Archive for the ‘Lean Construction’ Category
Thursday, March 19th, 2015
“Good is the enemy of Great” – Jim Collins
To expect better outcomes is a poor strategy. “Good enough” stifles creativity and innovation in project delivery. Achieving better outcomes requires a persistent, proactive effort from organizations that want to gain competitive advantage by providing more value to their customers.
Lean Project Delivery (LPD) is a production management‐based approach to project delivery that is applied from concept to start-of-operations. It is based on Lean principles and methodologies and is configured for the construction industry.
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Thursday, March 12th, 2015
Delivery of capital programs involves a complex and dynamic integration of people, organizations, and systems. Breaking the silos that exist within projects and achieving a harmonious flow of work effort that exceeds value expectations (time, cost, quality, safety, functionality, form, and delivery experience) is a commonly sought desire. Unfortunately, unintended consequences of conventional project management approaches are the development of silos and sub‐optimization of efforts that compromise delivering what customers and stakeholders originally wanted or needed.
The moment the contracts are signed, participants (owners, designers, engineers, general contractors, design/build contractors, subcontractors, vendors, and others) set in motion forces that lessen their influence and control of the project.
* Owners want the risk of project execution to be with their designers and contractors.
* Designers and contractors cannot or will not carry all of this risk, so they transfer as much of the risk as possible to their sub‐consultants, sub‐contractors, and suppliers; and where possible back to the owner.
* Project contracts then attempt to protect each organization’s risk exposure and seek to limit interactions between parties for fear of losing control or a perceived advantage.
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Thursday, February 26th, 2015
The adoption of Lean construction by the AEC industry, and Lean drivers, benefits, and challenges are illustrated in this Dassault Systèmes infographic.
Given the biggest challenge to implementing Lean construction is a lack of awareness, please share this infographic with your network.
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Thursday, February 12th, 2015
 Prefabrication is an important tool for those practicing industrialized construction.
But not everything on a project is delivered more efficiently with prefabrication. Some components or elements of a building are more suited for prefab than others.
 Click to Tweet: “3 Building Parts
Best Suited for #Prefab”
Standardized building systems, complex assemblies, and repetitive subcomponents of a building are three examples of applications likely to be successful with prefab.
1. “Unnoticed” Building Systems
Commodity assemblies – parts mostly required by code – often go unnoticed. These building systems don’t make or break the finished project, and so they are more price-sensitive than other systems.
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Tags: Prefabrication
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Thursday, September 11th, 2014
McGraw Hill Construction, the Lean Construction Institute, and Dassault Systèmes teamed up to produce an in-depth report on Lean Construction. Below is an excerpt from that report on the the impact Lean practices are having on contractors in regards to scheduling.
The Impact on Contractors of Schedule Decreases Due to the Adoption of Lean Practices
 Reduced project schedule is one of the top benefits of adopting Lean practices, and saving time in the construction industry also cuts costs on projects and can increase profitability.
However, the savings only accrue to the contractor if the owner has not already factored the reduced amount of time into their expectations of the contractor, especially in the case of a negotiated project, or if the contractor has not deemed it necessary to build those cost savings into their bid in order to win a project in a highly competitive market.
The study results suggest, though, that these options are not mutually exclusive. About two thirds of contractors report that the schedule savings they experience due to their Lean practices do have a positive impact on the profit they experience in their projects, and just about the same percentage of contractors report that they are able to bid projects more competitively due to the schedule savings.
 Tweet: “About 2/3 of contractors report that adoption of #LeanCon allowed them to bid more competitively”
Clearly, there must be significant overlap of firms who both have schedule reductions feeding their bottom line and schedule reductions absorbed in their efforts to be more competitive.
However, the findings also reveal that the industry is nearly unanimous about the growing expectations of owners that projects can be done in shorter time frames due to the adoption of Lean practices in the industry.
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Thursday, August 28th, 2014
McGraw Hill Construction, the Lean Construction Institute, and Dassault Systèmes teamed up to produce an in-depth report on Lean Construction. Below is an excerpt from that report on the benefits that will influence non-practitioners to adopt Lean practices.
Potential Benefits With a High Influence on Non-Practitioners for the Adoption of Lean Practices
Over half of the firms that are familiar with Lean but are not using any Lean practices find that nine different benefits from achieving Lean would be highly influential on their decision to use a Lean approach.
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Thursday, August 7th, 2014
McGraw Hill Construction, the Lean Construction Institute, and Dassault Systèmes teamed up to produce an in-depth report on Lean Construction. Below is an excerpt from that report on increasing efficiency through better practices.
Practices Adopted to Increase Efficiency
While taking a formal Lean approach is relatively new to the construction industry, many of the practices that are intended to increase efficiency have been adopted for a longer period of time.
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Tags: Prefabrication
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Thursday, July 31st, 2014
McGraw Hill Construction, the Lean Construction Institute, and Dassault Systèmes teamed up to produce an in-depth report on Lean Construction. Below is an excerpt from that report on Value Stream Mapping, implemented on the Cardiovascular Research Building project at the University of California in San Francisco.
Achieving Savings Through Value Stream Mapping
Rosendin Electric was challenged by the project owner to look at ways to bring their projects even more under budget.
As a firm that prides itself on innovation and one that strives to remain on the cutting edge of technology, Rosendin tasked one of its in-house study groups to come up with ideas that would be able to save time and cost.
As a result, one of the approaches they decided to pursue was Value Stream Mapping (VSM).
Process Improvements Identified Through Value Stream Mapping
VSM, in its simplest term, sets out to observe every step of a process and identifies areas where improvements can be made to eliminate waste. The technique was first originated by Toyota and is a lean tool that employs a flow diagram documenting in high detail every step of a process.
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Thursday, July 24th, 2014
McGraw Hill Construction, the Lean Construction Institute, and Dassault Systèmes teamed up to produce an in-depth report on Lean Construction. Below is an excerpt from that report on how Lean practices impact cost savings and profit margins.
Cost Savings from Lean Projects and Contractor Profit Margins
Given the importance of project profitability in helping to drive the adoption of Lean practices, it is critical to understand how individual players benefit from the efficiencies achieved in pursuing Lean.
Do the savings achieved improve the bottom line of the firm implementing Lean, or do they get passed along to their clients, whether that is general contractors or owners?
General (71%) and trade (72%) contractors who have implemented at least one key Lean practice agree that the savings they see from using Lean practices contributes to their bottom line and project profitability.
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bottom line & project profitability”
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Thursday, July 17th, 2014
McGraw Hill Construction, the Lean Construction Institute, and Dassault Systèmes teamed up to produce an in-depth report on Lean Construction.
Below is an excerpt from that report on how digital configuration multi-product assemblies are increasing industry efficiency at Saint-Gobain.
Increasing Industry Efficiency With Digital Configuration Multi-Product Assemblies
Since 1988, building product manufacturers in the European Union have been working to comply with the “Construction Products Directive” (CPD), a piece of landmark legislation that “aims to ensure the free movement of all construction products by introducing a common technical language” to describe and define product characteristics.
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Tags: McGraw Hill Construction, Prefabrication
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