Process Discipline

Many attempts at Lean & Operational Excellence fail because they attempt to jump feet first into collaborative planning with reluctant subcontractors before laying a good foundation of project processes that will enable the smooth flow of packages through Design, Procurement and Production. For a main contractor, their own project team should be the initial focus when it comes to implementing Lean & Operational Excellence.

Daily Management

Once critical project processes have been detailed, streamlined and matched to capacity based on Lean principles, a Management System for each process must be developed and deployed to support reliable delivery. An excellent Management System is one that allows the project team to quickly and satisfactorily answer the following questions:

• Are we winning or losing – do we have the right measures in place?
• Can we judge performance at a glance – are we visualising our measures?
• Are we having timely course correction conversations and taking appropriate action – are we having short, sharp daily reviews?

Daily Management, done correctly, results in a project environment in which problems are identified early and solved collaboratively between the project team and external partners such as Design Consultants and Subcontractors.

Problem Solving

To succeed in construction Operational Excellence, problem solving efforts should be aimed squarely at improving task productivity. Notwithstanding the fact that each construction project is bespoke, there are surprisingly high levels of repeatability to be found at task level. Problem solving therefore involves engaging and training subcontractor teams to perform detailed task cycle studies so as to uncover the hidden process wastes and all the issues that ultimately lead to out of sequence working (which is the construction version of Overproduction)

Operational Resilience

The Operational Resilience practice enables the main contractor to maintain a strategic view of the project across all packages ensuring coordination and risk management in line with the business case. This implies not limiting risk management to drawing up a risk register at the beginning of a project which is immediately filed away. Operational Excellence on the other hand means establishing an active and challenging risk management forum throughout the project