4 Ways to Build Process Improvement Into the Culture of Your Construction Company

4 Ways to Build Process Improvement Into the Culture of Your Construction Company

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Culture Process Improvement in Manufacturing - featured

In a quest for success, the construction industry has been making rapid strides over the past several decades to build process improvement into their culture.

Take for example the case of 116-year old Turner Construction Company. Company management says that the only reason they became a global entity was due to incorporating principles of process improvement. They focussed on planning and collaboration between departments, which resulted in an uninterrupted workflow, less waste and maximum use of time.

Here are six things that construction companies who adopt process improvement gain in the long run.

  • They learn to cut waste from the work process
  • They use their people more efficiently
  • They plan their operations and projects better
  • They cut transportation times
  • They keep their people safe on the sites
  • They create value that is transferable to employees and clients

Here are four methods to implement culture process improvement in your company.

 

1. Value-Stream-Mapping

Value-Stream-Mapping or VSM is a methodological approach to observe and track, the value and efficiency in every aspect of the construction process.

A Malaysian based construction company named AME Industries decided to use VSM to find a solution to problems faced by the operations department. Before the process started, the Value Added (VA) ratio of the production was 0.4297.  The VSM analysis showed that the critical issue is the queue between the QC inspection and the Painting Primer Coat Process caused by the unbalanced process. Remediation followed which resulted in the VA ratio gaining 11.63% against 0.4297 by reducing the high queue time between the two operations.

The stress in this method is viewing the larger picture and find a route towards it. By encouraging the construction management to literally and figuratively walk through each process, they can learn workflow performance, identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies. The end product being a detailed operational map, VSM enables management to make the right decisions to eliminate production waste.

 

2. Gemba Walks

Gemba Walk recommends the management team to walk informally in the work site and interact with the employees and learn about the challenges they face. When employees see that the management is taking an interest in them, it will instil a sense of value in them.

Gemba Walks holds a special place in culture process improvement. This is because the method involves the contribution of every employee engaged in the project and considers them as an important stakeholder.

This doesn’t mean that employees own the project but that they are inspired to have a vested interest in the project. You see, the word Gemba in Japanese means ‘actual place’. The management is encouraged to learn about the ongoing project from employees who are doing physical labour at the ‘project site’.

 

culture process improvement construction

3. Plan-Do-Check-Act

PDCA or Plan-Do-Check-Act is a fascinating concept in process improvement because of its capability to make huge impacts without compromising on the project completion timeline.

Under this technique, a construction process, for example, introducing safety measures, is selected. Titan Cement Company, a leader in cement production, used PDCA to do this.

Instead of trying to teach the entire site crew new procedures, they were divided into small teams and taught one at a time. Meanwhile work continued with the safety procedures that already existed.

At this stage, the change was small enough not to disrupt the entire operation but large enough for management to study the results. Slowly more and more teams were introduced to the new safety measure till it replaced the old one completely.

The result was the completion of all projects without disruption, adoption of better safety standards, clear communication and leadership and zero incidents in 6.5 million man-hours.

An advantage of PDCA is upgradation of processes without it being a stress on employees and management.

 

4. 5 Why’s

Under the 5 Why’s method, construction management should ask ‘why’, five different times and it helps them find the problem and solve it. Though it sounds simple, this is a method that has been tested and proven succesful multiple times.

Asking ‘why’ will not solve the problem, but it will potentially lead to an investigation and finding the root cause. Construction companies have solved large issues like a financial discrepancy in the accounting department to the reason for a delay in the supply of construction materials, by implementing the 5 Why’s concept.

Let us say for example a fleet vehicle refuses to start and if the transportation department uses the 5 Why methodology, here are the possible outcomes:

5 whys

5 Why’s is an approach that encourages to dig deeper to find the root cause, and it comes quite useful many times. However, just like any other lean methodology, the success of this tool depends on the user’s ability to implement it.

The construction industry has a tremendous opportunity to grow and expand by adopting process improvement into their culture. The 4 methods discussed here have brought results in the form of increased productivity, boosting employee’s value and satisfaction, making stakeholders happy and bringing happiness to the customer. With a growing population that demands urban expansion, construction companies are in huge demand by developers and landowners. However, in the new era of construction productivity, only the companies that implement process improvement on an ongoing basis will survive.

