Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2021 76 Case 21 Headquartered in Kilkenny, with regional offices across Europe, Modubuild is an engineering, design, and construction company. Modubuild provide volumetric, turnkey modular construction, to Life Science &Data Storage customers across EMEA.The company employs 400 people. Operations are underpinned by Lean, using analytics, CI, and ISO to create a positive and collaborative environment for excellence. In recognition for its commitment to excellence, Modubuild was named in Deloitte’s Best Managed Companies for 2021, and in 2020 Large Pharma Project of the Year at the Pharma Industry Awards. In 2019, the company won Kilkenny employer of the year, and in 2021,MD, Kevin Brennan,was nominated for EY Entrepreneur of theYear. In smaller companies, rapid business growth and the increased demand in services often results in the company being outgrown by their systems and the number of trained experts available to deliver the same quality of work over all business areas.As part of Modubuild’s Continuous Improvement campaign,we implemented a new Continuous Learning and Development division under Human Resources.The main objective of this division is to ensure that employees are kept to industry standards, grow along with the company, and realise the benefit of investing in themselves. Implementing continuous learning systems within your company equips employees to confidently deliver fast-paced and qualitative work, provides the ability to adapt to change and ensure readily trained staff across all business areas. To kick-off this initiative, Modubuild’s Talent Experience Specialist, Ciara O’Dwyer, initiated a training gap-analysis. An anonymous individual survey was conducted throughout the entire team, followed by departmental discussions with line-managers and some employees.The survey identified critical training areas which should be prioritised, whereafter the Continuous Learning System will be implemented. It is important to note that continuous learning and development is not only limited to tangible knowledge, but also includes mental, emotional, and soft skill training programs.We believe that training the mind and wellbeing of our employees will bear the fruit of intrinsically motivated, confident personnel who convey a contagious positive atmosphere, again leading to a constructive working environment. Ultimately, the continuous improvement campaign coupled with the learning and development initiative, strive to create a team that subconsciously function on the Lean thinking principles.We want to optimise Modubuild as a whole by eliminating internal waste,develop knowledgeable employees, build quality into our systems, be able to deliver fast-paced work while managing flow, defer responsibilities with confidence, and, finally, be able to create a culture of mutual respect throughout the whole business. Figure 1. Learning and Development Program within the CI Campaign Company Overview MODUBUILD modubuild.net Overview & Background to the Lean Initiative DrenéVenter Author Lean Initiative Undertaken – Lean Thinking, Tools, Techniques In a rapidly growing company striving to keep up with demand and systems, employee training is often overlooked as a means to maintain a healthy and stable company culture. As part of Modubuild’s continuous improvement campaign,we are in the early
Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2021 77 Case 21 stages of implementing a continuous learning and development program.Given that we are presently (as at October 2021) between the Plan and Do stages of the PDCA cycle, and some advantages can already be seen within the team, we look forward to seeing future advancements. As with any new strategic approach, proper analysis and planning are key attributes to effective implementation thereof. During our employee feedback survey, the training gaps identified within the different departments will enable us to implement a continuous learning system, and paramount to this is to first address the current critical training needs within each department.Within the departmental meetings with the line-managers and their teams, these critical training needs were identified and are currently being addressed.Table 1 captures the key training themes and sub-themes identified within the company. Table 1. KeyTrainingThemes & Sub-Themes Following more feedback from the employee survey, together with the high number of newly employed staff, a proper in-house induction program is indispensable as well as the surety that all new employees have the proper basic training to complete their new role. For example, a Safe Pass course is done by personnel that would be required to work on/visit a construction site. Operatives are equipped with the required abrasive wheels or slinger training,or forklift training, for example, and those who will be using Navisworks (design software), undergo the necessary training to enable them to properly navigate the software.Whilst good, Figures 2 and 3 illustrate that there remain opportunities for improvement within our induction program. Figure 2. Results of Employee Responsibility Comprehension Post-Induction Our immediate action plan is the implementation of a comprehensive interactive induction programwhich covers the essential training required within the departments.This will familiarise the employee with the standard operating procedures (SOPs) as well as the documentation and policies that will be used within their dayto-day duties.The current critical training will be scheduled, including those employees whose competency certificates are due to expire and this will then be followed by the initialisation of our continuous learning program. Due to the diverse nature of our geographical locations, some of our new employees will start remotely and thus the induction consists of either an office-based or web-based session with our Learning and Development Coordinator guiding the employees through the key operating procedures.The second part consists of an interactive slideshow taking employees through a series of slides, video tutorials, policy documentation, and safety training to complete in their own time.This removes additional labour hours from the program and ensures all new employees understand the business operating model whilst remaining knowledgeable about their new environment. A “Quality Time Session” is also arranged with the new employees and their line-managers to conduct an informal conversation,which would allow them to feel welcome and comfortable in the department.This session is also used to review and understand