Archive for the 'lean' Category

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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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.

Ken Howard spoke to the group as a "learning practitioner". He is the owner's representative/project manager. His project is a $100 million renovation of a 24/7 functioning medical center, performed by Herrero Contractors. Ken opened with, "This hasn't been easy for me."

Ken noted the challenges of incorporating new behaviors while getting the project done. He was appreciative of his mentors, his partners, and particularly the specialty contractor foremen who have made the efforts to adopt lean construction.

John Holm opened by mapping the Sutter lean process with the Five Big Ideas. The project is in Mountain View, CA. It is a $100 million medical office building on a site that is 95% covered. At this time about 75% of the work is in place. DPR Construction is the GC. Some of those results

• RFIs' 393 in 20 months; 287 are confirming only; only 106 required changes to the drawings.
• Using BIM to produce a setting for collaboration among the designers (engineers and architects) and the detailers (sub contractors). The result is a trusting environment.
• Getting a 2x savings during construction
• Significant prefabrications were delivered on a twice-a-day basis.
• There was no rush to "get in first". People trust that others won't make their work difficult.

Lessons:

• There's no such thing as a project that is over planned
• Lean construction is safer than the usual approach. Only 2 cuts on hands during the project.
• Specialty contractors need advocates to get actions quickly…perhaps a design-assist coordinator
• The last responsible moment for making decisions and commitments has been critical to the success…all the way to the CEO of the medical center.
• Detailing is cheaper than rework

David Long described Sutter's process using Jeffrey Liker's 4P approach.¹ Used the Five Big Ideas as the basis for the philosophical foundation of the lean approach. He claims the Five Big Ideas and the associated emergent outcomes have been the most important thing they have.

Starting with the idea of an elevator speech, Sutter developed a one slide statement of what lean is in a project setting. It finishes with

"The Right people talk about the Right things at the Right level of detail at the Right time."

The process currently includes:

• Target Value Design (TVD)
• Last Planner System® (LPS)
• Integrated Form of Agreement — tri-party agreement between owner, architect, and contractor that other performers join as they are contracted
• Network of Commitments
• Continuous Learning, e.g. Plus-Delta

To those five items David added that it works when people are speaking (and listening) about the right things at the right times. He claims this five item approach allows them to spend all of the budget to deliver the most value to the project while still getting it done on time.

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1. philosophy, process, people and partners, problem-solving, from The Toyota Way [ ⇑ back ]

Dave Pixley opened with a "state of the state" of the shifts that have occurred in the last year of their lean initiative. Some of those highlights:

• Willingness to experiment
• The paradigm of "self protection" is giving way to "all for one and one for all"
• Acknowledgement that the current model of project delivery may be broken
• Other owners are asking for
• Growth of P2SL as an "action learning lab"
• Participation by the state permitting agency in the P2SL
• Grass roots lean coordinators group of competitor companies to share what they've learned about lean construction
• New commercial relationships and contract forms

Learning they've observed

• New kind of leadership — from command and control to facilitation and empowerment
• "Open Kimono" communication — situation of trust and relatedness to say what needs to be said

Road ahead — reduce the waste while increasing the value

• Prototype Hospital Program
• Built-in Quality Plans
• BIM — an emphasis on people and process
• Evolving the Integrated Form of Agreement
• Target Value Design — developing standard work for design
• Deepening the implementation of Last Planner System®

The Congress has begun in San Francisco. I'll blog the presentations, as best as I can. Keep checking back… Slide presentations and recordings will be available at the Lean Construction Institute website.

Mark Graban thinks so. His impassioned editorial at the Lean Blog is a must read. Mark takes on the common sense of management thinking. That common sense threatens all project management. There is nothing I can find to say that Mark hasn't already said better. Read WSJ's Wrong Conclusion on Frederick Taylor.