2018Case4Sisk

24 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2018 Figure 3. Weekly Senior Supervisor Planning Forum Respect for People One of the goal s of the Lean charter was to “visibly demonstrate respect for all those involved in the project”. SISK’s focus against this objective was to provide first-class welfare facilities for all operatives on the project, to maintain them in pristine fashion, and to engage in a health and wellbeing programme with the workforce in addition to the standard safety programme. An ongoing “culture of care” campaign was devised collaboratively, and during the project a planned series of events was scheduled to demonstrate this caring and respect, including mental health and stress management talks to 85 of the site team, a safe driving campaign, and a focus on nutrition and exercise. Additionally, external suppliers were invited to site to demonstrate innovations and best practice in safety matters like working at height, for example. Figure 4. Culture of Respect Collaboration in Safety Management SISK employs a standard approach to safety management across all projects – the task on this project being to identify whether the application of Lean principles could deliver an added benefit. The key technique employed was to leverage the “respect for people” concept and ask for something in return. The SISK “Safety Observation Report” system – whereby operatives submit “positive” or “corrective” observations on safety matters – was identified as the vehicle for securing engagement from the trades in the field. This required the commitment of all subcontractors and the results were dramatic. A total of 3,875 observations were submitted, averaging more than one observation per person per week. It was critical that any corrective observations – where trades felt an improvement was possible or that some element of the site was capable of improvement – were addressed and appropriate feedback provided. A reward and recognition programme was also initiated to recognise best practice safety or greatest contribution to site welfare in each month. Systems of Communication – The Importance of the Visual We focused on visual communication at all levels in the belief that everyone on the project should be capable of understanding what the immediate priorities are to a level appropr iate to thei r role. Safety r i sks were vi sual ly communicated in the field using a simple tool which indicated which of the critical “S5” safety risks – that is the five most significant risks in construction per the SISK analysis of national safety data and SISK’s own experiences – were increasing and which were reducing. Daily whiteboard meetings were trimmed-back to 15 minutes and all supervisors on the project were obliged to attend to confirm work crews, areas of work, key deliveries, and access issues. The meetings were followed by a site walk involving only the personnel responsible for each area, and any additional and specific items were noted on the area or zone whiteboard. A weekly planning forum with all senior supervisors was held in stand-up mode, and there were no minutes but the visuals were updated to reflect the agreed plan for the week. At commissioning stage these meetings ramped-up to become daily working meetings comprising a 20-minute overview followed by a series of mini-breakout sessions immediately afterwards. Figure 5. Common Purpose Daily Meeting Best Practice Quality – Preventing Rework and Damage The Lean approach applied to quality involved trade-by-trade brainstorming sessions on best practice and ideas which the SISK staff or the subcontractor staff had seen employed on other projects. Typical examples included having steel columns coated with intumescent paint and then wrapped with cling film locally in advance of pouring concrete floors, which helped avoid unsightly spatters and subsequent damage to the paint. A sample room was developed to ensure that all details were fully developed early in the project, and this helped avoid rework and allowed micro-sequencing of trades. In addition to this attention to detail, the team developed a zero-defect approach, and gradually there was an ongoing acknowledgement that “fixing it now” was cheaper than “fixing it later”. All trades were given quality inductions which simply consisted of showing them the agreed “first in place” assemblies or workmanship samples relevant to their trade. LEAN INITIATIVE IMPROVEMENTS & IMPACT This project was a success for the Client, for ourselves in SISK, and for the supply chain, as evidenced both by the metrics provided and in the outline of the various aspects of the project , safety, qual i ty, and respect . Schedule improvement was delivered firstly by constructability improvements, secondly by early engagement with key specialist trades, and thirdly by intensive challenge through the BIM process. Intensive engagement at field level allowed us to hold these gains. To what extent do we attribute the project success to our