The Winding Path Toward Culture Change CTA

4 Ways Manufacturers can Start a Culture of Process Improvement

4 Ways Manufacturers can Start a Culture of Process Improvement

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Culture Process Improvement in Manufacturing - featured

Ice hockey fans still remember the fairy-tale victory when the US men’s team beat out the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics. And why do we remember? Certainly, a big part of it is about the context. Cold War politics and recession economics meant that people were yearning for something positive to unite around. But, this was also the win that put an end to a 20-year losing streak for the Americans. And you can bet that the coach, Herb Brook, had to work hard to get the US team to the top of the winner’s podium.

So what was Coach Brook’s strategy?

It was simple: get started and be steady. His eye stayed fixed on the long game and he instituted a multiyear process focused entirely on building a strong team culture. His goal was to turn individual stars into team contributors, and he supported his approach by choosing metrics that measured the right things.

It’s not so different than what you need to do on the manufacturing floor. Here are four ways you can start coaching your team toward a culture of process improvement:

 

1. Start joining forces

You can’t expect a team that never practices together to win. As a leader, it’s your job to get the people who play different positions – different departments, shifts, or units – together and to let them practice solving problems. Make a game of it, build interdisciplinary teams, and get competitive. Keep it easy by giving each group a task to work on together and watch their creativity, see them connect with each other, and celebrate their successes with them.

 

2. Start talking

If you want process improvement to be top-of-mind for your employees, you need to make sure they are hearing about it as often as possible.

And how do you engineer that?

Regular meetings. We’re big advocates of the daily 15-minute standing meeting (and you can read more about that HERE).

And why is that?

Put simply, those daily meetings have been the most important way we’ve found to institute process improvements. We spend a few minutes educating our team about Lean principles and practices and then give them space to talk. Every day. We’ve seen it increase our group’s morale and their commitment, and we’ve watched as these conversations have touched every single aspect of our organization, from scheduling to customer satisfaction. It will do the same for you.

 

3. Start mining talent

Guaranteed there are some golden nuggets hiding deep inside your people. Dig into that by giving people a chance to try new things. Cross-training between groups can help ensure workers get a chance to see and try different roles. New eyes on old tasks can help you see things differently and make adjustments that increase productivity and build a better product, bringing more value to your customers. This kind of training can also reduce the time, money, and effort spent on filling skill gaps and searching for new talent. Another great side benefits: when more people understand how to do a job, bottlenecks decrease and deadlines get easier to meet.

 

Culture Process Improvement Manufacturing

4. Start empowering

Ground-up innovations are the gold standard in most manufacturing firms. Everyone wants that technician or assembler – those people who know the ins and outs of your systems because they work in them every day – to have that lightbulb moment and say, “What if we did it this way instead?”

So here’s the question: What are you doing to give your people an opportunity to speak up? How are you empowering them to improve processes? Some outfits do it through big events like a FedEx day or a kaizen activity. Others spend time on the floor with their teams and ask for suggestions. Then there are those who have built the kind of trust that invites their employees to just come to them with their thoughts. An “open door, open mind” policy.

Whatever combination you choose, the point is to let your workers see that you have confidence in them: that you’re willing to try out their ideas. This kind of empowerment will pay off in the form of improved efficiency and reduced errors on your production line.

The big wins for manufacturers usually start with small changes. A tweak here and an adjustment there can create millions of dollars worth of opportunities. To find your way into that game, get your team practicing together, get them talking to you and to each other about the changes you need to make in order to win. Show them that you believe in their potential. Try out their suggestions. Let them play in different positions. Applaud when they score a goal and go back to the drawing board when there’s a miss. It’s all part of the same game, and while “fairy-tale” might not be the right word, the victory will still be there.

Introduction to Culture Process Improvement

Introduction to Culture Process Improvement

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Make Process Improvement Stick by Re-Thinking “Change Management”

Culture Process Improvement - featured

There is a distinct difference between change management and change leadership.

We often hear stories from organizations who have embraced process improvement (and we certainly have our own), and many of the stories follow the same plot line: upper management sees how identifying and eliminating waste will benefit their people, their customers, and their bottom line.

They teach their staff the 8 Deadly Wastes and explain how process improvement will make people’s lives easier. Employees are willing to give this “lean” approach a try, and small efforts start to produce wins in some areas. Everyone pats each other on the back, and 4 months later those wins have evaporated and it’s back to square one.

