Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2021 15 l f s s 2 Figure 2: Coffey Continuous Improvement Policy Continuous improvement activities drive organisational excellence to improve value delivery to all Coffey stakeholders, including employees, customers, shareholders and society, thereby increasing the probability of long-term success of the organisation.By adopting a culture of continuous improvement, we: • Maintain a culture of clear, open communication. • Focus on value delivery and understanding and satisfying the customer. • Regularly review continuous improvement opportunities identified and the approaches and methods used to implement change. • Regularly measure the performance of key processes. • Manage process changes using data driven facts rather than opinion. • Promote teamwork in each of our departments and sites to achieve positive outcomes. • Develop a culture wherein continuous improvement involves everyone and the process of change becomes routine. • Recognise and promote continuous improvement efforts. Collaborative Planning The Last Planner® System (LPS) was developed by the Lean Construction Institute and follows the Plan,Do,Check,Act (PDCA) cycle we are familiar with from our ISO Management Systems. PLS is also known as a collaborative planning tool and the primary function is to increase productivity and accountability of the project team by teasing out the program and carrying out detailed group planning with the entire project team present, including the client or their representative. LPS is also a project management tool or approach to efficiently run a construction project.The principle of the system is to ensure each on site foreman/ supervisor, be they internal or external subcontractor, can manage their workload while having accountability.This is achieved by involving them in the weekly planning sessions and holding them accountable for completing the work as planned. Having researched LPS in detail, we decided to proceed with the implementation of our own Collaborative Planning Procedure on a pilot project in Saggart Reservoir in September 2021. Strategic Objectives: Coffey’s Managing Director took the lead in the implementation of the Collaborative Planning initiative and tasked the HSQE team with responsibility to guide the development of our Collaborative Planning System.The first step in the collaborative planning development strategy was appointing a lean expert.Through our training consultancy LBS, we sourced Dr. StevenWard from Lean Construct Ltd in the UK. Steve was a vital resource in terms of LPS implementation, facilitating the sessions and gathering and disseminating the learning review data. Our key deliverables in terms of our Collaborative Planning procedure were identified as; • Design and implement a Coffey Collaborative Planning Procedure to meet our requirements and get buy in from our Operations Directors and Contract Managers. • Develop and carry our an Internal“Introduction to Lean and LPS” and roll out at each of the Collaborative Planning kick off sessions We assigned a core team to facilitate the LPS sessions and hold weekly meetings to discuss our Collaborative Planning progress on each of the projects and setting a timetable for attending the weekly sessions on site.We have found “A Facilitators Guide to the Last Planner System” from NottinghamTrent University a very useful guidance document to facilitate the weekly sessions.The core team maintains constant communication in terms of lean practices and LPS through toolbox talks on topics such asVisual Management, 6S, StandardWork & 8Wastes.We reinforce these messages through signage and weekly lean conversations on site, which are recorded through our internal OBSERVE PowerApps. We continue to hold quarterly sessions with our external consultant, focusing on the ‘why we are doing what we are doing’ in terms of Collaborative Planning and following up, to ensure the message is being received well by site teams. The Coffey Collaborative Planning Procedure has six core elements; Figure 3: Collaborative Planning Procedure 1. Milestone Planning: Milestone Planning identifies the main project milestones / key Case 1
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