Lean Construction Ireland Annual Book of Cases 2021 44 l f 2 Lean Initiative Undertaken – Lean Thinking, Tools, Techniques The overall project duration for the Grange Development is 2.5 years, including covid delays. On projects of this duration, it is important that our planning approach keeps both medium and long term milestones in mind.This is where we feel Lean initiatives and techniques have proved invaluable in ensuring the project team continuously tracks the work and monitors progress against agreed milestone dates, while also striving for improvement on site to see if enhancements to the construction cycles can be implemented. Last Planner From the outset, the goal for implementing the Last Planner® System (LPS) on this project was tomanage the short-term planning and ensure the flow of work on the project was maintained and unconstrained. Although we had implemented LPS on previous projects, it was new to some members of both our management and subcontractor teams, and we therefore organised introductory sessions where walkthroughs were completed, ensuring the team got up to speed quickly.There was excellent buy-in from the subcontractors to the LPS as they could immediately see the benefit of having the plan in front of them and any constraints closed out to give them a clear flow of work. The LPS was key to driving the coordinated planning of the basement construction right through to the main structures and envelope for each block. Due to the scale of the project, the LPS was implemented on a block-by-block basis with separate pull plans prepared for each, and an overall master pull plan tracking the main overall deliverables.The project managers for each section worked with the sub-contractors to generate the initial Pull Plan and agreed the key milestones for each section. Following this, crossover points between the blocks were managed via regular communication between the team leaders.The organisation of regular meetings and huddles to facilitate the pull plans,weekly planning sessions, and daily huddles proved a challenge, but all members of the team,with continued support, ensured that the system was bedded-in over time, allowing for a successful outcome on the project. The system was broken into several steps to give everyone a clear understanding of what was involved in each step. Step 1 – Pull Plan Sessions • Key milestones were identified within 6-8 weeks and issued to the full site team to allow everyone to prepare information for the Pull Plan Sessions. • Pull Plan Sessions took place every 3-4 weeks with new‘trains’ and milestones ‘pulled’ as the project progressed. • The session involved all the relevant John Paul Construction (JPC) team including site managers, engineers, project managers and M&E coordinators, plus all relevant subcontractor supervisors. • Initially, workshops were completed using virtual MSTeams meetings due to Covid-19 restrictions but were then completed in-person in an external marquee to facilitate adequate social distancing. • Activities were ‘pulled’ back from the milestone, creating ‘trains’ or flows of work. • Any constraints were logged, a person assigned to close out, and a ‘need by’ date identified. Step 2 –WeeklyWork Plans (WWP) • Ahead of theWeekly Coordination Meeting (WCM),Weekly Work Plans were submitted by the subcontractors outlining their intended work for the upcoming week. • This would be in line with the Pull Plans with more detail on required resources and work fronts. • These were coordinated into a MasterWWP document ahead of theWCM. Step 3 –Weekly Coordination Meetings • These weekly meetings took place on the same day and same time every week for 1 hour only. • Pull Plans were reviewed along with any overdue or new constraints. • The previous weeks performance against theWWP was reviewed. • The upcoming weeksWWP’s would be reviewed, coordinated, and agreed. Step 4 – Daily Huddle • Daily huddles took place every day for 10-15 minutes to discuss the planned works for the day. • Any new constraints were discussed, and recovery plans put in place, if required. Key Features: • Design, construction, and fitout of 287 apartments over a 3,500 m2 basement. • 6 blocks ranging in height from 5 to 9 storeys. • Precast concrete twin wall frame. • Cast-in electrical services in precast walls. • Use of Sapphire light weight glide-on balcony system. • Exhaust air heat pump system to achieve Part L. • BREEAM Excellent rating. Figure 2: Grange Development Case 9
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