Lean and Safety

Tweet/Garot Mechanical has one of the best safety records in the industry. They are also heavily involved in applying Lean. They have found many ways to do Lean and safety together and realized double benefits. One example is their plumbing/piping prefab shop. They reduced the backbreaking typical way to install commercial sinks by assembling the sinks in a more controlled environment. They designed the assembly process so that all parts, pieces and tools were available and set at the proper height. Once assembled, the sinks are positioned on specially designed racks and transported to the project site for installation. Lean techniques are applied to make the modular assembly very efficient and ergonomic principles are used to make it safe. This approach is a great way to change how we do things in construction.
Source: Plumbing and Mechanical magazine, Oct. 2008

Visual Work Place

Gwendolyn D. Golsworth, Ph.D. in an article “Advancing Quality Through Visual Thinking” (Quality Digest, Feb. 2009) provides an in-depth review of what makes a visual workplace. She is talking about manufacturing and I will try to translate it into shop fabrication and construction installation terms. My comments are in italics. She writes, “Visual devices ensure that each stop on the road to quality is executed perfectly, on time, and safely. A visual workplace doesn’t just minimize problems and mistakes; it can eliminate them completely for both final product quality and every transaction along the way.

“A visual workplace is a self-ordering, self-explaining, self-regulating, and self-improving work environment--where what is supposed to happen does happen, on time, every time, day or night--because of visual devices.”

“Creating a visual work environment means translating information into visual devices and embedding them into the physical fabric of the workplace. This is the tricky part because in most workplaces, vital information is often missing, inaccurate, incomplete, or late. In a visual workplace, we call these “information deficits.” You can bet that where vital information is missing, quality suffers.

“An easy way to determine if you work in an information-starved area is to notice if you’re asked many questions during any given work day, or if you ask many questions. Pay attention to whether these are new questions or chronic repeats. If they’re repeats, you already know that’s costing the company a bundle, and customer satisfaction can’t be high.

“In a visual workplace, we call asking or answering questions a form of motion defined as “moving without working.” Motion is the symptom; missing information is the cause. Other forms of motion include searching, wandering, wondering, counting and recounting, interrupting, waiting, and even stopping. These all occur because the vital answers we or someone else needs aren’t available at a glance, accurate, complete, or on time. Both motion and its cause, information deficits, play a role in helping you make the visual conversion from an information- starved workplace to one that’s information- rich.

The Six Core Questions

“An easy way to demonstrate this is through the six core questions, another building block of visual thinking. Those questions are:

• Where?
• What?
• When?
• Who (or what machine or tool)?
• How many (or how long)?
• How?

“When the answers are absent to some or all of these core questions, a lot of motion results--corporate enemy No. 1. The workplace is starved for information, and quality is one of the first casualties. We use the six core questions to demonstrate how to create self-explaining systems up and down the value stream that define your work and everyone else’s.

The visual WHERE

“Where’s the right material? Where’s the correct work in progress (WIP) located? If you don’t know for sure and choose the wrong material instead, the possibility of a quality outcome vanishes.”

Signs and labels can make clear to the shop workers and for install crews which work is to be done next. In the yard, material is often put in any open space with little logic and no labels. The visual ‘where’ would store material by the foreman who ordered it, by the zone it is designated for or by the install sequence. Most contractors use labels on material fabricated in their shop to designate the pieces per drawings or material orders. However, the field crews often do not read the (small print) labels or know the code used. It is better to make large signs and clear instructions.

The visual WHAT

“What exactly are we supposed to be making next? Do we know precisely, or do we have to guess and take the chance of producing something that wasn’t ordered? If there’s the slightest chance that we’ll select the wrong material, let’s put a visual device in place to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

In construction we need to be sure we are installing material in the correct order and direction. Mistakes happen and rework is required when we assume we know what is next.

The visual WHEN

“The term ‘when’ in this core question refers to both the exact time something must or will be done, such as ‘When will this order be completed?’ or, ‘When does this order need to be shipped?’ ‘When’ can also refer to the duration of time--the time required, for example, for a heat cycle.”

