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/ BUILDING DIALOGUE / SEPTEMBER 2015
E
fficiency is a growing theme across the con-
struction industry. Companies are imple-
menting new processes to eliminate waste,
ensure project efficiency and guarantee on-time
delivery – all with an eye to being more competi-
tive and positioning for work in new markets.
While every project is unique, most can benefit
from LEAN practices throughout both preconstruc-
tion and construction. Following are a few examples
of those practices.
Last Planner® System
How it benefits your project: by ensuring the entire
project team is focused on meeting project milestones
and not individual milestones.
The Last Planner System benefits a project by ensur-
ing the entire project team is focused onmeeting proj-
ect milestones rather than individual milestones. LPS
typically is implemented by holding work planning
sessions with the architect, general contractor, sub-
contractors and other stakeholders to collaboratively
prepare plans for the upcoming week. Once a weekly
work plan is finalized, the site supervisors then per-
form daily check-ins with the trades as they execute
their work to verify scheduling commitments for the
week are met.
Since many construction trades are not familiar
with this approach to work planning in construction,
it is important to take time at the beginning of a proj-
ect to train everyone on the system and the impor-
tance of accurate scheduling and the impact they have
on other project team members. Overall, this process
keeps project teams flexible, and allows them to quick-
ly adapt to schedule conflicts and challenges.
Because this process is focused on establishing team
goals, not individual goals, it helps us ensure the entire
project team is focused on meeting project milestones
and not individual milestones.
Pull Planning
How it benefits your project: by utilizing sequence to
plan work.
The most successful plans come from collaborative
teams that are highly engaged in a project from the
outset, starting with design. The process of pull plan-
ning helps to identify the sequence of scheduling ac-
tivities necessary to complete each phase of a project.
A key process needed to achieve waste elimination,
pull planning sessions should be applied throughout a
project at the following levels:
• Strategic – Mapping out the overall project delivery
requirements and aligning all stakeholders with one
clear objective.
• Operational – Mapping out the processes and pro-
cedures of integrated and streamlined workflow for all
project stakeholders.
Justin Peterson
Project
Manager,
McCarthy
Building
Cos.
TRENDS
in Construction
