Lean & 5S's in Construction

Newsletter #57 2010

This e-newsletter is written by Dennis Sowards to share ideas on the 5S’s and Lean practices especially as they are applied in construction. If you have ideas or lessons learned to share please contact me.

A New type of Waste

Greg Howell of the Lean Construction Institute shared this observation:

“Reducing cost and duration revealed the "new" waste in construction - contingency. I call it the new waste because contingency serves much like inventory in manufacturing. Manufacturers that accept and act on Engineer Ohno's reinterpretation of inventory from asset to waste will find new ways to improve performance, ways that were impossible when inventory was considered an asset. We can have the same experience in construction when we quit regarding contingency as a hidden asset that we hold.”



How much waste is connected to contingency? What can we do about attacking it?

What if Air Travel worked like Health Care?

How about your business – which is it like?

5S’s is more than just housekeeping

3S + 2S = 5S

“The first three components of 5S are indeed about housekeeping. The fourth and fifth S’s, however, are about establishing a culture of discipline around Standard Work. It is this reason that 5S is a foundational tool for all Lean transformations. Without establishing a culture that demonstrates the ability to establish Standard Work and sustain improvements, all future Lean progress will ultimately go for naught. In fact, some Japanese sensei believe this so strongly, that they refuse to let clients take the next step in the process until they have successfully demonstrated 5S for two years.” (Masaki Imai says if you are not doing 5S’s you are not doing Lean!)

“If Standardize and Sustain (aka self discipline) are not practiced. The result is that the condition of the area steadily degrades, pulling down employees’ pride and enthusiasm with it. The entire Lean effort can be perceived as another Program of the Month.”



“For this reason it’s important that all leaders, from front-line supervisors to the senior leadership team members, understand their role in a continuous improvement transformation. While a basic understanding of Lean principles is important, a clear image of leadership’s responsibilities in the Lean environment is absolutely vital. A key leadership responsibility in any setting – business, athletic, charity – involves holding people accountable to the ideals and goals of the organization.”



In the Sort phase, companies often underestimate the critical nature of an effective, ongoing Red Tag process. It’s very hard for some people to part with items they believe have value, even though that value may not pertain to the area undergoing 5S. A working Red Tag process offers these folks a means for getting the item out of their area, while still recycling it to a place where it can add value.



Leaving more space than required to store only necessary items is a frequent oversight with the Set in Order (aka Simplifying) phase. There’s some truth which can be applied to the work area from Boston’s Irreversible Law of Clutter which states, “In any household,

junk accumulates to fit the space available for its storage.”



Source: How to Avoid Common 5S Mistakes by Rick Brimeyer. Italics added by Dennis Sowards

Are you doing the 5S’s? They work in construction just as well as in manufacturing. They work in the filed, shop and office support functions. As a Leader of the Lean transformation you need to be leading by doing the 5S’s in your office too.

Lean Construction Project Wins Award

The contractors who made up the Lean construction team that did the $28 M 70,000 sq. ft. expansion of the Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital in St. Peters MO received the Best Practice Award. The St. Louis Council of Construction Consumers presented this award in Dec. 2009. The award honors the implementation of practices that enhance project performance. The core contractors on this projects practiced Lean methods and were able to finish the job 35 days early, save 4% of the GMP contract and have $1.2 M in unused design/construction contingency outside of the GMP. The core construction team included: Murphy Company, BJC HealthCare, Tarlton Corp., Pratt Design Studio, KJWW Engineering Consultants, and Sachs Electric Co.



Source: Contracting Business Jan. 2010

The Last Planner System *

The difference between CPM Scheduling & Production Planning (LPS)

Source: 3rd Annual Lean Congress – © BOLDT

Last Planner System is a trademark of the Lean Construction Institute.

What is TPM?

“Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), is a philosophy of continuous improvement first introduced to the U.S. by Japanese author, Seiichi Nakajima. TPM encourages employees to initiate corrective action and requires a complete commitment on all management levels. Highlights of the TPM philosophy include the following:

Use each piece of machinery to its full degree of effectiveness.

Build an effective preventive maintenance program—rather than waiting to repair equipment after it breaks down.

From operators to maintenance personnel, bring together input from all departments concerned with equipment.

Encourage involvement of all management levels, from executives to frontline workers.

Encourage teams to act autonomously.

Eliminating the Six Big Losses

“A fundamental principle of TPM is the goal of eliminating the "Six Big Losses":

1. Breakdowns from equipment failure, lead to additional costs due to downtime, repair bills, and spare parts.
   
2. Setup and Adjustment Losses often involve product changeovers and shift changes, such as the exchange of dies in extrusion machines.
   