their specific job description and confirm their exact roles and responsibilities on which the essential training will be based. Implementation of this revised induction plan ensures that all new employees are equipped with the required training for their role, are knowledgeable about their environment, and fully understand what is expected of them. Starting November 2021,we are kicking off our continuous learning and development initiative with a series of lunchtime learning in which daily short informative lessons are screened online across the company.The topics covered will include the areas identified in the training needs analysis, most of which include one of the major organisational categories of Kaizen.This way we show employees that we listen and act on their needs and gain trust in the learning initiative whilst motivating them to invest time in their own development, coupled with embedding Lean thinking principles without imposing. The learning month’s primary objective is to inspire employees to broaden their general knowledge of their field of expertise in their own time.We will follow that month with more internal training on company culture, leadership,processes implementation,productivity, quality, safety, and technology. As with any new initiative, some concerns surfaced, including that often some employees are resistant to change or new initiatives and can only be motivated after some trust is won. Another concern identified is the amount of talent we have within departments that is not directly linked to their role description and which is not being fully utilised. Keeping in mind that we want to ultimately achieve all Lean principles through our organisation, an opportunity was identified to work with departments to improve systems and processes Figure 3. Results of Employee Comprehension of Organisational Objectives Post-Induction
Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2021 78 within the departments, together with enhancing interactions and communications between departments.That way, trust is gained between employees in different departments by means of open communication lines within the workplace, building relationships outside of the formal work-based environment, and by building a culture of working not only for the company, but for one another as well. During the process of working with the departments, an additional focus point will be to identify talent which employees have beyond their day-to-day scope of work that might be valuable to the company, combined with the opportunity to identify learning requirements and aspirations of the employees.Although we have only started this process with one department, the possibility of what we will be able to do within departments by extracting non- or under-utilised skills is exciting for the future of Modubuild’s internal systems and teamwork across the different departments. Modubuild also started a ManufacturingTechnician Apprenticeship Program this year with two apprentices, and we hope to take in 20 apprentices by the end of 2022.Once again, this program strives to deliver graduates that are already familiar with Modubuild’s company culture in addition to being readily trained in the manufacturing roles we will require them to step into. These are just some of the current strategies being actioned.While most are only at the initiation stage, we are hoping that these will lead to a whole new way of approaching the implementation of Lean within Modubuild. Lean Initiative Improvements & Impact As stated, this initiative is only at the beginning stages and we hope to have it fully up and running at the beginning of 2022.The impact cannot yet be determined; however, going back to our main objective,we want to embed Lean thinking into all new and existing employees.When you have properly trained staff who are confident in their work, the outcome is low risk and high-quality work being delivered at a fast pace. Our foundation phase will be branched by a few other strategies in early-2022. A different area of concern we identified is that, with the growing number of projects we now run simultaneously, we are often stuck with a single person with the required expert knowledge to complete a specific task/job.To address this, we will set up a Mentorship Program within the company wherein senior staff will be shadowed once a week for an hour, along with sessions in which they will sit down and carry over some of their knowledge and skills to someone else within their department. Reverting to the fact that a lot of employees are not currently being used to their full potential, we trust that this again will aid in utilising our internal resources and skillsets more effectively.We also aim to partner with further education and training providers to host/attend group training sessions as a company/department, contributing to the overall company culture throughout all departments. With the number of employees currently employed by Modubuild, we are still managing to capture training and keep track of expiration dates manually; however, with employee numbers growing exponentially, we are looking to automate our training system by means of software called “Mango”. Implementing Mango will reduce both the labour hours and human risk factor of capturing and inducting training. Mango will also help us to further automate our Induction Program as well as other in-house training initiatives that we may wish to undertake. Finally, Modubuild plan to implement a Chartership Support Program, where we support our personnel with the paperwork and training they require to obtain the correct amount of CPD (Continuing Professional Development) points to ultimately register and maintain chartership at the different professional bodies. Although having different departments is an important aspect for a company, we have found ourselves operating in departmental silos the last while. However, we are hopeful that by working through these strategies, we will also create better internal communication channels between the departments, leading to operating more as a team rather than several different departmental teams. Figure 4. Team Modubuild Operations In conclusion, we expect that the effective implementation of continuous learning and development programs will result in a leaner and more streamlined workforce.We are hopeful to create employees who operate Lean thinking principles daily, and we as a team look forward to operating under one umbrella with improved internal systems and communications achieved by implementing these strategies. Case 21
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