Harel and Rafael Sacks

They performed a survey of 28 contractors and 29 subcontractors for the basis of establishing a better utility function than the inferred "win as much as you can" approach.

In only 55% of the cases did PMs enable subcontractors to work with effective crew sizes

Some of the findings:

• More than 48% of project managers admitted to exagerating resource requirements by at least 20%
• More than 75% of project managers assume a priori that Subs will bring less than 80% of the resources needed
• The average amount of work ready expected was only 60%
• 40% of PMs admit that contract price was the prime reason for selectin a subcontractor

• The researchers concluded that in only 55% of the cases did PMs enable subcontractors to work with effective crew sizes.
• Subcontractors adopt a defensive behavior of overbooking their resources while supplying fewer resources than demanded.

The survey results confirmed the original mistrust-exploit view of contractor-subcontractor behavior. PMs and Subs are more likely to play 'Win as Much as You Can' than not.

Agile Project Management (APM) arose in the software world. The lean construction community has investigated APM to see what might be cross appropriated. Why would it matter? Agile approaches are gaining favor and producing better results for software development.

Is Agile Project Management Applicable to Construction?

Bob Owen, et al

Agile had a similar starting point with that of lean project delivery. Projects were just not getting done to the satisfaction of the users, the sponsors, and the performers. Agile also has to deal with an evolving understanding of what will satsify the client. And the client has a changing understanding of what they need and want. Conducting the project in a way that embraces learning is central to developing the project while avoiding waste.

"APM is most appropriate to project situations that require emergent requirements."

Bob comes from the IT community. He's doing research and getting his PhD in Lean Construction. He is arguing that APM would be a good fit at least during the design and preconstruction phases. He says organizations need to:

• Embrace change to improve value
• Establish a learning organization
• Committed and loyal workforce

"APM is most appropriate to project situations that require emergent requirements."

Currently, people seem to not be ready to participate in lean construction environments. Catolica University, Santiago, Chile has a Center of Excellence in Production Management (GEPUC) that is researching and developing a competency profile that supports the adoption and expansion of lean construction in companies and industry.

Qualifying People to Work in Lean Construction

Ignacio Pavez and Luis Alarcon

This is an important paper. The authors have researched the skills necessary to perform well in project management roles. They found that people are not generally prepared in school for the roles they play in industry. Current industry is fragmented in the approaches to managing projects. Adopting lean approaches exaggerates the situation. Project manager-leaders have a new responsibility to bring about a change in standard practices while acquiring new skills for themselves.

"Lean requires a social competence to develop relationships among team members."

They have defined a structure for a lean construction professional profile (LCPP) that could serve as a basis for developing assessments and providing training opportunities. They are continuing in their process of surveying "lean construction experts" to develop the criteria further.

A Concern for improving quality and reducing material waste prompted one firm to develop an incentive plan for their craft workers.

Incentive Plans for Mexican Construction Workers

Salvador Garcia, et al

The aim is to reduce the waste of material while improving the quality of the finished work. They focussed on exterior wall construction. This included construction of block wall, the application of external stucco, and the application of internal plaster. They studied workers and then developed an index of productivity linked to quality standards. They developed a bonus plan that could increase base wage by as much as 45% for meeting all the quality standards while productivity was 40% above expected.

"Place attention on providing more homes rather than the productivity of the application of stucco"

Adopting this incentive approach increased productivity 30% and while achieving 3 of the 5 quality standards. Incentives were applied both on individuals and small crews. One surprising conclusion was they think they could make further progress with reducing material waste and increasing quality by providing incentives for architects and construction managers.

They are considering adding safety aspects to the incentive approaches. Currently, the head of the work is bonused on safety and housekeeping.

I wonder how this paper got on the agenda. It doesn't appear to advance our concerns for advancing lean project delivery approaches. Rafael Sacks wondered, too, about local incentives. He suggested that we should place our attention on providing more homes rather than the productivity of the application of stucco. He urged us to look at linking the throughput objectives to the compensation of workers.

The Last Planner System® (LPS) has been used in Brazil since early 1990s. The researchers have data on over 130 projects representing many aspects of the construction industry.

Quantitative Analysis of Data Collected from LPS in Brazil

Rodrigo Bortolazza and Carlos Formoso

The researchers examined PPC results, recorded causes for variances, and

"Lengthening the look-ahead planning horizon improves plan reliability."

They had three surprising conclusions:

• Projects which didn't conduct constraints analysis had better performance than those that did constraints analysis.
• Standardized process control in quality management contributed to plan reliability
• When researchers were on site PPC was lower.

Based on those surprises they developed a constraints removal index: constraints removed divided by constraints identified. When this index was applied retrospectively for one company the index was about 35%. When the firm started using the index for measuring the effectiveness of the team the index jumped to about 70%. PPC consequently rose.

A good look-ahead process with constraints analysis and removal makes a large contribution to the reliability of project. There was a high correlation between a high number of "unknown" causes of plan variance and low PPC. Also, the largest proportion of reasons for plan variance had to do factors in the control of the people on the project.

I'll come back to this paper in a future posting to share more of the conclusions and implications of their investigations.

Implementing lean in construction (or anywhere) has nothing to do with lean. It is about changing the business.

