Work-Arounds in Haiti

A good friend of mine, Mike Wnek (pictured above), was down in Haiti shortly after the devastating earthquake hit there on January 12, 2010. His story was well-documented in the news (click here, here, and here), as he and his contingent were one of the first groups to deliver desperately needed food and water to the ravaged city of Port-Au-Prince.

While tons and tons of supplies and resources were being bogged down at the airport in Port-Au-Prince or being re-routed to neighboring nations, Mr. Wnek was riding shotgun on a rented truck as his group made their way from the Dominican Republic to the Haitian capital with a truckload of survival supplies. Only their courage and resourcefulness made it possible for them to successfully complete their voyages across Hispaniola. Their actions were truly remarkable.

Once I had time to reflect on what my friend and his group had done, I began to assess their actions in an objective way (this is easier said than done when people are performing heroic deeds to save lives). Once I had assessed their actions from a business perspective, I realized that they had made great use of one of the all-time most frequently used tactics--the work-around.

Work-Arounds

Pretty much anybody who has ever worked in an organization has had to resort to work-arounds to get things done. Work-arounds are informal, alternate methods for completing work that frequently arise in response to ineffective formal work processes. Basically, whenever doing work the normal way is just not practical, we resort to the path of least resistance.

Folks in the the Lean world understand this concept all too well, as the presence of work-arounds is one of the best indicators of poor process flow. Sometimes a process is unreliable, thus requiring an expert to babysit the work. Sometimes there is too much buffer between processes, thus requiring an expediter to push the work to the front of the line. There is no limit to how many work-arounds we might find in a workplace.

Work-Arounds on Projects

On projects, every bit of the work might be completed through work-arounds. This is quite common in organizations that are not organized for project work. These types of organizations typically feature a traditional vertical hierarchy, and are usually geared for only ongoing operations, not temporary projects.

The unfortunate soul who is assigned to lead a project in this type of organization usually has to navigate a byzantine web of work-arounds cutting across several vertical silos to get anything accomplished. This sounds a lot like what my friend, Mike Wnek, had to do in Haiti.

Quick Fix in Haiti

When it became apparent that the most obvious needs of the earthquake survivors, food and water, were not being met by the official agencies in charge of the relief effort, Mr. Wnek and his group immediately constructed a makeshift work-around to get aid flowing. They went to small grocery shops in the Dominican Republic and bought their entire stocks of food and water, and then proceeded overland to deliver the goods.

Forget the airport. Forget the air drops. Forget bureaucracy. Forget red-tape. Just get food and water to the survivors! This was a classic example of the use of work-arounds, albeit in a highly remarkable context.

Learning from Haiti

Why did my friend and his group have to resort to these desperate work-arounds? Why didn't the aid start flowing into Port-Au-Prince sooner from big relief agencies? Why did the focus early on seem to be on riot control instead of the delivery of survival resources? Why were evacuation efforts diverted? Why was the airport bogged down? Lots of questions.

If we can say that disaster relief efforts are a form of project, then we can probably deduce that many of the same factors that we see on everyday projects are in play on relief efforts as well. Maybe we have vertical silos that aren't communicating with each other. Maybe decision-making is not being made by the people who understand the situation on the ground. Maybe not enough contingency planning had been performed (there is no time to plan a relief effort after the fact). Many factors could have contributed to the delays in Haiti, but there's no way to completely understand the situation from afar. Maybe an expert in large-scale project management will someday publish a case study on the response to the Haitian catastrophe.

Moving Forward

Understanding the lessons learned from Haiti is critical. Without it, we are doomed to repeat the failures of Haiti, Katrina, and elsewhere. But we can not blame individuals! The people working on disaster response projects deserve our respect and appreciation. Just as on everyday projects, the system is usually the culprit, not the individuals. We need to have better project delivery systems in place to support the efforts of individuals.

If we don't improve our systems, we better pray that we never find ourselves in the middle of a natural disaster. After all, there are only so many people like Mike Wnek who have the ingenuity and courage to establish a lifesaving work-around supply chain in a disaster zone. Do you want to rely on heroics?

3 Lean Tools for Improving Construction Reliability

The Opportunity

“Let me get this straight, you think we should reduce our inventory of cabinets? That’s our safety buffer! What are we supposed to do when the hot glue machine breaks down again and we can’t build cabinets, huh? We gotta have a buffer.”

