August 1, 2010

Lean Construction Principles Eliminate Waste

By Jeff Lukowski, PE, CSCP, FMI Corp.

Lean Implementation at the Program Level

At the program level, the plant has a predefined amount of capital work to accomplish in a given time frame, which could be one year or five years. The sophisticated plant manager has taken the time to organize the work into buckets whereby some of the work is bid and other work is negotiated.

In some cases, the negotiated work scope is made visible early to service providers to allow for integrated resource planning. Most importantly, the program level of lean thinking allows for inter-company process improvement, because the relationships are long-term ones, unlike the temporary nature of a single project.

Furthermore, the level of innovation at the program level can be groundbreaking and yield significant enhancements in many areas such as resource planning and technology rollout. In this scenario, a dedicated team from the AE, a dedicated team from the GC, the trades, and the capital construction division of the power company can act as a single entity.

The program is focused on improvement through a holistic perspective of cash conversion processes across company boundaries by combining the firm and the project elements. Lean thinking is applied to eliminate waste and improve operational consistency from project to project in many areas of the blue-shaded zone in Figure 5. Project managers for the contractor make decisions that result in improved overall performance for the business and related projects.


5. Open lines of communication and collaboration. Lean thinking should be applied within an owner’s construction pro¬gram and should cross organizational boundar¬ies through all design and build phases. The goal of lean thinking is to eliminate waste and improve operational consistency from project to project, as shown in the blue-shaded zone. Source: FMI Corp.

Looking at the whole North American construction industry, the program level of lean thinking is less common, although there are some examples among underground utilities companies and their service providers. These examples provide the foundation necessary to form a holistic lean construction supply chain.

Beginning the Lean Journey

Some organizations have begun their lean journey at the firm level by transforming their operations and later adding field productivity and other lean aspects as they participate alongside other firms on a plantwide project. Another approach is for a firm to become involved with a project, such as a retrofit or quick turnaround effort, in which one of the trades or the GC has adopted LPS or other integrated planning systems. Later, that firm can work backward to transform its organization internally (upstream) into a lean culture.

Experts agree that there is no single right approach. Deciding where to start—the firm, the project, and/or the program level—should be the first step. Wherever you start, examples from other corners of the construction industry show that a lean transformation can take two to three years. Lean construction requires hands-on executive involvement, a commitment to action, and perseverance to cause the changes to stick.