I do a lot of business reading along with other non-fiction reading. People regularly ask how I read so much. While I did learn speed reading, I got better advice from a teacher that maps nicely with these two articles How to Read a Business Book, by Slacker Manager and How to Read Fast, by Roman's miles. Both courtesy of Lifehack. Enjoy!

Construction safety has to improve. Fast. But it hasn't. Not in over 15 years. About 1,200 people have been dying on construction sites each of those 15 years in the United States. An average of 4 deaths each workday. One thing that has changed in those 15 years is that now Latinos make up a disproportionate number of those deaths. And many more are injured every day.

All it takes is a planning process for making work ready.

The basic approach to safety has only changed slightly. At OSHA's instigation, safety promotion — usually practiced as sloganeering coupled with rewards and punishment — has been supplemented with an increased attention on education. Some companies have benefited from it. However, even the relatively safe firms have a way to go. I won't write a long essay on this. I just want to share one action we can immediately adopt that will make construction sites far safer. And there is data to support it.

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Next in series

Iget a kick out of the sparring that goes on between lean, Six Sigma, TQM, and Theory of Constraints (TOC). One of my colleagues puts it well, "TOC helps us focus on what needs improvement; Six Sigma helps us identify and control the source of waste; and lean helps us keep attention on always delivering more value to customers, employees, and consequently, owners.

For those of you interested in the Battle of Improvement Systems take a close look at the "ASQ Six Sigma black belt body of knowledge" take on Six Sigma vs. TQM. I really appreciate the contributions from the Six Sigma community; I just haven't figured out how to apply it to projects. Have you? For now, Ive placed my bet on project kaizen.

Adrian Savage writing as "Carmine Coyote" offers this simple 2×2 view of management behavior in organizations. Take a close look. Where do you find your management? Yourself? What do you believe will be more effective? Why?

Savage claims that the audit mentality — basic distrust that people will act to take care of the concerns of the organization — is tearing teams apart. "Now it seems no one is trusted to do anything on their own."

We continue to make Adam Smith's mistake. Read the rest of this entry ¶

Progressive Project Delivery is the name of ENR's special report in the November 13, 2006 issue. They highlight a number of "leading practices" including an innovative approach to contracting for the 2012 London Olympics. But sandwiched between the story on the Olympics and another on a program to build or remodel 70 Greenville schools is the announcement of a service for "setting up and managing critical path method schedules and updating them monthly." The service is offered by Quality Planning Solutions, Inc. (QPS), a subsidiary of the construction powerhouse Turner Construction.

I don't know anyone who would say, "Thankfully we had a CPM schedule that we always kept up to date." Rather, the not-so-secret dirty little secret is that project teams ignore the CPM schedule. I've written extensively on CPM scheduling. Here's one of my favorites CPM: What Do You Prefer?

Good luck QPS and their clients. Let's hope they find real value.

Lean construction is alive and well in the UK…it's even flourishing. Alan Mossman shared what has been going on in UK. He started this way:

• Badge engineering — renaming those things people are already doing so they don't have to change
• Lean and Mean — the iconic view of cost-cutting typified by Chainsaw Al
• Bidding is waste — the process of bringing together low-priced bids to build a team
• Collaborative procurement to produce a steady pipeline of work — this is the shining star of the UK conventional wisdom
• Procurement on quality and price criteria…sometimes on quality criteria alone — leading thinking on delivering client value

The UK government buys about 40% of all construction services and has been behind the drive for changes in the industry leading to the establishment of Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment.

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Turner Construction is doing $100s millions of healthcare construction for Sutter Health and others. They have some early projects where they developed their capability using the Last Planner System® (LPS). Here's their report:

What We've Learned

"LPS is a scheduler's dream come true!"

• It is better for individuals doing the work to help make the plan
• Takes persistence to get subs to use the system
• Project team has a better understanding of end-users' needs
• Reverse phase scheduling produces better results (than plans produce by specialists)
• 6 week look-ahead schedule sets priorities
• You must get buy-in and commitments from all parties
• LPS is a scheduler's dream come true! The role of a senior scheduler has changed. I'm now a planning facilitator. The people who will do the work become planners.
• The project needs a single information coordinator/gatekeeper
• The beautiful thing about LPS is it encourages participation at all levels.
• Look-ahead planning identifies key requirements for success
• Become proactive with problem-solving
• See potential issues early enough to take preventive action
• LPS reduces the impacts of delays
• Meetings are collaborative and interactive
• Facilitates coordination — everyone really is on the same page

What's in it for me?

"Projects are safer."

• Work is a lot more enjoyable
• Subs and peers had a more positive outlook
• There's less fire-fighting
• Safer projects
• Happier clients

Messer Construction started their journey six years ago with dissatisfactions with their own variable performance on their jobs. They wanted to move from wishful thinking to reliable completions. They had a lack of consistency within regions, not just across the 8 offices in 4 states. In addition, they decided that long term success depended on operational excellence and close relationships with their clients. Finally, they needed to grow their own leaders. They pursued lean construction to address all four issues.

