Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2021 45 Case 12 Established in 1977, Ardmac is an international construction specialist delivering complex and high-value workspaces and technical environments. Headquartered in Dublin, with offices in Manchester, Craigavon, Brussels, Cork, and Switzerland, Ardmac is supporting projects all over Ireland, the UK, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and have this year announced their expansion into Finland and Germany. Ardmac employs over 350 people and is a leading global provider of cleanrooms, data centres, fit-out and refurbishment, and modular solutions. At Ardmac we work Smart, meaning we deploy innovative technology throughout our business to empower our people, drive performance, and delight our customers.We believe in setting new standards for our industry and driving innovation, we believe in tailoring solutions to our clients’ evolving needs, and in working hard to harness our unrivalled knowledge to deliver safety first and excellence as standard across award-winning projects. In most construction projects, particularly those that are complex and large in nature, the scope is divided into multiple trade packages that are delivered by specialist organisations. It is only natural for each party to maximise their productivity by planning their use of resources in a streamlined manner. However, each package is not executed in isolation and often requires significant interaction with other parties.These interactions are known as hand-offs.Optimising each package independently often results in conflicts across trades, and results in waste.To maximise value for the customer, an overall project view should be taken and, if the hand-offs between trades can be managed well, flow can be achieved. However, this is a significant challenge.According to the Lean Construction Institute, the Last Planner® System (LPS) gives the last planners the tools and language to focus on flow by optimising the hand-offs between trades.This is achieved by improving the reliability of commitments made by participants. Ardmac was an early adopter in 2014 of LPS, and we have observed significant benefits from its implementation. On a recent major project, Ardmac was engaged as a specialist contractor working as part of a group of trade partners. Ardmac implemented LPS internally, but the other trade partners and main contractor did not. This case study describes the challenges and benefits of adopting LPS on a project without the full participation of other stakeholders. Overview & Background to the Lean Initiative Peter Gough Author Fergus Nugent Author Buildings are becoming more complex in parallel to construction schedules becoming more condensed. Organisations operating within the construction sector are being challenged to deliver cheaper, faster, and better. It seems as if the sector is being forced to accelerate at an unprecedented pace and notwithstanding the ongoing resource challenges across the globe.Customer and client expectations haven’t lessened and the challenge is how we as a sector adapt. LPS is an excellent Lean Construction planning tool that Ardmac engaged with in 2014. It is easy to understand, is not overly expensive to implement, and it focuses on collaboration and cooperation. Scheduling is used as a tool on every large project. Anecdotally, the scheduling process leads to inaccurate time estimates on a regular basis, resulting in delays and lost time when work cannot be executed as planned. LPS has been proven to improve scheduling accuracy to >85% when implemented fully. In the LCi Annual Book of Cases 2020, we described the success we have had using LPS. Significant investment has been made in employee training, software rollout, and the creation of anArdmac LPSWorkbook that people can use as a guide when using LPS on their projects.We use a combination of visual planning to supplement the LPS process, as outlined in Figure 1, and Figure 2 provides examples of LPS metrics and visual weekly work plans. Lean Initiative Undertaken – Lean Thinking, Tools, Techniques Company Overview ARDMAC ardmac.com Figure 1. LPS System Description
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