How Do You Gauge Your Readiness for Lean Construction?
July 31st, 2006 by Hal
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.
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August 1st, 2006 at 4:57 am
My own experience in Indonesian construction indicates problems which “lean construction” will not solve.
1) Rampant systemic corruption and collusion at all levels;
2) Unwillingness to invest in training of trade workers;
3) Unrealistic expectations from owners who want their projects FAST and GOOD and CHEAP;
4) Blatant disregard for basic safety, health and environmental considerations;
5) Lack of standardized building codes/code enforcement;
The best advice to share with my colleagues here would be to focus less on trying to experiment with “lean” construction methods and pay more attention to the basic fundamentals. Lean methods will not solve the problems Indonesian construction is experiencing right now.
BR,
Paul D. Giammalvo, CDT, PMP, CCE, MScPM, PhD Candidate
Senior Technical Advisor, PT Mitratata Citragra, Jakarta, INDONESIA www.getpmcertified.com
Adjunct Professor, Project/Program Management, Lille Graduate School of Management, Paris, FRANCE www.esc-lille.com