That was the reaction I got from a construction manager upon hearing my suggestion that he winnow down his inventory of finished cabinets (this was on a construction project where the cabinets were being prefabricated nearby). His response was valid, but so was my suggestion.

From my perspective, I saw several problems with the excess inventory—problems that are usually associated with this form of waste: finished cabinets were getting damaged as they sat around, they were often in the way of installers working in the building, and they were even creating a trip hazard for any passersby. It was not pretty.

From the perspective of the construction manager, he saw any reduction in cabinet inventory as a risk to the project schedule. His point was that if he eliminated his safety buffer, the unreliability of the cabinet-building process could cause cabinet production to halt, and potentially cause construction delays. Not only did the cabinet shop folks have problems with the hot glue machine, but they were also dealing with a whole host of other issues that created variation in process results: untrained cabinet builders, a messy workshop, conflicting production schedules, etc. Again, it was not pretty.

The Lean Approach

So, what to do? What would you, as a lean thinker, do to create more reliability in the cabinet-building process? I’m certainly not an expert in the lean methodology, but I have seen some practical lean tools applied to construction processes that have yielded improved levels of process stability. Here are 3 of my favorite such tools:

1. Tool # 1—5S Visual Workplace

We all know about 5S by now, I’m sure (check out JC’s excellent blog post). It’s a fantastic tool that can really help us create visual control of the workplace, so that we can spot abnormalities quickly. This would help reduce variation in the cabinet shop by reducing time wasted looking for tools and materials, as well as by eliminating the chance for a lost-time work accident by removing safety hazards from the workspace. This would no doubt help improve the stability of any construction process.

Construction Industry Particulars...

However, applying 5S to a construction site is a bit different than in a traditional workplace. The main difference is that construction projects are temporary in nature, while ongoing operations tend to be a little more permanent (although a wise strategy would be to design the workplace to be flexible enough to change with the times). This means that a 5S process designed for construction sites would need to be able to be implemented during a short ramp-up period, flexible enough to accommodate multiple stages of construction, and exceptionally easy to understand for those random people that tend to visit construction sites (inspectors, salespeople, etc.).

What other barriers exist to using 5S in construction?

2. Tool #2—Preventive Maintenance

Just like factory workers depend on conveyor belts, press machines, and welding robots, construction workers depend on their ladders, generators, and hand-tools. Unlike lean factory workers, most construction workers do not perform much preventive maintenance for their equipment. Often, equipment is just loaded up at the end of a long work day and tossed in the work truck. Worse yet, construction equipment is often exposed to Mother Nature in ways that most industrial equipment is not. This leads to a ton of equipment failures that slow down our construction processes, much like the hot glue machine did for our cabinet shop. A great approach for mitigating this source of variation is to implement basic Preventive Maintenance (PM) procedures.

Construction Industry Particulars...

PM is not a difficult concept to explain, but a frustratingly difficult tool to implement in the construction industry. This probably has more to do with bad habits than anything, so the big challenge is creating a work culture than encourages good habits. Instead of making it a habit to knock off work at the last second before the sun sets (which leaves little time for Preventive Maintenance), we should build-in time to inspect and repair our equipment. Instead of making it a habit to drag equipment on the ground, we should make sure that our people have better ways of transporting heavy items. Bad habits are hard to break, but the benefits of having reliable equipment far outweigh the costs of making a cultural change.

Do you think it would be too hard to get buy-in for PM based on your experience?

3. Tool #3—Job Instruction

Job Instruction (JI) is another great tool for improving process reliability. With construction processes, a lot of variation comes in the form of different techniques being used by different installers. Often, you can observe two installers building cabinets in four different ways. This is not good for consistency.

JI helps mitigate this source of variation by providing us with an effective approach to teaching standardized processes. Once we have established a set of best practices for cabinet building, we can incorporate them into a job sequence that can be taught using the Job Instruction method. This is a great tool for training new installers and cross-training veteran installers. By properly training our people, we can reduce variation between installers and greatly reduce the chance of human-related errors occurring.

Construction Industry Particulars...

The difficulty of implementing JI in the construction industry is that quite often the work is being done by sub-contractors who are not always amenable to being trained. Their business relies on having a reputation for knowing how to do good work, so nobody wants to submit to training, as that is an indication that they are still learning how to do good work. This is a huge cultural, systemic issue in the construction industry.