Implementing Lean in Construction — How to Succeed

Robert Arbulu and Todd Zabelle (presented by Glenn Ballard)

The authors present a strategy that takes advantage of the basic nature of project-based companies. They propose firms use each project to build on the implementation based on the characteristics of the projects. This narrow-and-deep project-by-project approach offers the opportunity to get executives "on the bike". The idea is that people learn when in action. Organize initial projects that include executives to give them the direct opportunity to be in the learning environment.

The authors introduced a useful framework based on Alan Larson's Demystifying Six Sigma for assessing what is going on during adoption of lean approaches.

Glenn finished the discussion by calling for a rethinking of the reasons for plan failure to give more attention to learning both in the initial adoption of lean approaches and for on-going improvement.

Look to the world of ants to understand how construction can evolve.

Swarm intelligence and Ant Colony Approach for Applied in Optimizing Construction Process

Fritz Gehbauer, et al

The LPS® is a self-learning system. The central principle of a swarm is self-organization and following strict rules.

Use a few simple rules throughout the planning process.

Nature inspires design of the built environment and of machines. From a swarm we can learn to:

• Provide immediate rewards for results
• Provide immediate and frequent measurement
• Provide individual measurements

Use ant algorithms at various points of planning. For instance, sequence planning could be influenced by using a few simple rules consistently throughout the planning process. We'll get to find out. The authors have an experiment underway that they will report on next year.

Agile and Lean theories were used to design the mechanical and electrical construction processes. The success of a lean/agile design is to improve safety and productivity. The design incorporates automotive approaches for modular assembly with pulse-driven (paced) production. Has a goal to drive labor off the construction site to improve productivity and quality.

Design of a Lean and Agile Construction System

Peter Court, et al

"(Local) improvisations occur naturally unless you bring design intentions."

The system has three planning and coordination components:

• Modules (sub-assemblies)
• Components
• Consumables

Each has different work release and replenishment. Peter has learned to keep the implementation simple. He says, "Avoid explaining the theory."

Peter's lean/agile design will get tested next year when mechanical and electrical work begins. He promises to report on the results.

Value Engineering as applied to the project definition phase/

Target and kaizen Costing Implementation in Construction

Gabriel R. T. Robert, et al (presented by Flavio Picchi)

The approach developed uses both target costing in the design phase with kaizen during the implementation phase. It starts with a statement of value from the final customer for the building. They used a survey approach to characterize the value of different aspects of the building. Achieved about a 10% reduction in costs compared with historical data. Costs were reduced during the implementation phase by 13% based on the adopted improvements from workers and subcontractors.

Initially, the subcontractors were skeptical about the kaizen costing exercise. They saw it as another way to squeeze them. However, once announced they would share the savings 50-50 with the subcontractors they got onboard.

Project definition happens in a conversation between ends, means, and constraints. Projects start with clients' wishes: purposes, values, and design criteria. This is bounded by finances, location, regulations, etc.

Rethinking Project Definition in Terms of Target Costing

Glenn Ballard

Glenn has a schematic for a project definition process that incorporates a series of workshops to establish ends, means, and constraints that are in alignment.

"Target costing reveals badly-kept secrets."

Glenn says that the industry has its attention on expected costs rather than target costs. People generally don't know how to make something cost the target that was set. Glenn has established a process for setting the target cost. The process includes "stage gates" to evaluate whether to continue or not based on criteria for each stage. The approach has been piloted on a healthcare project in northern California. Initial results are positive.

Lean concepts of establishing flow by pacing activity has made its way to construction.

Actions to Influence Continuous Flow

Jammara Rossi Bulhoes, et al (presented by Flavio Picchi)

Value stream mapping was adopted to identify components of inventory, levels of work in process, and delivery delays. Used the TPS house to shape an implementation approach for a large shopping plaza in Brazil. They started with standardized work.

Changing minds of engineers was the first challenge.

Engineers had a large batch mindset. "Talking to them about lean concepts — small batches and flow — was a great fight." Eventually they adopted a small batch approach that was paced (matched) to other work. They then brought a focus to reliability at every stage of activity. Buffers were established for rain delays. They also used a five why approach for the problems they incurred. Results:

• Cycle time reduced
• Waste reduced. Productivity was 2x the budget and 4x the reference case.
• Far more reliable workflow

Still, people thought that large batches might improve performance!

Unreliable or unexpected behavior of trade contractors in allocating resources is a major source of variation in construction. Last Planner® acts to reduce variability.

How Last Planner Motivates Subcontractors to Improve Plan Reliability

Rafael Sacks

Contractors are involved in multiple projects. They tend to optimize for their own benefit by sending workers to projects. Contractors are motivated by profits, cash flow, risk, and reputation.

Sharing information about reliability — PPC — changes the behavior and consequently the equilibrium state.

The starting case is a naive subcontractor who provides enough people for the work that is available. Clever subcontractors assess the reliability of the project manager to provide the work that was promised. Rafael modeled the behavior using game theory. He concludes from the model that subcontractors will provide fewer resources than requested and the project manager will ask for more than is needed. Neither has the knowledge of what the other is doing. This is the equilibrium case. The situation changes when they are using the Last Planner.

Sharing information about reliability — PPC — changes the behavior and consequently the equilibrium state. Both parties are more likely to ask for and provide for exactly what is needed.

• When plan reliability is made transparent by means of PPC
• Plan reliability continues to improve
• Honesty improves
• The entire project moves to a higher performing situation

Rafael concludes: use a pull approach and share reliability data. Only then will people become more trusting and trust-worthy.