They started the lean initiative with the voice of the customer. They followed that by implementing LPS on every project. There were no exceptions. They expanded LPS to include all subs and suppliers. Eventually, they piloted advanced lean tools including standardized work, 1st run studies, visual workplace (5S), daily huddles, system improvement events (kaizen workshops) and visual notifications.

One of the most exciting aspects of Messer's lean transformation is how they did it. They started with their executives then worked their way through the organization. Six years later, project managers and superintendents confidently run their projects on a lean basis using LPS.

Herrero Contractors is on a full-fledged company-wide lean journey. Mark Herrero, CEO, kicked off the presentation describing what lean is at Herrero. Their approach starts with the Last Planner System® (LPS) and includes Project kaizen and 5S. Mark spoke enthusiastically about lean, particularly his intention to run all projects as networks of commitments. He then handed the presentation to one of his superintendents, Tom Guardino.

Tom is the general superintendent for the CPMC Davies Medical Center capital program. It's over $100 million of renovations and new construction…over 20 projects curing in a 24/7 functioning hospital. His team includes 4 superintendents, 4 Herrero project managers, 6 architects from 2 firms, and 4 client project managers.

Tom is an evangelist for lean construction. He spoke candidly, "Implementing LPS was really tough for me. I didn't know what I was signing up for." Tom went on to elaborate on what they are doing and the results they are getting. Reliability has trended upwards for 15 months with current PPC at over 80%.

One of the most telling signs of the commitment of Herrero is they changed their company logo. Above the capital letter "H" is the phrase "Lean Works™". I can't capture the enthusiasm and expertise Tom conveyed. Listen to the MP3 on the Lean Construction website.

Thursday morning continued with more reports from lean construction efforts around the world with the first report on Brazil. The Last Planner System® (LPS) is a common approach on large projects in Brazil. Projects have high reliability (PPC) with the median at 77% for over 150 projects tracked by the universities. Carlos Formosa has been the leading researcher in the world connecting safety to lean practices.

Glenn Ballard reported on the safety experience of adopting LPS at MT Hojgaard, Denmark's largest construction company, the have extended lean construction throughout the firm. Early projects were 70% safer than other like projects in the company. As LPS was adopted throughout the firm, other business units had a similar experience. As a firm, safety incidents have fallen by 70%.

One of the founding organizations of LCI DK was the trade union.

Greg Howell shared some of the possible explanations for the improvement in safety. LPS makes work ready. When doing ready work there are fewer trips up and down ladders, in and out of trenches, and general exposure to risks. He added that lean projects have material on site when needed, not before it is needed. Consequently, material is not moved around as much. Moving material is a significant source of injuries.

Next up was a report on Denmark's Lean Construction activities. The Danes have their own Lean Construction DK, originally started as a branch of LCI and now a fully functioning body with its own board of directors. Membership has been growing. The members have been very active both locally and internationally. One of the founding organizations of LCI DK was the trade union.

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Yesterday's Lean Construction Congress generated 12 postings. Today was different. I got caught up in conversations and only have rough notes. I'll clean those up and post over the next day or so.

Peru, like many Central and South American countries is doing lean construction. COINSA is a real estate developer building for its own account and for 3rd parties. They've become a leader in their market and the Developer of the Year in 2005. The historical market was based on price. Projects were over schedule. Construction was viewed as a commodity. Firms routinely went bankrupt. COINSA decided to do lean construction to distinguish themselves from their competitors. After almost 5 years of doing lean construction they can tell others about it. They see three phases:

1. Early applications
2. Stabilizing workflow, applying Last Planner System®
3. Culture Change: Lean as a company way of work

Their first attempts focussed on workflow and constructibility. They introduced the idea of a "work train" (production line) for repetitive work.

Eventually the "old school" has converted to the "new school".

In their 2nd phase they started by making a strategic decision to adopt lean construction. They used their project office and a lean champion to launch the effort. On their first project they produced 550 apartment units in one year at significant cost reductions. Their next project was bigger. People were able to move into apartments while others were still under construction. Their own crews achieved 100% PPC on their tasks. Subs had lower PPC with an overall average of about 85%.

The culture change phase started with company-wide training. They encountered "old school" thinking. They provided incentives and opportunities to those people who had the best performance with lean construction. Read the rest of this entry ¶

Using standardized building system and standardized components NCC is creating customized apartments for the Sweden market. Their intent is to reduce the time to build, reduce the cost, and improve the quality of the finished product. NCC recognized that construction was costing more each year, while engineered products were falling in prices. Their delivery method takes advantage of the engineering approach. They currently have a production capacity of 1,000 apartments/year with 60 workers in their plant.

The industrial housing market draws on lean thinking, pre-assembly, direct purchase of raw materials, and short production cycles. They are also able to address ergonomic conditions for the workers. Construction time is reduced by 75%. Total labor is reduced by 50%.

