2019Case9Roadbridge

39 L EAN C ONSTRUCTION I RELAND A NNUAL B OOK OF C ASES 2019 Countermeasures With several key issues identified, we could make plans for implementation of action plans to solve the problems. The team, in consul tat ion wi th the est imators and s i te administrators, developed a countermeasure sheet and assigned actions and action dates. Some of the suggested actions were ultimately rejected as ideal solutions; however, the process of opening communication was a valuable exercise in and of itself. One of the first actions was to generate a live report from the ERP in an excel format that the estimators could use, rather than navigating the system. This meant that they could do an initial analysis of the costs within the system for particular materials quickly and see if they had sufficient information to proceed. The estimators favourably received this solution. The team then met every two weeks to ensure that action occurred in line with the programme and that progress occurred towards achievement of the aims of the exercise. By bringing together the site administrators, head office accounts team, and estimators, we could follow through the entire process of raising orders at site level and demonstrate how that information flowed through to provide important information for the estimators. It gave all parties involved a better overview of how their actions became a vital part of the data chain and a better understanding of one another’s roles. Several even commented on the fact that they had worked for years in the same office with others in the team, yet they had little or no appreciation for the actual roles played by their colleagues. LEAN INITIATIVE IMPROVEMENTS & IMPACT Some of the quick wins and achievements included: • The countermeasure sheet highlighted a deficiency in the number of available licences for the system, so personnel were getting frustrated at not being able to login. This led to an automatic log-out of a user if they were idle for a period. • To ensure that the numbers of concurrent users was not an issue, the ERP system licencing was split into UK and Ireland licences. • The Head Office Finance team provided additional training on the use of the i tems l ibrary to al l s i te administrators. • System user training manuals were developed and made available through use of a cloud-based system. • Extra administration staff are now hired for new projects as the initial mobilisation is one of the busiest periods for creation of purchase orders. However, the biggest improvements were noted during a follow-up analysis of a value stream map for a tender. By being able to utilise the system effectively, the target of reducing estimating time by 15-days was well and truly beaten as it was discovered that up to 33-days could now be saved as a result. Using this information, we calculated that this could lead to a saving in associated cost of € 11,000 per estimator over a tender. There are four estimators at Head Office and three more in our regional offices, meaning a potential saving of € 231,000 per year in time if each estimator were engaged in three large tenders per year. Ultimately, this also means that the team can tender for more work as they have extra time available, potentially leading to extra projects won in a typical year. This more than covers the cost of hiring one to two new site administrators who ultimately end up adding value to the system themselves. The site administration staff are now aware of the part they play in the wider organisation and how the information they input can flow through to assist in the winning of future work. During 2018, a decision was made by the Board to move to a new ERP system during 2019, and, by highlighting the incorrect usage of the system during 2018, it means that inefficient information will not be transferred over to that new system. Overal l , thi s cont inuous improvement process has highlighted to us the need to challenge our actions and the habits we fall into constantly. It was a great exercise to undertake and showed how data can be analysed effectively to reduce waste and increase efficiency. It also highlighted the need to include those working at the actual Gemba of the particular process being examined, and that priority has to be given to making the process improvement meaningful for them.