Construction Project Performance Improvement

Except for the rare “one operation” project, such as a pipeline project, virtually all operations have a predecessor and successor and no one operation can run at a production rate that exceeds the relative speed of its successor or predecessor.  Additionally, projects on which multiple operations are running concurrently have an inherent complexity that increases with each additional crew and supply system.  As projects grow, work area management, the timely completion of predecessor operations and the supply of assembly inputs for individual operations tend to become less reliable and/or predictable. Overcrowding and congestion become common, especially on large projects with accelerated production schedules.  Often this results in individual crews hunting and pecking for places to work as they attempt to complete their work in an ever changing and unreliable production environment.  Clearly improving the performance of the work at the crew level across an entire project with multiple crews is a much greater challenge than reengineering a single operation.

Not long after some early successes with reengineering individual operations, Construction Concepts was invited to provide project performance improvement consulting services on large, fast and uncertain projects such as paper mills, refineries and nuclear and coal fired electrical generating plants. Working with associates such as Hank Parker, Greg Howell, John Borcherding and Glenn Ballard, we soon learned how to expand our scope to improving the performance of projects of this type.  Some of those early successes were featured in an Engineering News Record cover article. Out of that early work were born many of the concepts that are now accepted around the world as a result of the Lean Construction Institute and the leadership of Greg Howell and Glenn Ballard.

Along the way we learned much about the required changes in focus, behavior, skill sets and habits required to bring about real and lasting improvements in project performance and the competence of project leadership teams. In addition to our pioneering work in construction Operation Engineering, we’ve learned to employ the concepts of pull,  shielded production, single piece flow, balanced value stream production planning, assured production planning and control and facilitated collaboration and intervention into a project production system designed specifically for use by self-performing contractors. Today, using customized variations of our Construction Project Production System (CPPS), Construction Concepts provides Construction Project Performance Improvement services on marine, heavy civil and infrastructure projects. We can assist project teams improve their performance on a single, onetime only engagement or on multiple projects as part of a company wide performance improvement enhancement initiative. As with our Operation Engineering services, we do this through a unique combination of programmed teaching and structured experiential learning to accelerate the growth in tacit knowledge and expedite the required changes in focus, behavior, skill sets and habits among project leadership.