In this month’s Orbital Technical Bulletin, we would like to highlight our experience with PLANNING and SCHEDULING – LEAN CONSTRUCTION INSTITUTE LAST PLANNER SYSTEM. Executing numerous locations in many towns with different requirements and working with many different departments requires coordination and planning. Waste is reduced and work flow is reliable and predictable with use of Lean Construction planning and control measures. Use of these techniques have proven results in design and construction of all sizes of projects including fast track projects. The bulletin below gives you a brief overview of Lean Construction and how it is applied in various fields.
LEAN CONSTRUCTION INSTITUTE LAST PLANNER SYSTEM
The Lean Planner System is used in construction projects to provide reliable workflow of the construction crew by daily communication and interaction, identifying constraints and removing them prior to causing a delay, measuring executed work completed that week, and weekly root cause analysis of plan failures. Three different tools are used to provide a reliable and predictable plan for the project; a pull plan, 6 week make work ready plan, and a weekly work plan.
A pull plan session is done prior to construction start and plans the project from the completion date backwards. This planning method creates a reliable flow of handing off completed work to the next trade or activity. This eliminates waste between activities. Trades work together discussing the order of their activities as a combined effort to lay out the work. Every activity that needs to be completed in order for another activity to start is a task on a sticky note.
The activities from the pull plan are put into a 6 week make work ready plan. Each day/week every activity is reviewed and constraints are removed weeks out rather than at the time of work. At this meeting, the team is looking at work for the next 6 weeks and eliminating or working towards eliminating the constraints.
The activities for the upcoming week are reviewed and verified that they can happen and have no constraints. The weekly plan is reviewed daily and any concerns or delays are dealt with immediately. At the end of the week, the activities that had been planned are verified complete or if not, a reason why is provided. Those reasons are then tracked and addressed to eliminate future issues.