One way to overcome this barrier is to take the Toyota Way approach of investing in long-term suppliers. Choose sub-contractors who are open to long-term learning and partnership. Provide them with training on how to perform JI, and let them become their own trainers. Work together to develop the standard job sequences that are being taught. Include JI as part of the statement of work for the contract. Think long-term.

Do you foresee construction managers allocating time for JI?

Reflection

The three tools listed above are just a few of the many available in a lean construction manager’s toolbox. What other tools might you recommend for our cabinet shop? Do you think the tools I listed are appropriate given the situation I’ve described in the cabinet shop?

Of course, the particular tool chosen is not what’s important; it’s the thought process that counts. The thought process should be to look for barriers to creating better process reliability, and then pick the right tool to address those barriers.

Eventually, as we stabilize individual processes, we can begin to reduce our buffers and improve the flow between processes. This leads to problems being surfaced more easily, and to waste being systematically eliminated from our processes.

In the case of the cabinet-building process, if we were to implement 5S, Preventive Maintenance, Job Instruction, and other appropriate tools, we should see an improvement in process reliability. This would allow us to lower our inventory of finished cabinets at the job site, which would in turn eliminate the wastes associated with excessive inventory. This would lead to what we all lean thinkers want—better results.

Do you agree with my hypothesis? Do you have an alternative approach?

Technology is Cool, Collaboration is Better

When it comes to utilizing technology in the construction business, I'm a little ambivalent. On the one hand, I consider myself an early adopter of technology (for a construction guy anyways) who can't have enough Google apps and online social networking tools. On the other hand, I'm a firm believer in the Toyota Way principle of "Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes." I'll often get all excited about some new project management software, only to be reminded that many of my project stakeholders don't have work computers or aren't too proficient at using even basic software. It's a major barrier that we must overcome in the construction industry, because there are some technology tools that could serve our people and processes well.

While this technology barrier won't be eliminated in the short-term, I still plan on utilizing technology tools whenever and wherever I can on my projects. For example, one tool in the pipeline that I'm really excited about is Google Wave. If you haven't heard anything about it yet, you can check out this long demo video here or a good assessment from a construction industry perspective here.

I really think that Wave can be a powerful means of developing project knowledge and building consensus among the project stakeholders. While I love the technology, it's the focus on collaboration that really appeals to me, not the tool itself. Even if I can never convince any project stakeholders to get on-board with Wave or other tech tools, the focus on collaboration can still be a constant part of the projects I manage.

By that, I specifically mean that I can treat project planning as a collaborative activity. If you think about it, building a project plan is nothing more than building a common base of knowledge and agreement that all project stakeholders can refer to throughout the project. The project plan is the standard by which the project will be managed, and as with any standard, the people involved with the work must lead its development. This is why Google Wave has the potential to be a powerful collaboration tool; it efficiently allows anybody we designate to contribute to the knowledge base and have a say in the project planning process, real-time and with rich multimedia communication. It's an awesome tool!

That being said, Wave is by no means the only collaboration tactic available to us. If we have folks with limited tech skills, as we often do in the construction industry, we can always fall back on more low-tech solutions. A face-to-face meeting, properly facilitated, is still an excellent approach. Regardless, the format is not what's most important; it's the end result that matters.

So, while I'm all for the construction industry shedding its Luddite past, and even though I'm tremendously excited about Google Wave, I think it's much more important for us to first start seeing collaborative project planning as a "must-have," not a "nice-to-have" element of construction management. While some folks, like proponents of the Last Planner system, have been actively promoting collaborative construction management methods for years now, a huge majority of builders still defer to the old-school "boss man" archetype. This has to change. No amount of technology will be enough if we fail to make this philosophical leap to collaborative planning.

Eliminating Tunnel Vision

One of the most overused sayings is "Don't miss the forest for the trees." While it may be an annoying cliche at this point, we in the construction industry would do well to remember it as we manage our projects. I say this because I've found that construction project managers, including myself, often get so caught up in the technical construction requirements that we miss the overall conditions that must be met before we can call our project a success. In other words, we focus too much on assembling buildings and not enough on managing projects.

Typical construction industry approach...

When you put a bunch of veteran construction managers and superintendents in a room to discuss an upcoming project, the focus of the conversation is almost always on the specifics of the construction work. Rarely is the focus on the project management activities that must occur in order to bring the project in on-time, under-budget, within scope, and with good quality. Construction folks are typically really good at envisioning the construction deliverables that are required to assemble a building; however, they're usually not so good at envisioning the administrative deliverables that are required to successfully complete a project. Why is this?