NCC has been at this industrial leap for 4 years. Along the way they've encountered challenges:

• Suppliers and customers have a project mindset.
• Definition of building systems must be set before design.
• The range of variation impacts the ability to deliver standard components.
• Material supply is critical, otherwise it shuts down the factory.
• Close tolerances are required — millimeters not centimeters — are required for good finishes.

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Fred Friedl, Sundt senior project manager, shared their experience with their pilot implementation of the Last Planner System® (LPS). The project is for the Apollo Group, parent company of the University of Phoenix. It's the first project Apollo has constructed in Phoenix. All their other projects are leases. The project is on 40 acres. Three buildings cover 9 acres.

Sundt measures subcontractor performance and publishes that for everyone to see.

The beauty of LPS is you don't need all the subs on board in every session…just the ones who are doing work to complete that milestone. They've done 7 pull phase plans for the work to date.

The Sundt team uses SureTrack to manage their look-ahead plans and the constraints removal process. The team does well, but they noticed they were in a rut. They began doing Plus-Delta reviews. Those reviews have led to changes in how they've adopted LPS and how they conduct themselves during planning sessions.

Sundt's pilot implementation is a good by-the-book example of what can be accomplished with LPS. Their early reliability (PPC) was erratic. Once they understood they needed to place their attention on the coming week — free of constraints — PPC began to rise. Later their performance dipped again. They found that prerequisite work not being completed was the most frequent cause of others missing their work. They measure subcontractor performance and publish that for everyone to see.

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Key Points

• Problems are universal
• Alignment from IFoA and shared incentives
• Asking the question, "WHat makes the work unproductive?"
• No GMP
• Selection of the right team
• No GMP
• Reduction of RFIs
• The showed how communication flows along
• 100% sign-off on design
• Poor financial reporting of subs
• Core team
• Public tracking of PPC
• Core group authorized to make commitments
• Owner's decision and commitment to change
• IFoA underlying trust factor
• Using PPC to track OAC performance
• It's ok (with the client) to make a profit
• Job satisfaction
• Being careful not to revert to traditional practices
• Planned work improves safety
• The process is driven by the trades

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Will Lichtig made a one-slide presentation of the Sutter's Integrated Form of Agreement. He did this as the preface to the SSM presentation "This Changes Everything, Integrated Project Delivery". Tom VanLandingham, Christner (Architects) opened the conversation with a description of the SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center. They are making $60 million of upgrades to a functioning facility adding operating rooms and neonatal intensive care units.

What is the "This"? It is an integrated approach to delivering projects based on lean construction.

Tom did a comprehensive review of why it is we see the symptoms of a broken system that has been codified in AIA and AGC contract documents. He goes back to architectural schools to trace the original sources of the problems. He added that the highly specialized highly subcontracted current situation. In that situation, communication follows the relationships of the contracts rather than directly from one person to another.

SSM then spoke about how they got into lean construction. They were frustrated with the symptoms of the conventional approach; they wanted to save money; and they thought they could do better. They sought permission to do something different.

"Gross maximum price (GMP) contracts were part of the problem."

Tim Gunn, Alberici Construction jumped in sharing how they shifted from the usual approach underway to a lean approach. They selected subcontractors purely on attitude rather than price. Once they got subcontractor on early they asked them what made they work unproductive. The list was quite long. They determined that everything on the list lean construction tries to address.

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Audience Reactions to the Sutter Health Presentations

Key Points Participants Heard

• Trust space vs self protection
• Client leadership for lean
• Bringing all the contractors on early
• Willingness to experiment
• The whole industry is changing
• Core team leadership
• Open Kimono
• Wide ranging impacts
• Getting rid of waste
• Five Big Ideas are a foundation to return to when there's a problem
• Shared leadership and commitment
• Shift from command and control to commitment
• Culture eats change for lunch

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George Zettel opened with a shot of a pull phase scheduling photo showing collaboration among dozens of people including independent inspectors. It's a process he said, "…clarifies what done means." He went on,

"Culture will eat change for lunch everyday."

Turner Construction is an enthusiastic promoter of lean construction.

George acknowledged that early on Turner was a reluctant participant. In the last two years that has changed significantly. They are enthusiastically taking lean construction to healthcare projects for other clients. ( projects are underway. 4 of them are for clients other than Sutter. Lean construction is spreading next to the Cincinnati, OH division.

George shifted the conversation to elaborate on the value of 3D and 4D modeling. He shared examples of doing studies of 2D details that didn't uncover clashes. He shared his team's enthusiasm for incorporating BIM into their future projects.

Turner is taking a generous stance with the training they are doing. They invite competitors and others' clients to thier sessions. George takes a leadership role in keeping the Lean Coordinators' Group going in northern CA. In short, George and Turner Construction are enthusiastic promoters of lean construction.