Eliminate waste in coal, gas, or nuclear power plant construction through a holistic application of lean principles.
“Lean thinking” is a set of principles that work to eliminate waste and create new opportunities through continuous improvement. It is just that simple. Lean thinking was proven in the Japanese automotive industry and has slowly gained traction in the construction industry, as evidenced by the increasing volume of papers presented at the recent International Group for Lean Construction Annual Conference.
Lean construction is the practical application of lean manufacturing principles, or lean thinking, to the building environment. Engineers, constructors, and consultants who are shaping this concept envision a project as a production system.
Although there are volumes written about lean manufacturing from many viewpoints, lean construction literature and consulting offerings are both generally aimed in the direction of the general contractor. This article explores how lean construction can eliminate waste in the erection of plumbing and mechanical systems that are prevalent in coal, gas, or nuclear power plant construction.
Lean Construction: Here and Now
There has been a notable increase in the popularity of lean construction in the general construction industry—especially in the past year—as a result of at least two main drivers. First, plant managers seeking to reduce their total cost of ownership and mitigate the effects of unforeseen risks consider lean construction as a new execution platform. Second, energy-oriented construction firms looking for ways to be more competitive in the wake of the 2008 U.S. economic crisis are attracted to lean construction as a new model for conducting business. The application of lean thinking concepts has produced success stories in several construction segments, most notably in health care construction.
Unfortunately, marketplace confusion persists around how lean construction can be used to improve efficiency or even reduce costs of a highly engineered and complex construction project such as a power plant retrofit. Part of this confusion is due to the relative newness of the concept of lean construction, which has been spurred on by an approach marketed as the “Last Planner System” (LPS). Although LPS and LPS-like systems incorporate basic lean thinking principles, the dimensional focus of these systems is on the project; that is, LPS and LPS-like systems purposefully focus on the activities occurring in the field and pay only minor attention to the rest of the supply chain activities like subcontractor shops and supplier facilities.
Mechanical contractors engaged in the energy industry can easily misinterpret the benefits of LPS and LPS-like systems as the single most important element in a lean transformation for their company. That is, by implementing an LPS or LPS-like system, a trade contractor company may mistakenly believe that it is a lean organization. However, LPS and LPS-like systems are but a single portion of a lean construction transformation.
Let’s explore how lean construction relates to a piping and mechanical contractor that is building a complex copper piping system for a gas-fired power plant, at three distinct levels: the firm, the project, and the program level.
Three Levels of Lean Construction
We propose a hypothetical construction project structure involving a mechanical contractor, an electrical contractor, a structural contractor, a general contractor (GC), a plant manager, and an architect/engineer (AE) to illustrate the three levels of lean construction (see table).
The three levels of lean thinking in the construction industry. Source: FMI Corp.
For simplification, the plant manager decided that the project will use a GC approach to project delivery as opposed to one with a design-build approach. In the traditional execution of this project, first the AE issues construction drawings to the plant’s engineering and construction representative. Then the plant submits a request for proposal against the scope of the job to one or several qualified GCs, and, in turn, the GC does the same to several qualified subcontractors.
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