Well, many construction project managers have solid backgrounds in construction (as installers, superintendents, engineers, etc.), but oftentimes have much less knowledge of standard project management best practices, such as Scope Management. For this reason, a lot of administrative-type deliverables are unaccounted for on construction projects. This is a huge risk!

Failure to deliver on any project requirement can cause huge problems. For example, if we fail to plan for team-building activities, our project group will probably have difficulties becoming a high-functioning project team. If we fail to plan for stakeholder communication, we can have all sorts of misunderstandings and overreactions. If we fail to plan for collaborative scheduling sessions, we can have wildly inaccurate schedule updates. None of these activities are directly related to assembling a building, but are just as critical to the overall success of a project as pouring a level foundation, framing a square wall, or setting sturdy trusses.

So, how do we go about doing a better job of meeting all project deliverables?

The Lean approach...

First, we need to get good at hearing the Voice of the Customer (VOC). The VOC is a central element of Lean thinking, and hearing it is a talent than all Lean thinkers must acquire. One of the best commonsense strategies for hearing the VOC is to get out of the office and go talk to your project stakeholders. We shouldn't try to predict our stakeholders' needs; we should just ask them! We shouldn't try to be the know-it-all construction manager; we should be the facilitator for communication. We don't have all the answers, but we can get them easily by just listening to our stakeholders.

Second, we need to get good at performing Scope Management planning. This is a standard part of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), so it's nothing new to professional project managers; but, it may be somewhat foreign to traditional construction project managers. The good news is that Scope Management planning is not all that complicated. The PMBOK guides will take you through the details, but it boils down to defining the project scope, breaking it down into manageable pieces, and having a gameplan for adjusting the project scope as necessary throughout the course of a project. By going through these steps, we develop a Project Baseline that we can use to ensure that we're delivering on our stakeholder requirements.

So, hearing the VOC is the social skill that we must learn, while performing Scope Management planning is the technical skill we must learn in order to eliminate tunnel vision. By eliminating tunnel vision, we are no longer blind to all the project deliverables that we might otherwise ignore. Ignoring stakeholder requirements is a big reason why the construction industry is infamous for being unreliable and disagreeable to work with, and is a construction management practice that must end. If we as construction project managers can learn to hear our stakeholders and properly plan for managing the project scope, we can fulfill all the project deliverables, not just those related to slapping a building together.

Defining the Lean Project Manager

I've met some good project managers, and some bad project managers. I think we all have. I've met some project managers who know a thing or two about lean thinking, and some who have never and will never make any attempt to learn about it. For the most part, I think the project management body of knowledge lacks a lot in terms of being a lean methodology, so it's natural for most project managers to lack knowledge of lean principles. The same goes for most types of managers. For lean project management to spread, we need to develop PM's who display the attributes and behaviors of a lean thinker.

So, what makes a Lean Project Manager?

While I've yet to achieve a level of understanding sufficient to call myself a Lean Project Manager, I do have some thoughts on the attributes that I need to attain to become one some day. Here goes:

