2018Case3DPSGroup

18 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2018 Case 3 – DPS Group DPS Group is a Global Engineering and Project Management Company, serving industries around the World for 42 years, with industry experts in key locations in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the USA, bringing world- class resources and the latest innovative technologies to every project. DPS delivers Full Service Engineering with a ‘client-first’ mentality and personal touch across a range of disciplines: Project and Programme Management, Procurement, Design, Construction Management , Heal th & Safety Management , Commi ss ioning, Qual i f icat ion, and Star t-up. DPS employ more than 1,300 people worldwide, which includes 230 in its Cork operations where this case study is based. C O M P A N Y W E B S I T E OVERVIEW OF THE LEAN INITIATIVE The Client in this case study is a major mul t inat ional company in the Biopharma space. Due to the tight schedule and the necessity to integrate and align all elements of Engineering, Procurement, Construction Manage- ment, and Validation (EPCM&V) on the case study project, it was decided to use Last Planner® System (LPS) across the entire delivery process. DPS Group has executed over 10 million project hours in construct ion us ing LPS; however, the use of LPS in design, construct ion, and commi ss ioning would be a novel under taking in integrated construction delivery as case studies on its use across all elements of EPCM&V are scarce. LEAN INITIATIVE UNDERTAKEN – LEAN THINKING, TOOLS, TECHNIQUES www.dpsgroupglobal.com AUTHORS William Power Ronan Boylan Aidan Mullin Both the Client and DPS Group had used LPS together on a recent project – but only on the construction phase. Both parties were very pleased with its success as it had contributed towards producing a smooth and predictable workflow; it had revealed constraints impeding the commencement of tasks; it created an atmosphere and a basis for improvement; while it also contributed towards building accountability, judgment, and confidence within the team. The intention on this project was to use LPS across design, construction, and commissioning; ensuring that all inter-discipline handoffs were agreed, committed to the weekly work plans (WWP), and then monitored daily. As a key concept in Lean Construction is the provision of reliable workflow to the teams to reduce uncertainty in the delivery process, LPS is a major waste reduction and waste elimination technique that addresses this, and the principles underlying LPS can be summarised as follows: • Plan in greater detail as you get closer to doing the work. • Produce plans collaboratively with those who will do the work. • Reveal and remove constraints on planned tasks as a team. • Make and secure reliable promises. • Learn from breakdowns. Research suggests that a more complete introduction of LPS on construction projects could bring about a change in mindset and ultimately assist overcome the cultural barriers to the new approaches to efficiency and production in construction. Such mindset change is possible as LPS is a critical tool for enabling the delivery of better performance over time, and the consequential actions that logically develop are in fact the identification of what is valuable to the next-customers. The highlighting of next-customer awareness was identified as being a critical objective on this case study project as traditionally departments within the EPCM&V model would have tended to work as siloed entities, resulting in numerous non-value-added (NVA) work occurring in the handover between departments, mostly due to an absence of collaboration between the parties. While the end goal or milestone is likely to be a valued item to the end user, various interim goals are of value to other internal customers in the delivery process. The very act of identifying predecessors and constraints to the start or finish of an activity in LPS defines BACKGROUND TO THE LEAN INITIATIVE Due to market pressures to develop trial batches of a new product , an exi st ing product ion bui lding requi red decommissioning, dismantling, and the reconstruction of a new biologics facility. This constituted ‘the project’. The Client had instructed that the tight 32-week schedule from commencement of construct ion to Instal lat ion Qual i f icat ion/Operat ional Qual i f icat ion (IQ/OQ) completion be further compressed to 24 weeks. This aggressive fast-track schedule requirement would necessitate the implementation of a delivery process that would offer improved integrat ion of the des ign, procurement , construction, and commissioning phases of the project. Allied to this demanding schedule requirement was the extremely restricted size and nature of the construction site as it was located within a live production plant. Given these constraints, it was apparent that traditional project delivery approaches would not accomplish the goals of the project. The departments of Design, Procurement, Construction, and Commissioning/Validation would have to effectively and efficiently collaborate to ensure seamless integration of work handovers both within and between each discipline and department. Allied to this was the necessity to have the Client very closely involved and accessible to ensure a rapid decision-making process was in place. COMPANY OVERVIEW