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Lean Construction Overview

Provided by George Zettel with Turner Construction

Lean Construction is a project delivery method that starts with a management culture and adds tools to maximize value and eliminate waste from scope definition, design, and the construction process. Lean is not an acronym. It originated in the automotive, bio-pharmaceutical, healthcare, and aerospace industries where businesses have applied “lean principles” to both operations and capital projects.

There are four main parts supported by documents, tools and a lot more detail:

Clear definition of owner’s operation, business case and space needs. Owner uses “Value Stream Mapping” and other methods to ensure Owner’s business processes and root cause driving the need for the project are clear and stated in a proforma or business case. End-Users, Designers, Contractors, Subcontractors and other specialists are engaged early and co-locate. These specialists collaborate to “validate” and reconcile the project scope, budget, schedule, to meet the business case. A “target cost” is established.
Collaborative contract agreements that properly share risk and offer incentives for improving total project performance. These contracts are cost plus fixed fee and are called “Integrated Project Delivery”, “Relational Contracting” or “Consensus Docs”.
Extensive use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) with its benefits of improved construction document quality, elimination of re-drawing design documents for shop and erection drawings, improved design coordination, maximization of prefabrication and strategies for just-in-time delivery.
Collaborative scheduling technique called "pull planning" and a tool called "Last Planner System"(LPS). The important concept is that a project is a "network of commitments" (buy-in all the way to foreman level about sequence of work and reliable hand-off between trades).

Contractors Using Elements of Lean: Messer; Boldt; Neenan; Alberici; Linbeck; Walbridge Aldinger, Barton Malow; Baker Concrete; Sundt; Weitz; Skanska, Swinerton, McCarthy, DPR, Boldt, Whiting-Turner, Southland Industries, Turner Construction; other firms are added each month as word gets out and more owner's request use of Lean principles.

These firms report higher volume with same staff/volume, safer projects, better risk management and improved value to their clients. Lean challenges the belief that there must always be a trade-off between time, cost, and quality.

Designers: NBBJ, HGA, HKS, Burt Hill, Albert Kahn, Ghafari.

Owners: Boeing, GE, GM, Toyota, Bristol Myers Squibb, Chiron, Mass. General Hospital, Mayo Clinic, Ascension Health, Sutter Health, GSA, Haworth, Johnson& Johnson, Merk and countless others. From January 2005 to December 2007, approximately 30 Requests For Qualifications have requested Turner to describe our lean experience. In 2003, Sutter Health its arhctiects, designers, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers to use Lean on their approximately $7B facility program in No. CA. Turner’s portion of that work has been $1.2B.

The Lean Construction Institute, CII, AIA, SMACNA, and CURT are all involved.

As of December 2007, Turner has had nine projects which used the Last Planner System (tm) lean scheduling and production planning process that have been closed-out totaling $122M volume. These projects have varied from $4MM renovations to a $30MM parking garage. Sixteen other projects are underway representing $1.8B volume in MIA, CIN, OAK and SAC.

Turner is member of www.leanconstruction.org

Turner’s Lean Construction champion is George Zettel - gzettel@tcco.com