2019Case15SuirEngineering

Figure 5. Lean Training for Suir Engineering’s MD, Michael Kennedy, and Senior Managers At the time of writing, we are rolling out the training and management system to 18 of our project teams at different locations throughout Ireland with another 9 already picked out for later in 2019. The rollout typically starts with several off-site classroom-style training days, followed by a Suir Lean Champion visiting and supporting the site team to help embed the new processes, systems, attitudes, behaviours and audits. Integral to this is training not only on the Lean tools, but the concepts behind the tools – the “How-To” knowledge of tool deployment. Additionally, there is particular focus placed on the criticality of teamwork: • teams with divergent knowledge and expertise can outperform homogeneous teams – when they share and integrate their knowledge. • divergent goal s can broaden the scope of a team’s accomplishments – if value-claiming behaviour doesn’t crowd out value-creating behaviour. LEAN INITIATIVE IMPROVEMENTS & IMPACT The benefits of the LMS are that it enables us to: • Align everyone in the organisation through our tiered management process. • Identify issues, roadblocks, and impact for our business and people. • Give everyone a voice. • Improve communication at all levels of the business. • Deliver on our critical success factors (CSF). • Enhance company performance, efficiency, and profitability. • Have a safer and more engaged workforce. • Build brand profile. • Continuously improve and learn. • Improve on client engagement. Our 5S system helps us create standard working methods whereby we set up the workplace in a more organised manner. Bringing material and equipment closer to the workface, using higher quality and standardised tools, and putting controls in place to ensure they are maintained result in the elimination of many of the 8 Wastes. This practice allows workers to be more efficient with less trips to stores for materials, and makes up-to- date information and drawings available locally. One of the major changes is in our data collection methods. We would have always collected data from our sites in term of productivity, but now we also track and record waste and DOWNTIME. Tracking of the productivity and wastes allows us to have a clearer picture of where we need to focus our improvement efforts. We mapped and improved many of our processes as a direct result of investing in improvement activity, with many of our improvement projects delivering monetary savings ranging from ?5k to ?20k. A 20-year Construction Manager put the improvement as simply as this: “The way I’ve seen it help me the most… I used to get about 40 phone calls during the day from our guys, now it is only 20. The guys all know what’s going on”. Broad Accomplishments • Improved planning of works by supervision. • Over 400 trained in Lean Awareness to date – remainder being trained in 2019. • Reduced reworks on site which improves customer satisfaction and productivity. • Minimised site material shortages and improved workplace organisation. • Improved workforce engagement. • DOWNTIME quantified and addressed at source. • 5 Lean Champions actively trying to make change happen. • Reduced requisitions to procurement resulting in increased buying power and maximising supply chain performance. • We completed the first paperless handover of a capital project in Ireland through our EIDA System which ensures we are at the forefront of new ways of working through technology. • Lean Office roll-out training commenced March 2019. • 23 sites rolled-out up to April 2019. Lessons Learned • Change is hard – the education route is slower and expensive, but it is critical. • Group Think – a diversity of perspectives and resources is needed for a finely-tuned Lean system to run smoothly and recover from interruptions. • Psychological Safety: o Fear in the industry – What vs Who – Troublemaker (subtle fear of ridicule). o Empower your team – Lead by example – Leadership theory. • People being defensive when hearing about a problem in their area – feeling that they need to have the answer. • PDCA – universal to everything we do – use your 5-step check. • Measure what you want to improve: o Removes a lot of waste and problems from our processes. o Helps us plan better. o Enables better communications. • More knowledge sharing. • Important to leverage from experts – can save you time and from going down the wrong rabbit holes. 60 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2019