2019Case16Mercury

62 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2019 structure to address the issues noted from their direct observations: • Plan: Day 1 – Supervisor spends one hour each evening planning the works for their crew. • Do: Day 2 – Supervisor utilises their general operatives to obtain the resources required by trades to complete their daily tasks. • Check: Day 2 – Supervisor completes ‘Daily Huddle’ to inform crew of planned works for next day and check that all the required information and resources are available. • Act: Day 3 – Crew complete works with VA time within 15-minutes of start. Last Planner® System (LPS) The foreman and supervisor complete a 10-minute huddle at the end of each working day to discuss: • What their team needs to plan to complete tomorrow. • Establish what resources are pre-planned and available. • What was completed that day. 5S The foremen worked with their general operatives to properly sort the pipe spools that were required for trades to install the planned works on the next day. Pipe racks were labelled with shelf numbers, for example Pipe X is now stored on Pipe Rack Shelf No.1. All waste pipe or materials (if any) were removed from the pipe rack and work area. This process became standardised within the work crew and was then subsequently shared with other crews. The process became a habit and now continues to be utilised on a daily basis. The process was initially piloted with one supervisor/foreman, with the supervisor then educating their team on the process and keeping them updating on its ongoing benefits. Trades staff noted the benefits to supervisors at daily huddles as they found it easier to execute their works. The process was then rolled out to the other supervisors/foreman in the group who again took their trades through the learning process and benefits. As the new processes were introduced to other groups, more supervisors/foremen and trades become involved. The team involved in this case study who planned, refined, and implemented the project comprised the: • Project Manager. • Site Supervisor. • Site Foremen. • Site Trades. Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, Control (DMAIC) This project identified that every trade on the construction site could be losing 30-minutes of VA time at the start of each working day (at a conservative estimate). Due to the daily start up nature of the works, it had never previously been considered that the entire time could be recovered. With VA within the first 15-minutes being the target, and in making allowances for the time spent by foremen and general operatives’ pre-planning works, the target set an additional 4% VA time per day per crew member. The existing process was measured using data from the ongoing Direct Observations (DO). Figure 1 shows a typical example of a measured activity. The VA time across the day was extremely low with a total 9% VA time (equalling only about 5.4-minutes of actual productivity within the first hour). Upon further investigation, we discovered that retrieval of materials, set-up, consulting diagrams, and moving total led 43% of the t ime and as such were particularly applicable with regard to the first hour of daily activity. Figure 1. Direct Observations A LEAN INITIATIVE IMPROVEMENTS & IMPACT The process was piloted in one group (“Group 1”) which consisted of approximately one third of the overall project. The process was developed and refined with one specific supervisor who had bought-in to the process from the outset. The supervisor added to the process by implementing 5S principles with regard to the sorting and labelling of resources (in this case Pipe Racks) to enable trades to become more efficient. With some work and weekly reviewing of direct observation data to emphasise wins, we implemented the process with the other supervision members in Group 1. Supervisors bought into the process, and with this we had achieved our first major win. The Project Director noted the results that were achieved from the process and focused on the DO results. After reviewing the DO resul ts for Group 2 (see the key observations below), the Project Director insisted that the process now be implemented for Group 2. Figure 2. Direct Observations B