2019Case15SuirEngineering

59 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2019 Lean Behaviours We ident i f ied the fol lowing as our ideal behaviours : Authenticity; Curiosity; Respect; Patience; Perfectionism; and Humility. Our case entry in the 2018 LCi Book of Cases detailed the substantial quantitative improvements made on one of our construction projects using Lean tools. However, a Lean ecosystem needs more than just the use of tools. As was evidenced in our main learning takeaways of this case study, it is very difficult to sustain focus on improvement activity without changing our management system. At the time, we knew that we needed to invest a lot more resources into education, Lean training, and the development of a Lean culture and systems to ensure that our level of improvements wouldn’t plateau or regress. We knew that our strategy was lacking and that if we didn’t change something we would never achieve a sustainable and “True-Lean” trajectory (see Figure 2). Figure 2. “Kaizen Blitz” Approach Versus “True Lean” Approach In the subsequent months , we engaged wi th external consultants who completed an extensive “Lean Maturity Assessment”. As part of that assessment, external experts interviewed in excess of 40 Suir employees, one-to-one, getting a cross-section from across the entire organisation. The positions of those interviewed included departmental managers, support staff, project management teams, tradesmen, general operatives, and all the company’s directors. This “deep dive” into Suir’s internal business processes informed the consultants and company as to where investment of resources would be most frui tful – namely on the three core elements of a Lean Management System (LMS) (see Figure 3): i. Visual controls – daily measurement boards, at all levels of the organisation. ii. Standard accountability – built into our visual boards. iii.Leader Standard Work – including senior management conducting Gemba Walks to monitor the health of the management system. A team was created to design visual control boards which would subsequently be trialled on a number of our project sites (see Figure 3). The theory behind using measurements and visual control boards is that we keep our finger on the pulse with regards to our performance. This enables us to quickly identify a drop in performance and other problems. It can be equated to the scoreboard and statistics in a match. Are we winning or losing? Did our actual results equal what was expected? Are our processes healthy or breaking down and laden with waste? And if our processes are compromised, what do we need to do about it? Once we decide that we are doing something, the next element of the LMS ensures that we act in a timely manner. We want to eliminate conditions that enable the paying of lip-service over a drawn-out period of time, eventually fading away without meaningful improvement. Every relevant problem, opportunity, or action needs to be logged (with specifics) and assigned to an individual with a corresponding date of completion. This ensures that it will be followed up on. It is essential that these boards are appropriate for their particular area and meaningful for the people using them. Figure 4 shows the structure of the Tiered system, some of whose principles include: • The Tier system is designed to involve everyone and get them engaged in the success of the business. • Clear and aligned goals at every level of the business, tying into the overall organisational strategy. • Everyone understands their personal contribution to site goals and expected behaviours. • Any problems or issues can be managed locally or escalated to the next tier for support. • There is a standard work approach to all tier meetings across the site. • There is clear escalation and feedback pathways between tiers. Figure 4. The Suir Way’s Lean Management System Structure As stated previously, for a large-scale improvement initiative to be sustained, education of the workforce is critically important. Therefore, in addition to creating and trialling the visual control boards, we also conducted extensive amounts of training of our staff. We recognised that, apart from a few isolated instances, there were very low levels of Lean competencies in the business. We therefore needed to deliver a number of training courses that would improve the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of our workforce. Some of our training courses included Lean awareness, Problem solving, Workplace organisation (5S), LMS Tiered Management System, A3 problem solving report writing, and Behavioural and Gemba training for senior management. Figure 3. The Suir Way Lean Management System in Operation