1. Communicator...This doesn't apply just to lean project managers; this is a prerequisite for all project managers. Written or verbal, formal or informal, one-on-one or in front of a group; PM's have to be able to communicate.
2. Learner...This is also sort of inherent in the project management profession. Because we can be leading projects across a wide range of fields, we have to be quick learners if we want to be able to understand what our subject-matter experts are saying. We don't have to be experts in every field, but we have to be able to understand enough to manage the projects. Lean PM's take it to another level. A true Lean PM will make continuous learning a standard part of their work, not something to do in their spare time or accidentally. Establishing goals for self-development and then creating a strategic plan for achieving that goal is Lean PM behavior.
3. Socratic Teacher...I think this is a big departure from standard project management. Most PM's tend to focus on solving problems as quick as possible, and don't take the time to use problems as learning opportunities. The Lean PM is always looking for learning moments with his project team. These moments don't occur in classrooms, but out where the work is being performed. The Lean PM doesn't teach by telling team members why problems occurred and how to fix them, but by asking elegant, insightful questions that force the team members to develop a strong understanding of the problem at hand. By doing this, the Socratic Teacher not only helps the team identify countermeasures to its problems, but also teaches it to be a self-reliant, self-adapting, problem-solving team.
4. Systems Thinker...Again, this is an area where I think lean project management departs from mainstream project management. Most PM's tend to view projects as discrete packets of work that can be scheduled, delegated, measured, and completed by individuals or teams. The strong emphasis on the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) as the primary planning tool is evidence of the way the project management community views work production. In the manufacturing operations world, ERP systems kind of perform the same function. This view on operations management stems from an erroneous assumption that a top-down push planning approach is capable of accurately predicting how the work will flow. A Lean PM does not try to control work through top-down planning. A Lean PM thinks in terms of self-sufficient systems that can rapidly adapt to the constantly changing conditions on the ground. The people closest to the work have the best shot at predicting the work flow, so Lean PM's focus on creating systems composed of well-trained, capable people performing well-refined, stable processes.
5. Experimenter...Even well-oiled machines can become obsolete. For that reason, Lean PM's need to constantly tinker with their systems and encourage their team members to do the same. Every aspect of the project should be fair game. Will every idea be feasible? No. Will every feasible idea get implemented before the project is complete? No. Is this is a problem? Not at all. Just the simple act of proposing a mundane suggestion has a beneficial effect on the project team. It's exercise for the brain. Following standard processes for completing project work is efficient, but can be deflating for team members if they're not empowered to propose ideas for improvement. If the PM is not the Experimenter-In-Chief of the team, team members will not feel as free to make suggestions.
6. Gemba Walker...Some traditional PM's will have big problems with this one. With the proliferation of powerful, easy-to-use IT solutions for project management, PM's are tempted to run the show through their computers, and not where the real work is being performed. The problem with this is that PM software only shows an abstract representation of the status of the work, not the actual status of the work. Lean PM's spend a crazy amount of time out at the gemba (the place where the real work is done) observing the work, learning, teaching, experimenting, and communicating. By spending time at the gemba and seeing reality firsthand, Lean PM's can identify waste and problems before they become project killers.
7. Visual Manager...This is related to gemba walking. When we are observing work, we are much more effective if we have visual controls to aid us in understanding irregularities. A line chart is more effective if there's a benchmark line that shows the performance goal. It's much easier to determine whether a garbage can is in the right place if there's a spot marked on the floor showing where it goes. It's much easier to audit a process if a standard work chart is posted visually in the work area. Lean PM's constantly walk the gemba and ask "How do I know if this is right or wrong?" and insist that the status of the work be displayed visually at the workplace. Lean PM's should use the 30-second rule, which says that within 30 seconds a manager should be able to walk into the workplace and understand the status of the work. Then, Lean PM's should insist that information be shared with the entire team, via visual control boards, in order to "create participation through shared information."

These are the behaviors and attributes that I'm trying to incorporate into my practice of project management. I'm sure there are other elements that I'm missing, but I think this is a pretty good start. For the lean thinkers out there, I wonder what characteristics they've observed in PM's that they regard as lean project managers.

Warning: Warranty Service May Induce Violence

You know, we in the construction industry do a darn good job of stressing-out our customers. Have you read Lean Solutions by James P. Womack & Daniel T. Jones? While their previous work, Lean Thinking, discusses the elimination of waste from our value streams, this book focuses on the elimination of waste and frustration endured by our customers in procuring our products/services. Here are the titles of a few chapters from the book: "Don't Waste My Time," "Get Me Exactly What I Want," and "Solve My Problem When I Want." In my experience as both a homeowner and a construction manager, I've yet to see an example of these requirements being consistently met by a builder (especially with respect to performing warranty service work). Ughh.

Typical Construction Industry Approach

We're pretty bad at this. We have to face this reality. Especially in the homebuilding sector, and specifically with home warranty repairs, some builders seem to make a living out of wasting customers' time, getting them something other than what they want, and not solving their problems when they want want. If you've ever bought a home with a builder warranty, you probably know what I'm talking about. These are just some of the difficulties I've personally encountered with getting my home serviced:

• -Sub didn't show up
• -Sub showed up extremely late
• -Sub showed up without the proper materials
• -Sub showed up on unscheduled or unconfirmed dates when nobody was home
• -Nobody cleaned up the mess caused by the repairs
• -The repair didn't actually fix the problem
• -Sub needed 4 days advanced notice to schedule an appointment
• -Sub only provides service during normal business hours
• -Sub had to wait for approval from the builder
• -Builder pulled the sub off of my repair to work on new construction
• -Builder didn't inform the sub of the full extent of the repair

Like I said, these are just some of the problems I've encountered. Also, that list doesn't take into account all the problems that I've created for other customers in my former role as a construction manager for residential work. This is definitely an example of the pot calling the kettle black! I accept my mistakes, but I can't accept not doing anything to improve the way we handle warranty service.