Implementing actual change in any organization – whether it’s your business, your family, your community – takes prolonged effort and commitment from the people who have influence.  In other words, change takes leadership, and we often make the mistake that managing change and leading change are the same thing. They aren’t, and here’s how they’re different:

Change Management vs Change Leadership chart

 

Here’s the takeaway: implementing process improvement or lean management techniques needs to be a systemic change if it’s going to stick, and that means that change leadership, not change management, will be what’s required.

business handshake

Here are 4 key questions you need to (clearly and articulately) answer to start establishing yourself as a process improvement leader:

1)  What will process improvement do for my organization?
2)  What 3 things will I need to do differently in order to get better in my role as a change leader?
3)  In 3 areas of my organization, how will process improvement actually look once it’s implemented?
4)  What difference will improving processes make in the lives of employees and customers?

 

“For companies to change, we need to stop thinking like mechanics and to start acting like gardeners.”

— Alan M. Webber

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Professional Services: Motion

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Professional Services: Motion

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Nurse wearing rubber gloves, surgical mask and protective glasses

Healthcare is a famously motion-intense industry, with entire spin-off industries of comfortable shoes springing up to service the nurses, doctors, and support staff who are always on the move. Your clinic may not be as big as a hospital, but the same rules of motion apply.

Like all process improvement, communication is key. Ask your people their ideas and genuinely listen when they offer them. Their idea could save you money and, even if it doesn’t, the fact that they’re taking the effort to tell you is a sign that you’re on the right track.

 

Where’s your Equipment:

Motion waste is infuriating because it’s so preventable and often comes down to sloppily misplaced items. While the most commonly used items, like tongue depressors, are typically kept in every room, less common items are stored centrally.

Make sure your storage is centralized and organized. For example, if the only pencil available is misplaced or left in an examination room, it could take staff a lot of wandering time to find it. On top of motion waste, this also compounds waiting waste for the other involved staff and the patient, and potentially for subsequent patients.

 

Everything in its Place:

5S is the pillar of Lean best designed to tackle motion waste. It’s a disciplined approach to making sure there’s a place for everything and everything in its place. It also stresses cleanliness and ongoing equipment maintenance, which is universally helpful, even in clinics wherein there are strict best practices.

 

Procedure Prep:

A little motion waste in a process is multiplied by the number of times per day, per week, and per year, repetitively. When you start your process improvement strategy, the most common processes are the lowest hanging fruit to look at for waste.

Clinics perform multiple minor surgeries a day, and each of them requires equipment assembly. This typically can take around 10 minutes, which can then trickle down into waiting waste for patients and other staff.

If your clinic reliably performs that same surgery, consider preparing sterile packs of the most basic items ahead of time. This can save time for the procedure and help eliminate staff congestion at the main storage room.

 

surgery tools, stethoscope

Spaghetti Charts:

Clinic staff are always moving. Doctors are hustling between rooms, front end staff are to and from printers, and nurses are pretty much everywhere.

With all the movement happening, motion waste should be low-hanging-fruit if you know where to find it. A Spaghetti chart is a Lean tool that helps pinpoint motion waste. It works like this:

  • Handout out floor maps of the clinic to every staff member, along with a pen and have them write their names on them.
  • Ask them to scribble down everywhere they walk throughout the day, with a line connecting the “here” and “there.”
  • Afterward, take some time to sit down with each staff member and chat openly about their travels throughout the day.
  • Look for routes that are repeated often and are longer than they should be. Are desk staff having to walk 100 feet repeatedly to the only printer? Is the only store room on the far side of the clinic?

From the Spaghetti chart, and from honest dialogue with your staff, you should be able to pick some low-hanging motion fruit that will build staff confidence and morale in the process improvement journey.

Spaghetti Chart example

An example of a Spaghetti Chart that helps to reduce the waste on transportation, motion and waiting time.

Let’s Talk Spaghetti from Hahn & Houle LLP on Vimeo.

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Construction: Motion

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Construction: Motion

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Motion is the unnecessary movement of people, and construction sites are full of it. With so much activity, some Motion Waste is unavoidable, but too much can quickly become costly and downright dangerous.

 

Safety:

The most dangerous Motion Waste happens without moving our feet. When a worker needs to bend, reach, or stretch beyond his or her comfort level to perform routine tasks, muscles pull, tendons strain, and balance becomes precarious.

Every year thousands are injured and hundreds die on construction sites and Motion Waste plays a significant part. If workers must routinely pick up something heavy, build an impromptu shelf to keep it at a comfortable level. Listen when people say their required movements are causing discomfort. Ask yourself if there’s a way to fix it and make the necessary adjustments to save the hassle later.

