Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2021 71 Lean Initiative Undertaken – Lean Thinking, Tools, Techniques LPS was first introduced to Clancy personnel in 2016 whilst working on a large-scale project. Being very much engaged with the process being implemented on this project, our people could see the real benefits resulting from using the system for project delivery.Those early adopters have continued to utilise LPS principles on various projects since then, yielding many benefits such as improved schedule adherence, improved communication, and collaboration across project teams.Mainly due to this success, these practices have been spread informally to pockets of the organisation since that initial experience. Clancy senior management identified a strategic opportunity to standardise LPS deployment across the company to further reap the benefits of a uniformly-applied system on all projects.This will result in improved competitiveness through more reliable programs, improved team collaboration, and enhanced communication, thus enabling further growth in the business. Furthermore, as communication and collaboration are core values for the company, any improvements in these behaviours are viewed as vital to the success of all projects. StrategicTeam and Objectives The company appointed two Directors as program sponsors and a Contracts Manager as leader of the initiative with responsibility to guide the development to a successful conclusion.This team recognised early on that key to the LPS development strategy was sourcing an industry-recognised consultancy to provide clear and expert direction, not just on the tools but also on the approach for effective change management. Crystal Lean Solutions (CLS) were identified as the best fit to work with the Clancy team, and the deliverables set out in partnership with CLS were to: i. Develop an LPS standard tomeet the company’s construction requirements through collaboration with all the Contracts Managers. ii. Complete LPS training with Contracts Managers. iii. Develop a roll-out plan for deployment across the company, including engagement with Project Managers and Site Managers. Potential risks were identified in both engagement with the change, and having time to work on the change.These were viewed as medium risk as there was a high level of communication and engagement with the senior team built into the plan, including: • Explaining the why and following up to ensure the messaging landed well.Utilising the Kotter Model for communication and feedback, including quick wins (complete external audits to see if baseline is maintained). • Focus on the Kotter Model and monthly follow up meetings with CLS and the Steering Group (monthly communication to all staff). Baseline of Current Process So as to create a baseline for LPS maturity within our organisation, one of our leading LPS project processes was assessed by CLS against the LCI LPS Maturity Model,which resulted in a score of 2.9 out of 5. Both Pull Planning andWeekly Planning were identified as good, and there were opportunities for the project team to improve around look-ahead planning, constraints management, and using metrics to improve project performance.This could be achieved through additional training and tweaks to the existing system. The assessment highlighted that, albeit the project team was performing very well and implementing the system to the best of their ability, as a company there was an opportunity to improve our techniques and also educate our teams further to instil LPS best practices both on this project and across the company. Key Milestones Following on from that initial baseline assessment, actions and milestones were agreed in order to achieve the target deliverables, including: • Complete program charter and change management plan. • Lean Construction training (namely “LCi Lean Pass”) with Management completing this introductory course, including Value to Customer, 8Wastes, and 5S housekeeping. • Communication and Engagement. A workshop was run involving the program team and the contracts managers in the proposed approach and soliciting feedback on same. • Complete LPS introductory training with the core team.This was a high-level overview putting the system in context and explaining the overall intent of the system.This set up a series of training workshops for the individual processes. • Complete pull plan training with the core team and run a workshop to agree a pull plan standard. • Complete look-ahead and constraints management training with the core team and run a workshop to agree a lookahead and constraints standard. • CompleteWWP and daily huddle training and run a workshop to agree aWWP and daily huddle standard. • Complete two standardisation workshops with contracts managers. • Trial on site. • Final workshop with senior management to agree the LPS standard. • Agree roll-out plan of the standard. • Implement a process to sustain LPS into the future. Lean Initiative Improvements & Impact The undertaking of this Lean initiative has been of great value to date for the company as we now have an agreed LPS benchmark that suits our company’s core values.The process has yielded many advancements to the processes we had begun to roll out.Moreover, the process has generated consensus amongst the leadership team about how the system should be deployed and has increased the overall knowledge of Lean practices within the business.The workshops to date with senior management, project sponsors, and CLS have generated an overall agreed LPS systemwhich will ensure the following areas are met. Case 19
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