2019Case4JonesEngineeringGroup

22 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2019 Case 4 – Jones Engineering Group Jones Engineering has been in operation for nearly 130 years. Its core services include Mechanical, HVAC, Process Piping, Electrical, Instrumentation & Controls, and Fire Protection across all sectors. Additional services include Maintenance, Bio-Energy, Technical Suppor t Services , Geo-Surveying, Specialist Lift Division, Fabrication Faci l i t ies and Comp-Ex Training, (competency in the select ion, installation, inspection and maintenance of Ex apparatus in potentially explosive atmospheres). Working in 14 countries across Europe and the Middle East, Jones Engineering employ over 3500 people and has an annual turnover in excess of € 650Mi l l ion. Jones Engineer ing i s committed to the implementation of Lean Construct ion thinking and pract ices across al l elements of i ts operation and supply chain. C O M P A N Y W E B S I T E OVERVIEW & BACKGROUND TO THE LEAN INITIATIVE Whilst Jones Engineering began from humble beginnings, it has now grown into one of the largest M&E contractors in the country with over 3500 staff. Along with this size of company comes the huge amount of plant and equipment required to carry out the large-scale projects the company undertakes. Jones Engineering currently has several million-euro worth of plant and equipment available to its project teams. Before Jones Engineering adopted Lean Thinking, there was little or no record or control of the massive amount of plant and equipment in its arsenal – in fact, the company didn’t accurately know how much plant and equipment it actually owned. Crews would carry gear from project to project or request more on an ad hoc bas i s . A plant management system was required to control the vast amount of equipment the company owned. LEAN INITIATIVE UNDERTAKEN – LEAN THINKING, TOOLS, TECHNIQUES www.joneseng.com AUTHORS Ray Curley The Group’s objective is to deliver quality work through quality people. Each of the operating divisions of Jones Engineering is certified to the International Quality standard, IS EN ISO 9001:2015, and is accredited with “Safe T Certification”. With an operation this size, a massive amount of plant and equipment is required to keep each project flowing. Until recently, there was no proper record of plant throughout the Group, and an Excel file was used that had to be manually updated and was dependent on information being passed from sites. Transfers from project to project were seldom recorded. This led to a lot of errors on the manual system with several items of plant being entered more than once on the log during site audits. It was virtually impossible to put a value on the amount of plant and equipment the company owned. Crews on projects were often hoarding tools, plant, etc., in job boxes and stores waiting for the next project to start. There is an urban myth in the company that during an audit on one of the sustaining projects more than 70 individual 9” angle grinders were discovered on a site that had only 28 employees. A lot of employees had the notion that when they were given a new drill, welding plant, etc., it was theirs to keep and not to be made available to other project teams when a project was complete. Another issue that arose out of this situation was that calibration and cer t i f icat ion dates were mi ssed as the company was dependent on the user to inform it when these tests were due. In 2014, Jones Engineering’s Lean Department was set up. This new method of thinking and learning led to the company looking at all of its different systems of work, including Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Quality System Procedures (QSPs). One of the QSPs (QSP 12) related to the control of plant. With the then current state of plant control, this was one of the first areas that needed to be addressed. The Lean Department began by looking at how Toyota became the largest and most efficient car manufacturer in the world due largely by its drive to achieve zero downtime on production. This was achieved by combining technologies with programs that focused on equipment performance combined with asset management. Lean principles eliminate waste by reorganizing the plant into lines, or value streams, where work cells and assets perform certain tasks. This approach removes non-value-adding activities from the system, leading to more efficient processes”. COMPANY OVERVIEW Simon Watson Figure 1. Strategic Asset Management Unlocks Asset Performance & Raises Achievements