The Lean Approach

So, lean thinker, what would you do differently if you were a construction manager? And you can't say "find another job." Here are some thoughts:

• 1) Eliminate Defects...This is a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but we should begin by eliminating the root cause of warranty service--poor quality. Fewer defects lead to better quality, so we should use all the lean tools at our disposal to eliminate defects: standard work, job instruction, job methods, poka-yoke, visual management, etc.
• 2) Hassle-Free Warranty Service...Since even Toyota can't achieve perfect quality, we must have a good warranty service process. This should be hassle-free for the customer. A big part of this is getting over the whole "we only set appointments for Monday thru Friday between 9 am and 5 pm, and we can't give you an exact time" mentality. That's just not practical for the typical customer. Most folks can't or don't want to take off several hours during a workday to wait around for a sub that might or might now show up on-time. And most of us don't want to leave strangers in the house alone, so it's not like we can just leave them a key or anything. Smart builders will work around the customer' schedule, which will often mean working on nights and weekends. Might this cost the builder more in the short-term? Absolutely. We'll either have to hire weekend crews or pay our normal crews overtime. We'll have to make our superintendents available over the weekend. This is reality. But, these short-term costs will be far outweighed by the long-term benefits of increased customer satisfaction. How much value would you assign to a customer who enthusiastically touts your customer service to everybody they know?
• 3) One-Piece Flow Warranty Service...In addition to being hassle-free for our customers, warranty service needs to be as productive as possible for the builder. By definition, any work done in response to poor quality is waste. Therefore, we should seek to minimize the amount of resources we have to expend to perform this type of work. As any lean thinker knows, the optimal approach to production is one-piece flow. As I've previously discussed here, we typically "batch" construction work into specialized trades performed by specialty sub-contractors (drywallers, electricians, plumbers, etc.) who strive for local optimization of their scope of work, even at the expense of the overall project. A better way would be to look at warranty repairs holistically, and put together cross-functional teams capable of performing all the work required for a particular repair. When I had a wall repaired at my home, I had to wait for the drywall hanger to tear out the sheetrock, then the framer to replace a stud, then the drywall hanger again to replace the sheetrock, then the drywall finisher to tape, mud, and texture the sheetrock, then the trim guy to replace the base board, and finally the painter to paint the drywall and trim. It took over a month for this to happen, partly because we had to schedule the installations around my work schedule. What a nightmare! This work could have been performed in less than eight hours on a single Saturday had the builder utilized a cross-functional approach.

So, that's my prescription for better warranty service. Use lean tools to eliminate as much of it as you can, make the process hassle-free for the customer by working around their schedule, and minimize the waste for the builder by employing one-piece flow via cross-functional teams. Now, what are the myriad reasons why we can't do this? Old-school thinking? Short-term costs? Tradition? Lack of leadership?

Are those reasons more compelling that the potential of becoming the Toyota of homebuilding?

Give Construction Workers a Break!

When I was a kid growing up in Florida (home of the mighty Gators), I spent every hot, muggy summer working as a roofer for my dad. We tore off old shingle roofs and installed new ones at a frenetic pace. I would often find myself literally running across a roof with a handful of nails or a bundle of shingles. Pretty much on a daily basis I would come close to having a heat stroke (that's what running on a 120+ degree roof will do to you!). I just thought that killing yourself at work was part of the gig. Little did I know that I was experiencing firsthand what Lean thinkers call muri.

Muri is a concept borrowed from the Toyota Production System, and basically means "overburden, unreasonableness, or absurdity" according to Wikipedia. My experiences on those roofs all those years ago were definitely absurd, but not at all rare in the construction industry.

