BIM + Lean + Green

New Construction Strategies with Ted Garrison Gregory A. Howell is co-founder and managing director of the Lean Construction Institute (LCI), a non-profit organization devoted to production management research in design and construction. Howell brings 35 years of construction industry project management, consulting and university-level teaching experience to LCI. Listen by clicking on play button.

AGC recently released the white paper " Integrated Project Delivery for Public and Private Owners ." Lean Project Delivery is mentioned as a related industry trend. Following is the excerpt from the white paper: "Lean Project Delivery: Another term often used to refer to a form of Integrated Project Delivery is Lean Project Delivery System ™ ( LPDS ), a term developed by the Lean Construction Institute ( LCI ). Many of the principles attributed to Lean Project Delivery are similar to those attributed to IPD . In fact, in this era of evolving terminology, many refer to IPD as ―Lean Project Delivery‖ where the application of ―lean thinking‖ and lean principles are applied throughout the project.Followers of IPD treat lean principles along with the resulting efficiencies and elimination of waste as givens. Followers of lean treat collaboration and the use of technologies as givens. In the end, lean and IPD are both striving for the same ultimate outcome, just two differ...

The psychological framework on which Last Planner System is designed could be explained by looking at the methods Phil Zimbardo and John Boyd recommended in their book " The Time Paradox ." People having Future perspective are reported to be having higher success rates in their lives as compared to extremely present oriented individuals. Finishing the project on time is very critical for both the client and project team in the construction industry. On schedule project delivery and future and past positive orientated people can make a project successful on all dimensions (time,quality,cost,safety etc.). Last Planner System is a tool that makes project team future oriented by embedding reverse phase scheduling, 6-weeks look ahead and weekly work plans in its planning process. This exercises orient the whole team to future and as Zimbardo and Boyd write in the book, project participants' attitudes towards time can be changed, Last Planner can change the time perspectives in...

Last Planner® System (LP®S) reduces uncertainty and brings stability. However, when we put LP S in a problem solving framework we realize that the core of LP®S is based on two problem solving techniques: (1) Root Cause Analysis and (2) GROW model (Goal-Reality-Obstacle/Option-Way forward). During the LP®S use- We set milestones for an activity - We set goal (G) We do the reality (R) check during the brainstorming sessions and look ahead planning We look for obstacles (O) i.e. constraints analysis and find options (O) to deal with the constraints We go ahead and execute the plan that’s our way forward (W) Next we ask "why" five times which is a popular root cause analysis technique LP®S planning protocol can be explained using these two problem solving techniques and they encompass George Pólya's method in "How to solve it?” Pólya suggests the following steps when solving a mathematical problem: 1. First, understand the problem. 2. After understanding, make a ...

I will begin with discussing the history of lean thinking and then discuss the most compelling and promising tools enabling lean thinking. The very concept of lean construction originates from Taichi Ohno's innovative management philosophy - Toyota Production System (TPS). Precisely, the same Toyota Production System is known as "Lean" in western world. Ohno states in his book - Toyota Production System- Beyond Large Scale Production - the two most important building blocks of TPS are Just-In-Time (JIT) and Total Quality Management (TQM). JIT in a layman's words is an approach with the objective of producing the right part in the right place at the right time. And TQM is a management philosophy that seeks to integrate all organizational functions (marketing, finance, design, engineering, and production, customer service, etc.) to focus on meeting customer needs and other organizational objectives. Last Planner® System (LP®S) of production control is a tool based on J...