2020Case4KiernanStructuralSteelLimited

Contents Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2020 19 Case 4 The results obtained during this programme of work have far exceeded the initial estimations considered, as the initial aim of the process was to focus on the safety and environmental teams but the system was adopted by other departments at a rapid rate. This has led to a far more widespread usage than initially imagined. At the time of writing, the GoFormz system has 150 annual li- cences purchased. From this data, we were able to calculate the following results over a two-year period from November 2019 to August 2020: • GoFormz User Licences: 6 licences at € 1,800 annually • Hardware Purchases: As the system can be used on Tablets, Smart Phones, and PCs, three refurbished iPads were purchased for site usage at a total cost of € 665. • Time Savings: Following discussion with the Payroll and Tendering departments, an average figure for professional staff of € 45 per hour was agreed for use in calculations. It was calculated that over a period of 30 weeks, an average saving of two hours, per user, per week could be made by utilising the app correctly, leading to a total of 360 hours or € 16,200 saved. • This figure of 360 hours saved, minus the investment required for hardware and licences, led to a total saving over the 30-week reporting period of € 13,735 (note that the 30-week period excludes the Covid-19 shutdown period). In essence, KSSL’s introduction of GoFormz has been one of the largest continuous improvement processes undertaken, and has assisted the company in propelling itself forward to a more modern era. The study undertaken of the time spent on completing the Daily MEWP Inspections reduced the time taken to complete a form by up to 228-minutes for each report. An unexpected additional benefit of using GoFormz was that during the Covid-19 shutdown period, we needed to ensure that our staff were kept informed of return-to-work protocols. WhatsApp groups were being used on each project to spread safety alerts and messages to all personnel, and this system was further optimised to send out the Covid Declaration forms to all of our workforce by texting them a link to the form. As the individual forms were completed, they were emailed to the C19 Officer, and a report was automatically generated from each form. This meant that a company-wide register could be collated prior to our sites recommencing. Now that the system has been recognised as an effective tool for saving time and generating more professional and consistent information, its use is being expanded into other departments such as HR and Procurement. Our Quality Team also utilise the system to complete our RFT (Right First Time) forms which we use to track issues from design through to construction, and this enables a cost to be applied to any defect. The ultimate aim of this exercise is to measure our trends and generate meaningful data to focus our continual improvement efforts. As noted in the McKinsey Global Institute Industry Digiti- sation Index 2015, and by many researchers, we need to imagine construction’s digital future as the construction sector is amongst the least digitised. Thus, we went on to outline five big ideas for disrupting construction, and one of these five ideas is Digital Collaboration and Mobility which encompass the move towards paperless systems for real-time information transfer and analysis. KSSL feel that the introduction of this Lean initiative to the organisation has certainly helped move us in the right direction towards enhanced Digital Collaboration. Figure 4. New Time Spent on Daily Reports Figure 5. Example of Completed Daily Form Lean Initiative Improvements & Impact