Typical Construction Industry Approach

We routinely ask our installers to perform superhuman feats: working in unbearable heat or in muddy conditions; carrying heavy materials by hand; performing ergonomically unsound installations that contort and strain the body; starting work at sunrise and finishing at sunset; and so on and so forth. This has happened since...well, forever. The excuse usually given is the old "Gotta get the job done come hell or high water!" adage. Or sometimes you get the "When I was young we didn't even take lunch breaks!" diatribe. What they really mean to say is "We have too much waste in our processes, so we make up for it by overburdening our people." or "We don't have faith in continuous improvement as a means for innovation, so we just go with what we've always done." Isn't that sad?

The Lean Approach

How would a lean thinker go about reducing muri on construction sites? As I've stated before, I'm not an expert in the Toyota Production System or Lean Enterprise, but here are some ideas:

• Stand in the Circle...Construction managers should spend almost all their time on the job site, "Standing in the Circle" to deeply observe the work being done. This is different from just "making the rounds" from job site to job site. Being in a single place for an extended period of time exposes the senses to stimuli that we normally ignore, which helps us be more aware of working conditions. Once we are aware of what's happening on a job site, it's harder for us to overlook muri.
• Team-Based Problem Solving...Construction managers should make it part of their everyday job to facilitate team-based problem solving. Make it extremely easy for employees, sub-contractors, inspectors, customers, and anybody else on the job site to make suggestions and have their ideas reviewed. Use a whiteboard posted on the job site to highlight problems that need to be addressed. Support experimentation with new installation techniques or new equipment. If we engage our people, they will tell us about the muri on the job site.
• Manpower Planning...Think long-term when planning for manpower requirements. Scheduling extra manpower to avoid overburdening our people will certainly cost more in the short-term, but will result in tremendous savings over the long-term: reduced injuries leading to reduced WC costs; reduced employee turnover leading to reduced recruiting, hiring, training, and "new-guy" costs; and improved quality leading to reduced re-work costs.
• Safety Planning...In the project safety plan, include provisions for good ergonomics and humane working conditions. Always provide sufficient ramps, scaffolding, ladders, etc. Have established standards for working in adverse weather conditions. Always provide creature comforts close to the job site: drinking water, toilets, hand cleaners, etc. Put a limit on the number of hours per week an installer can perform physical work. Rotate job tasks to avoid repetitive motion injuries.
• Eliminate Waste!!!...Finally, the best way to reduce muri is to eliminate process waste from our work. Waste leads to longer completion times and additional costs, and forces our installers to work harder. If we remove waste, we create a win-win: the project is completed faster and cheaper, and our workers don't have to kill themselves to get the job done. It's obvious, if an installer doesn't have to walk out to the truck every five minutes to grab a tool, he can get the job done easier. If we're not waiting around for an answer from the architect on a change order, we don't have to work nights and weekends to finish the job on-time.

Your thoughts? What's holding us back from doing all that? Old-school thinking? Short-term costs? Tradition? Lack of leadership?

At some point (hopefully sooner rather than later), we need to get past the mentality that work is supposed to be hard. Work should be challenging, but not absurdly so. Work should be engaging (yes, even in the construction industry), not all-consuming. We can get past this historical barrier to operational excellence if we can accept that muri is a problem.

Batch & Queue Construction?

Have you ever been in line at a sandwich shop where the "sandwich artist" was making three sandwiches at a time?  You know, he pulls out three loafs of bread, puts the meat & cheese on all three sandwiches, wraps each of them in deli paper, and hands all three to the clerk at the cash register.  It's happened to me, and I was not amused.  Why?  Because I was first in line out of the three, and I had to wait three times as long to get my sandwich.  Not only that, but I had mine toasted and it was darn near cold by the time I sat down to eat it!  Okay, I'm a little demanding of my eateries, but I can't help it; I'm a lean geek.

What does this have to do with Lean?  It's all about batch-and-queue vs. one-piece flow (click here for a good explanation from the Shmula blog).

The Case for One-Piece Flow

In the lean manufacturing world, the debate on batch-and-queue production vs. one-piece flow production has long since ended (batch-and-queue lost).  Anybody who has studied the Toyota Production System understands the superiority of one-piece flow: reduced inventory, early detection of defects, reduced transportation, more scheduling flexibility, and (most importantly) an increased organizational awareness of the need to solve problems preventively due to the lack of buffers in a single-piece flow.

So, where do we stand with respect to these principles in the construction industry?