 

Site Congestion:

       Job sites are busy places. Multiple trades-people, inspectors, and managers are all vying for space. Whether it’s dodging each other, bumping into each other, or skipping a portion of a job because it’s too busy, saying they’ll come back later, it’s all Waste.

Try to space people out across the site. If everyone is on the North end, move some to the South. It sounds like common sense, but when deadlines loom and our heads are in the job, it’s easy to miss the small stuff.

 

Where Are the Tools?:

How often does a worker spend wandering around, looking for a tool that should be at hand? Or worse, going back to the truck or shop for something missing?

5S, the pillar of Lean emphasizing proper equipment care and placement, offers excellent guidance for businesses who can’t find the hammer. It sounds laughable, but those 3-minute stretches looking, really start to matter when they accumulate by the dozens and hundreds.

construction motion waste

Tips:

       Here are some low-hanging Motion Waste fruit that can add up to big savings:

  • Don’t Park in the Mud: Dirty tires driving across a worksite means someone needs to clean it up at the end of the day. Keeping a clean site means less time cleaning the site.
  • Organize the Permit Box: When papers are all stuffed in, you risk the next person pulling them all out. Create slots and require people to take an extra second not to “stuff-and-crinkle.”
  • Don’t Be a Litterbug: When people leave wood scraps, nails, bits of pipe, water bottles, and lunch wrappers lying around, it often means that someone needs to clean up after you. Clean up after yourself.
  • Start With What You Need: Make sure the starting packet that goes to your team is complete. If it’s not, people will be running around, assembling documents, instead of getting to work.
  • Blueprints and Vital Documents: Most projects have a few key documents that everything hinges on, like blueprints, which are vital to the job’s success. They’re also the same pages we spill coffee on, leave in the sun to fade, the rain to get soaked, and stuff behind the seat of the truck. When we can’t read them anymore, we need to print new ones, leading to a few different Wastes, stacking up into a real headache. Take care of your blueprints!
How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Motion

How to Reduce Deadly Waste in Manufacturing: Motion

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Your job is to create. You get a set price for what you create and how much of that goes into the bank is up to you.

Motion Waste is the unnecessary movement of people (as opposed to products, which is Transportation Waste). This Waste’s most obvious casualty is time, but it can lead to serious health concerns, as well.

 

Motion Waste Origins:

In the late 1880s, a young bricklayer’s helper, named Frank Gilbreth, noticed something that bugged him. Having to bend over repeatedly during the day to pick up bricks, the layers were suffering from sore backs, which reduced productivity over time.

Gilbreth developed a multi-layer scaffold so bricks were always in easy reach. Productivity increased, and he become an efficiency expert who’s still being studied today.

 

Count your Steps:

Every smartphone comes with a built-in pedometer, so let’s use it. Walk through your assembly process step-by-step, recording how long each part of your process takes. Like all process improvement, this isn’t something you can do from the corner office. Change happens on “the floor.”

Now, which steps could be removed? When did you have to walk to get something, turn something on, reset something, or move a material into position? Think outside the box on how to make it more efficient. Move the worker to a better spot, create some at-hand storage, or revisit procedures so everyone is performing tasks closest to their area.

motion waste is also known as transportation waste

Lifting and Bending:

The most insidious Motion Waste happens when our feet aren’t moving. Fetching heavy objects from high or low shelves, having to reach repeatedly beyond our comfort, or needing to bend and contort as part of an everyday process are all long term drains on our physical resources.

Back pain, soreness, and other bodily ailments will lead to decreased productivity at best and lawsuits at worst. They drain morale and make people think less of working for you, but are often easily avoided.

If the process involves a heavy product, put it on an arm-height shelf to avoid bending. If the product is light and needs no extra effort to be lifted, put it on the floor.

The Equation:

Yes, there’s math involved. The more repetitive a process is, the more each saved step is worth. McDonalds invests big money to save a step in their Big Mac Combo process because it’s repeated umpteen times a day.

If you haven’t focused on Motion Waste before, there will be plenty of low-hanging fruit to start with. Chances are, with little searching, you’ll be able to tighten up a lot of processes before you have to start thinking about moving machinery around and changing production floor workflows.

5S:

When you walk into a shop and see an outline on the wall where a hammer should be: that’s 5S. It’s a pillar of Lean that’s invaluable in tightening Motion Waste.

The premise is simple: keep equipment clean, in good order, and its place. One thing that your step-counter won’t tell you is how much time per day your team spends wandering around looking for that very hammer.