bringing order out of chaos...lean concept: define value from your customer’s perspective....

16th LCI Congress | San Francisco, CA | October 7-10, 2014

Bringing Order out of ChaosHow architects can use simple Lean concepts to double the project team’s

productivity and maximize client satisfaction

Susan Pratt [email protected]


AEC Labor Productivity vs Other Non-Farm Industries

Source of graph: Census Bureau, BLS

• In 1964: If a building takes 1,000 hours to build…

• In 1998: the building should take 552 hours to build

(If productivity gains = to other industries)

• In 1998: Building actually takes 1,185 hours to build

Meanwhile….

• In the same 30 years, auto manufacturers reduced

the Concept to Production Cycle from 6 Years to 14

Months (Center for Integrated Facility Engineering – Stanford)


Value Added Activity – Would the Client Pay for It?

What the manual “says” we are doing

What we are actually doing

What we should be doing


Value Stream Mapping and Standard Work

Susan Pratt [email protected]


The 8 Wastes of Lean

Waiting

Overproduction

Rework

Motion

Processing

Inventory

Intellect

Transportation

Standard Work

Standard Work

Standard Work

T I M E

PR

OC

ES

S IM

PR

OV

EM

EN

T


Metrics – Making the Rocks Visible

“What counts is what gets measured, and what's measured is what counts.”

• How much Rework regularly occurs? Due to

What? How much overtime is required?

• How often do delays and disruption occur?

Why?

• Can your people find the information they

need when they need it?

• How many problems in Construction

Administration could have been avoided? How

many RFIs and COs are issued? Why?

No Metrics = No Improvement!


When asked how he would spend his time if he was given an hour to solve a thorny problem, Einstein said he’d “spend 55 minutes defining the problem and alternatives, and 5 minutes solving it.”

Planning: 70% of Project Costs are Determined in the first 10% of Design Efforts

The Secret to Project Success


Team Alignment

Spinal Cord Injuries: Project Team as Living Organism

• Management and design is severed from technical staff

on the front lines

• How do you gather and communicate relevant data to all

parts of this living organism (the team)?

• Push decision-making responsibility as far down the line

as possible (Last Planner System, etc.)

• Project Managers must grow a nervous system between

the “head” and the body. How do we collaborate as a

living organism, not a collection of dissected body parts?


Team Alignment

Turf Wars

● Drive for efficiency and risk avoidance creates specialization, which in turn creates “tribal” mentality

● Architects avoid price and engineering risk. Engineers avoid price risk. Contractors avoid design risk. Sub contractors are absent. Owners are caught in the middle

● Eliminate the waterfall approach. Optimize the whole

The Architect and the Contractor “Discuss the Situation”


Team Alignment

Scope: 50% of planning problems are due to unclear definitions of scope and goals

● Project Objective

● Deliverables

● Milestones

● Technical Requirements

● Limits and Exclusions

Best Laid Plans – Stakeholders and Scope


Team Alignment

Stakeholders: Who are They and What do They Want?

● Customer groups

● End users

● Community

● Agencies Having Jurisdiction

Best Laid Plans – Stakeholders and Scope


Team Alignment

Risk: Stealth Team-Building Exercise

● Brainstorm possible risks with all stakeholders

● Determine Impact and Probability

● Create Risk Management Plan

Best Laid Plans – Risk Analysis


Team Alignment

● Turn Risk factors into Conditions for Success

● Use mitigation strategies and contingencies as discussion points

● List Conditions of Satisfaction per Stakeholder

Best Laid Plans – Conditions of Satisfaction

“An explicit description by a Customer

of all the actual requirements that must

be satisfied by the Performer in order for

the Customer to feel that he or she

received exactly what was wanted.”

(Turner)


Hypothetical: Raising Productivity from 40% to 80%(And this is just the architect! What savings could the whole team achieve?)


Susan Pratt, AIA, LEED AP, PMP

Pratt Architecture and Management

[email protected]

www.PrattAandM.com

303.656.9532

Thank you!

Susan Pratt Sueliz_

mailto:[email protected]

16th LCI Congress | San Francisco, CA | October 7-10, 2014 Oscia Wilson [email protected]

Reinventing design deliverables for small IPD & Lean projects

What if our documents were actually useful to the builders?



Lean concept: Define value from your customer’s perspective. Builders are our customers too!

There a lots of different ways to do this. Which ways

are easier to follow? Less mistake-prone?

Is it better to have a complex tag and fewer partition

details or a simpler tag and more partition details?



So it dawned on us: We should just ask our customers.



So we began talking with 9 different people from three General Contracting

firms we work with to discuss how our deliverables can provide more value.



It turns out builders and architects have totally different ideas of how to do dimension strings.

This is how architects are taught This is what the builders wanted.

4’-4”



It turns out builders and architects have totally different ideas of how to do dimension strings.

4’-4” (+/- 1”)

This is the compromise we agreed on.



How does this change when builders are pricing at the beginning of design instead of the end?



If the conceptual design package is the pricing/bidding package, what does the reinvented concept package

look like?

We agreed it needs to have these things:

1. Code analysis

2. Scope narrative

3. Precedent photos of other projects

4. Floor plan and Reflected Ceiling Plan

5. 3D Sketches of anything hard to understand

6. Photos of existing space

7. Notes about scope and any unusual elements that affect pricing

8. Level of quality for finishes and systems controls



The builders said it would be ideal if it were all compiled onto as few sheets as possible.



We also agreed: Client, designer, and builders need to develop a common short-hand

understanding of level of quality for finishes and systems controls



Another thing we learned: The whole idea of “deliverables” as a package we hand to someone else starts to become

obsolete with Lean and/or IPD.

To facilitate real-time communication between owners, designers, and builders, we need to view deliverables as constant,

small internal commitments. The ends of phases are really just moments in time to gather around the table and reach

consensus on freezing certain elements.



What about BIM? How do we facilitate constant communication during the design phases amongst the team?

Some construction firms doing small projects are BIM-savvy. Most aren’t.

In either case, we find that a full-size printed set is appropriate for a group page turning at the end of SD, DD, and

CD’s.

When they are BIM-savvy, we share our BIM with them in real-time on a cloud server.

When they aren’t, we will begin posting screenshots of our model progress with our weekly project update posts.



Is that all you learned?! Surely you can do better than that.

We are taking imperfect steps forward and continuously improving.

We’d love to hear from you.

www.BoiledArchitecture.com

[email protected]

P.S. Don’t forget the shameless plug for the book!

http://www.BoiledArchitecture.com

mailto:[email protected]

bringing order out of chaos...lean concept: define value from your customer’s perspective....

Documents