Batch & Queue Construction

I've had a difficult time explaining my thoughts on this.  My belief is that in the construction industry, we typically exhibit the traits of a classic batch-and-queue operation, even though we're not technically batching buildings together.  Here are some of the similarities:

1. Work is done by specialized groups (concrete finishers, framers, drywallers, plumbers, electricians, etc.) dedicated to performing a narrow scope of work
2. These specialized groups try to optimize their own operations, even if that means a delay in the completion of a building
   
3. Item #2 above means huge amounts of time are spent waiting for the product to transition from one specialized phase to the next
4. Because of the delays between specialized work phases, the cause & effect trail of defects can go cold, resulting in fewer problems getting solved at the root cause
   
5. There is little collaboration between specialized groups, resulting in less innovation

Hey, lean geeks, does this sound familiar at all?

Lean Construction

So, what is the lean approach to construction?  What could be done to move from a batch & queue approach to a one-piece flow approach?  Do the construction folks think it's even necessary to make this transition in order to achieve operational excellence? Your thoughts?  I certainly don't have all the answers, but here are a few pie-in-the-sky ideas:

1. Create multi-functional work groups, consisting of highly-skilled installers capable of performing a wide range of installations
2. Equip your highly-skilled installers with all the equipment (possibly custom-built equipment) necessary to complete a wide range of installations
3. Utilize visual management to encourage participation through shared information
4. Pre-fab as much as you can inside factories on lean assembly lines

I'm sure that experts like Dr. Michael Mullens with the Housing Constructability Lab or Hal Macomber at Reforming Project Management have a lot more to say about this subject than me, but those are my wild fantasies.  Are they feasible?  Your thoughts?

Short Attention Spans

If you want to see people sleep, just put a bunch of construction folks in a classroom.  We can't help it, but we're just more prone to stay awake when we're building something or pounding a few bottles of Shiner Bock (that's a Texas beer, for those of you having the misfortune of not living in the Lone Star State).  We're just not house-cats, if you know what I mean.  That's why I was happy to come across this article from the incredibly, incredibly, incredibly useful Gemba Pante Rei blog:

"One-point Lesson:  One-point Lesson"

Basically, a one-point lesson is just a quick 5-10 minute learning opportunity focusing on a single topic (either basic knowledge, an improvement example, or a problem example).  I think this is an ideal format for developing people in the construction industry.  On construction sites, we're trained to "stay busy" and move from one task to the next.  With this mentality, we need to have an efficient and focused way of training our associates.

P.S. Be sure to check out the free template that is provided in the "One-Point Lesson" link above; it's a good one.

Old-School Vertical Hierarchies

As the saying goes, I wasn't born in Texas, but I ran here as fast as I could. When I arrived, I found that the Lone Star State produces some fine beer, specifically, Shiner beer...

While I could go on all day about the merits of Shiner Hefeweizen compared to the original Shiner Bock, that's not really the point of the above photo.  What I want to discuss is how folks on large-scale construction jobs view the relationships between the prime contractors, secondary contractors, sub-contractors, and so on.  

Typical Construction Industry Approach

In case you haven't figured it out yet, the construction industry typically views sub-contractor relations like the above photo...with each contractor dominating the one below it and being subservient to the one above it.  An old-school rigid, vertical hierarchy.  This is based on standard construction practice, which typically involves a contractor doling out aspects of the work to sub-contractors.  In this arrangement, the contractor is viewed as the customer and the sub-contractor is viewed as the provider of the product or service.  This is an external customer relationship, and it's repeated over and over again at each level of the hierarchy, so you can have dozens of external customer relationships on a job site.  How fun!  A bunch of people showing "respect" for their boss man above them.  Old school mentality.

The Lean Approach

From a Lean perspective, I would say a collaborative model would be more effective than a rigid vertical hierarchy.  If you've read Gemba Kaizen, then you know about the inverted pyramid that places management below the gemba (the place where the real work is done) in a support role.  Essentially, the gemba is viewed as the internal customer of management, and I would say that prime contractors should view their sub-contractors as their internal customers.  They should support them, not threaten them with punitive actions.  They should identify and solve problems, not pass the buck just because the contract says they can.

Your thoughts?  I'd be interested in learning if other traditional industries are as "old-school" in their relationships with vendors/suppliers.  How would you rank your industry's level of collaboration on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a rigid, vertical arrangement and 10 being a progressive, Gemba Kaizen-like approach?

All I know is that until the construction industry embraces Lean thinking and begins working more collaboratively, we'll be doomed to mindless obedience and endless frustration.  Thank goodness we have beer.