2018Case10Clancy

42 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2018 On a project of this scale many risks present themselves that can hinder its successful implementation, including: • Fall in customer satisfaction due to rigorous questioning to achieve total transparency. • Dissatisfaction from team members due to increased meetings and rigorous information gathering. • In order for successful implementation, management officials must be able to guide employees directly and efficiently. Other obstacles include time, scheduling, appropriate training, and sourcing budgets and resources . An unwillingness of cooperation from Clancy staff members or sub-contractors will always be an issue. To counteract this issue, it was proposed that Lean practices be introduced as a performance KPI for staff and sub-contractors. At present our company, like so many others, is divided into separate departments, and, like so many companies, when a mistake is made or information gets lost it leads to finger pointing. The idea behind this collaboration was to incorporate all the departments within Clancy with the design team to act as one team. Wi th adequate delegat ion of roles and responsibilities prior to commencement of a trade, all information is transparent and readily available. Before all of this can be achieved, the integration of a Lean Department in Clancy was vital to create an open and friendly environment wherein information and best practices are shared. This enabled an ethos within the company that any new ideas or changes to the quality management system would be looked into promptly. Tools and techniques were developed within the Lean Department for defect prevention, which ultimately leads to many cost saving measures. It is the goal to use the Lean Department to investigate areas in the company where we can reduce costs and increase cash flow. The 8 Wastes Examining the Eight Wastes, waiting and defects were identified as being the worst offenders in generating wasteful processes within our organisation for this project. When each of the worst-offending wastes was broken down it was found that awaiting responses to RFIs was the worst offender within the waiting category; whilst poor workmanship and damage by other trades were the main causes of waste within the defects category. Defects/Snags The presence of defects on a project, whether by way of poor quality workmanship or damage caused by other trades, has the ability to cause severe problems for any construction company given the nature of the sector. When one whittles- down all of the side effects, they will all lead back to the same end result, namely that defects cost construction companies money. Consuming valuable resources and delays in securing revenue are the two main effects that defects/snags had on such a project and for the company. The focus of solving the knock-on effects and wastes caused by defects on the project should be to reduce the number of defects to begin with and to efficiently get all defects and snags resolved in a timely manner so as not to delay handover and/or receipt of final retentions. We believe that the prevalence of defects is costing our company a lot of money, for example: • Defects have the ability to delay handover of the project – some clients and architects will not accept a building with excessive snags/defects. • It can lead to delayed payment certificates being issued. • It leads to additional preliminary resources being required on site for an extended period of time, thus reducing the profitability of the project. • Quality and Reputation – excessive snags and defects have the ability to damage our reputation with a client or design team, and potentially lead to friction between design team and construction team. Damage to reputation can lead to future works being lost with clients. Where there are significant defects in terms of contentious defects as opposed to quantity of defects, we have seen in the past that this causes a major delay in securing our retention, which in turn affects our cash flow. Revisiting snags and defects after the end of the 12-month defects liability period has significant costs attached to it due to supervision of snags, co-ordination of snags between design teams and sub- contractors, and potentially the main contractor carrying out snags which should be actioned by a sub-contractor. The co- ordination of defects is also distracting for site teams, especially where projects are handed over and a site team is concentrating on a new project. Therefore, the goal on this project was to have zero defects upon handover. So, how did we go about solving the issues? Following consultations with site management, the following are processes we changed and/or implemented to improve efficiencies: • Beginning the snagging process ourselves as early as possible. This should be done with each sub-contractor as close to their finish date as possible, and not necessarily when we are close to gett ing Substant ial Completion/Practical Completion. Efficiencies are created the earlier snags are highlighted and tended to. By adopting the latest BIM 360 software, report generating is carried out with ease. • Nominating the Site Manager as the person responsible for carrying out trade snag lists – a process which needs to be straightforward and efficient to carry out. It is advisable to suggest the use of software, such as BIM 360, for either smart phone or tablet and which also has the capability of generating a report complete with marked-up drawings showing the locations of the particular snags and along with detailed descriptions and photos which can also be marked-up. The use of the app is far more efficient than pen and paper, and it allows for an instant report to be generated so the list can be reviewed. Figure 2. BIM 360 Implementation. Information The waste of waiting in this regard includes the site team waiting for information. It is this waiting for information that has resulted in project programme overruns for the organisation in the past. More often than not, the delay is as a result of waiting for design teams to make a decision. However, we cannot simply blame design teams for delays without being proactive ourselves in determining a possible solution. As a company we sat down and asked ourselves “Are RFIs being submitted early enough to the design team; and are they detailed enough to warrant a prompt response?”. When an RFI is issued to the site management from a sub- contractor, it is studied; and if an answer cannot be provided by us as the main contractor, the RFI is in turn issued to the architect or the client’s representative, which leads to further delay. On this project we proposed bringing sub-contractors to the table to highlight possible areas that may delay the