2020Case10Mercury

Contents Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2020 40 Ca e 10 A kick-off meeting between all the modular wiring stakeholders, that is, the “internal customers”, was arranged to complete the following: • Communicate to the team the nature of the project, the reasons for selecting the project, and what the improvement expectations and goals for the project were. • Select an initial cross-functional team and appoint a team leader for the improvement project, and communicate this to all stakeholders, as well as identifying all team members’ roles and responsibilities for the project. • Ensure buy-in and approval from the stakeholders for the project. • Initiate and communicate a timetable for the meetings and activities required to complete the project. • Generate a project charter to define the objectives of the project. Using the DMAIC methodology, an action plan/timetable was generated detailing the durations for each phase of the project and with the appointment of cross-functional cells at each phase (Figure 2). Lean Initiative Life Cycle At the first project meeting, the phases of the project were identified as follows: • Define the problems in the process in more detail and develop a strategy to accomplish the goals set out in the charter. All agree on project goals and how the project would be considered a success. • Investigate the root causes of the wastes identified through analysis of the current modular wiring process state, and map the modular wiring process as it stands today through completion of a current state value stream map. • Select the tools and practices most appropriate for elim- inating the wastes. • Implement the tools and practices selected and measure any improvements. • Evaluate the project results and review any key learnings. Document and standardise the new and improved modular wiring processes. A gemba was scheduled of both the drawing production itself and the plan for how the on-site modular wiring was intended to be installed. Once the gemba was completed, the team scheduled a brainstorming session and a cause and effect exercise which identified several different wastes, including: • Very little storage space was available on-site to store any of the modular wiring intended for site. • Large bottlenecks were quickly identified within the drawing production process at various review stages and several process steps could be seen as being non- value-added. • Given the vast size of the construction project, a plan would need to be implemented to avoid the install team having to travel long distances to retrieve the modular wiring for their install in each construction zone. The team was then tasked with gathering the data of what is currently taking place in the modular wiring drawing production process, and identifying the wastes in more detail through Cause and Effect Diagrams. This information was then used to produce a current state map which clearly identified the wastes and delays in the drawing production process, as well as to quantify the actual time it was taking to complete each step. The first construction zone where the general services and lighting modular wiring drawings were produced was picked as the current state process which would be used to gather the data. Each stage of the current state process was documented with the person responsible for each step identified and the time taken to complete the step confirmed through a process step tracker. Figure 3. Current State Map Figure 2. Improvement Initiative Action Plan & Timetable