2018Case19GRAHAM

69 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2018 management process – and all during a live and ongoing project. A number of workshops were held. One workshop stream focused on the development of the new contractual arrangement. The second workshop stream focused on developing shared understanding of Lean IPD and enabling project launch. These workshops started with senior executives from the core team who developed the initial milestone plan and later included representatives from all of the sub-contractor companies . The workshops were structured to include a combinat ion of Cl ient- led presentations, practical exercises and open-forum discussions. Figure 3. GRAHAM Milestone Plan Development. Conditions of Satisfaction (CoS) One key objective in these initial workshops was to develop shared understanding of the Client’s conditions of satisfaction (CoS). The CoS are an explicit description by the client listing all requirements that must be met by the project team for the project to be recognised as successful. Ideally the CoS should always include cost and schedule, but can also include 6-8 statements overall. A further consideration is agreeing a process of measuring and tracking how well the team is doing against these conditions throughout the life of the project as understanding the current status is as important as the conditions themselves. Integrated Form Of Agreement (IFOA) This project is one of the first, or possibly is the first, use of IFOA in the UK, and it forms part of the overall IPD approach. This multi-party contract normally includes, at a minimum, the owner, designer, and constructor as signatories to the same construction contract. The agreement can include over a dozen parties when key sub-contractors, suppliers, and trade partners are added. For this project, the signatories included the Client, GRAHAM as the main contractor, and the Mechanical & Electrical sub-contractor. The designer was not included as most of this work had already been completed and further collaboration would deliver minimum benefit to the overall project team. Collaborative Design & Scoping (CDS) The next phase of work for the Client project team was to hold a number of facilitated Collaborative Design & Scoping (CDS) workshops, which included the Client, designers, sub- contractors, and key trade partners. The team was reminded of the Client’s CoS, the need for scope development through Lean waste reduction, and that respect for people is a fundamental ground rule for collaborative working. In fact, a common phrase used by the facilitators was “Please leave your badge at the door – everyone in the room is to be treated equally”. At the end of each workshop, feedback was obtained from the participants in the form of “Plus Delta”, where “Plus” represented positive feedback and “Delta” represented constructive feedback. The facilitator’s aim was to resolve the constructive feedback in time for the next workshop, where this was feasible to do so. At the end of the collaborative design workshops and target value design activity, the IFOA multi-party contract was signed by representative parties. Figure 4. GRAHAM Collaborative Design Workshop. Big Room The Big Room is an on-site location where stakeholders were co-located and could therefore work together. Once the contract had been signed, the project team moved to the Big Room that had been set-up at the Client construction site. Other key stakeholders co-located to the Big Room space during key phases of the project activity. Collaborative Planning The Big Room space was, and continues to be, the location for all construction related collaborative and commitment-based planning sessions which follow the “should-can-will-did-learn” planning approach. These weekly facilitated sessions take place every Thursday morning and involve pull planning, constraint analysis, weekly work planning, and reliable promises. Team and project learning is captured through the use of Percent Promises Kept (PPK) and Reasons for Variance, with root- cause analysis applied where there is value in doing so. In preparation for the introduction of collaborative planning on this project, a team workshop was held focused on the 8 Wastes to highlight opportunities for improvement (OFI) prior to launching the next construction phase. A total of 88 suggestions were put forward which when consolidated, covered five categories: people, construction, materials and logistics, documents and information, and commercial. Examples of the 88 OFIs raised include: • Reduce language barriers • Talent exists but not best utilised • Potential to share work between contractors not understood or communicated • Waiting on other contractors to get their work completed • Stocked items getting damaged • Overproduction of waste – waste material not being properly broken down • Materials stored away from the work location • Over-ordering of materials • Information/drawing sign-off needs • Waiting for design work to be completed/signed-off The one common element that links all of these suggestions is the mindset of the people engaged on the project. LEAN INITIATIVE IMPROVEMENTS & IMPACT Project 1: Civil Engineering Business – Collaborative Programme Planning The engagement, development, and training of the team supported the philosophy of Lean as evidenced by flexible motivated teams challenging and improving their own processes. The success of this initiative was down to extensive and true collaboration between design, construction, the Client, and everybody else attending. Learnings were