Fabrication shop workers need to know what to fabricate next. Field conditions are constantly changing and the need for fabricated material changes accordingly. Having a white board or similar visible poster that shows each day’s job orders to be fabricated makes it clear ‘when’ to do it. Fabricating in the wrong order results in material that must be stored at the shop or the job, and inventory is waste. It is just as important to field crews to have visual instructions for the work they need to do each day. Marking the work to be installed each day by a color on a drawing is another visual tool.

The Visual WHO

“On any given work day, dozens if not hundreds of people contribute some part of their work to make your work happen. Name them visually so you can get back to them for clarification, trace the status of material, find a needed tool, update them on changes, or simply say thank you.”

Managing a project is not rocket science but does require much coordination. Project managers can create visual charts show what crews are involved in the various work areas.

The visual HOW MANY

“Hands-on counting and measuring are only one way to determine the number, size, volume, or quantity of things, or simply the required setting. Yet there are other ways--visual ways--that are easier, more reliable, accurate, and effective, and don’t rely on judgment or chance.”

The right setting for the length of a sheet of metal can be marked on the shear to avoid the need to measure each sheet.” A maximum line or mark can show how full to fill up a bin of screws, bolts, or other consumables. A label on a gang box can tell how many of a particular tool is to be stored on a shelf.

The visual HOW

“Reliable standards are the bedrock of all work. The “how” of operations (“How do I make it?” “How do I do it?”) is quite simply your standard operating procedure. There are dozens, hundreds, even thousands of standard operating procedures in action on your production floor every day. That’s a lot to remember. Less-than- photographic exactitude can lead to mistakes that can have a severely negative effect on people and the business.

“By now you can guess the solution: Make it visual. Just be sensible: Only newcomers need a visual standard for every operation. Once you understand the fundamentals, use visual standards to remind yourself of details you might forget or have forgotten. The key here is to focus your visual standards on specific quality challenges. Effective use of visual standards helps us retain that focus on the tricky bits--not every single tiny little thing.”

Pictures are most useful to show how to fabricate or install tricky materials. We don’t need to show every thing a worker must do but should have visual instructions for any that tent to be done wrong most often.

FedEx does Lean

The FedEx Express lean initiative at its Los Angeles International Airport maintenance facility has produced some big savings in a short time. For example, an airplane overhaul that used to take more than 32 thousand man-hours was cut to 21 thousand in six months, saving $2 million

Learning Opportunities

Here is a good article on shop fabrication published in the June issue of SNIPS.
http://www.snipsmag.com/Articles/Article_Rotation/BNP_GUID_9-5-2006_A_10000000000000601009

You may be interested in attending one of these training seminars:

• Sept. 17, 2009 - Customer Loyalty by Design, – Phoenix, AZ – Sponsor: PIPE & 469 JAC, contact Cathy at pipetrust@qwest.net
• Oct. 6, 2009 - Lean Works in Construction – Milwaukee, WI – Sponsor: Plumbing Mechanical Sheet Metal Contractors Alliance, Contact: Dajen Bohacek at 414/543-7622 or dajen@pmsmca.com Must be a SMACNA member company, associate or sponsored by one to participate.
• Oct. 15. 2009 - Introduction to Lean in Service, – Phoenix, AZ – Sponsor: PIPE & 469 JAC, contact Cathy at pipetrust@qwest.net
  Contact Dennis Sowards if you want a customized workshop exclusively for your company.

Other Lean Construction Events

• July 8, 2009 - Nor Cal Lean Construction Institute Chapter Meeting, Rancho Solano Clubhouse, Fairfield, CA - 6:00 PM-9:00 PM - Pacific Time, Contact: Theresa Robinson at trobinson@tcco.com or 916.554.7944
• Oct. 13, 2009 - Kaizen Events – Improving Your Business’ Efficiency in Just One Week (A New Horizons Foundation Project), 2009 SMACNA Convention, Palm Springs, CA, details at: https://www.smacna.org/events/annualconvention/

A Quick Thought

Little fires not extinguished by sweat become big fires extinguished by tears.
- Anonymous

For more information about Lean applications to construction and especially the 5S’s contact Dennis Sowards at his office at 480-835-1185 or his cell at 602-740-7271 or at his web site: www.YourQSS.com

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