3. Minor Stoppage Losses due to machine jams and idling last as long as ten minutes.
   
4. Speed Losses. Equipment cannot generally be run at theoretical top speeds, due to the risks of product defects or minor stoppages. Sometimes discrepancies between design specification and actual speed of the machinery are a contributing factor.
   
5. Quality Defect Losses are often incurred by the production of defective or off-spec products that must be scrapped or reworked.
   
6. Yield Losses include wasted or unused raw materials (resulting from inferior product design, manufacturing methods, or equipment restrictions), rejected items, and scrap (resulting from start-ups and changeovers).

“In order to eliminate the Six Big Losses, the core concepts that follow must be recognized and understood:

• The cause of most equipment failure is minor defects, which must be vigilantly and continuously exposed, corrected, and prevented.
  
• Regular, properly planned maintenance can eliminate almost all spontaneous equipment failure.
  
• A team comprised of members of multiple departments can be more effective in extending equipment performance than a team of members from a single department.
  
• Training in equipment repair, leadership, operations, and TPM should be at the core of any maintenance program.
  
• Machines that are maintained with an effective preventive maintenance program produce more product than machines that are only repaired when they break down. In spite of conventional thinking, effective preventive maintenance programs also require less technician time and less equipment downtime than programs that only react to equipment failure.”

Source: Bottom Line Solutions, Arizona MEP, Oct. 2008

Learning Opportunities

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



April 22, 2010 - Lean Applied to Service – Phoenix, AZ, Sponsor: PIPE & 469 JAC, contact Cathy Mayeux at 480.966.0377 or CMayeux@pipetrust.org



April 23, 2010 - Applying the 5S’s in Lean Construction, Phoenix, AZ – The National Association of Women in Construction (NAWIC) Regional Forum. Contact: Kim Baldwin at Kim.Baldwin@pcg.com

May 20, 2010 - Getting to the Root Cause by Analysis not Luck - Phoenix, AZ, Sponsor: PIPE & 469 JAC, contact Cathy Mayeux at 480.966.0377 or CMayeux@pipetrust.org



June 17 – 18, 2010 – Lean Tools, BIMForum, Kansas City, MO. See https://bimforum.org/2010summer



Sept 30, 2010 – Lean Construction – It can work for you - Phoenix, AZ, Sponsor: PIPE & 469 JAC, contact Cathy Mayeux at 480.966.0377 or CMayeux@pipetrust.org



Oct. 28, 2010 – Gaining Customer Loyalty by Design - Phoenix, AZ, Sponsor: PIPE & 469 JAC, contact Cathy Mayeux at 480.966.0377 or CMayeux@pipetrust.org



Oct. 29, 2010 – Lean in Construction and Lean applied to Service at PHCC National Convention, Las Vegas.

Other Lean Construction Events to attend:

April 27, 2010 - How Lean Techniques Produce Quantitative Bottom Line Results, Hosted by the LCI NCR Chapter, Arlington, VA. Registration details are at: http://lci-ncr-04-2010.eventbrite.com



April 27 & 29, 2010 - Using Lean Tools to Promote a Lean Community, Hosted by LCI Cascadia Chapter, Seattle, WA) April 27th in Seattle & April 29th in Portland. Registration details are at: http://lci-cascadia-04-27-2010.eventbrite.com



April 28, 2010 - BIM for Owners and Construction Partners, Host: LCI Ohio Valley Chapter - Cincinnati, OH. Registration details are at: http://lci-ovc-04-2010.eventbrite.com



May 6, 2010 - Lean Construction: Perspectives & Opportunities, Host: LCI Michigan Chapter - East Lansing, MI. Details soon.



May 10 to 11 , 210 – The 6th LCI Academic Forum, Louisville CO. Registration details are at: http://lci-academic-05-2010.eventbrite.com/



May 18, 2010 – A3 Problem Solving by Ron Migllori, Executive VP - Buehler & Buehler Structural Engineers, Inc – and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) by Dennis Sowards. Host: LCI – AZ Chapter, Tempe AZ. Contact: http://lci-az-05-2010.eventbrite.com



May 20, 2010 - A3 Problem Solving. Host: LCI San Diego Chapter , San Diego, CA.

Event and registration details coming soon!



Sept. 21, 2010 - Parade of Trades applied to all construction. Host: LCI – AZ Chapter. Tempe AZ. Event and registration details coming soon.



Week of October 18, 2010 - LCI Annual Congress - Boulder, CO

A Quick Thought

Old Chinese proverb: Talk doesn’t cook rice



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 <http://www.YourQSS.com>

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