Leaning towards SustainabilityPresentation toChartered Management Institute South London Branchat London South Bank University, 16th February 2011

Andrew KinseySenior Sustainability Manager

Demands on Construction

Nowadays, construction can no longer get by through just delivering the traditional requirements of: Cost Quality Timeliness

Both legislation and society demand a more progressive approach that integrates construction activities with current social trends, such as: Urban regeneration Low carbon approaches in design, construction and building management

In other words, sustainability has become an integral part of the construction process

Sustainability in Construction

A partial list of the legal requirements includes: Health and Safety at Work Act Duty of Care Control of Substances Hazardous to

Health Construction (Design and

Management) Site Waste Management Plans

The list on the right showed the type of activities we also need to take into account – many are beyond legislative requirements

Construction: Facts, Myths and Realities

Fact: Design is paramount with superstar architects creating impossibly beautiful and carbon efficient buildings

Fact: the UK construction industry is concerned about the skills of its workforce

Myth: what you see in architect’s design graphics where the buildings all look shiny with happy people (in ethnically and socially correct ratios)

Myth: the fantastic buildings all work as designed

Reality: fantastic designs are often “revised” through value engineering to cut costs

Reality: plans and drawings are often changed to make them “build-able”

The Construction Process (simplified…)

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Reality Check at the Construction Site

One of the major issues with construction is the level of materials waste

The UK disposes of about 100M tonnes of construction waste each year

Anecdotally, this is about 1 pallet in every 5 delivered to a project site

By dealing with waste effectively, we can bring about sustainability

Cutting Waste in Construction

Using Lean tools to: Design out wasteful process Reduce waste by solving

problems Enable better “Reuse” by more

effective workplace organisation

Recycle more efficiently by better segregation of waste

Minimise amounts to landfill

Bovis Lend Lease: 2 Paths to Sustainability

Specialists and professional sustainability and environment managers deal with various compliance and auditing duties

Provide advice to project managers and teams on what needs to be done

Make sure the necessary training is available

Engage the workforce Make sure the people doing

the work know what is critical to the success of the project

Tap into the workforce’s experience, skills, knowledge and decision-making to cut waste

Introducing

The NoWaste programme is a site-based lean and sustainable construction programme aimed at construction teams, not specialists

Uses lean and six sigma tools to help teams come up with practical solutions to waste issues

Deployed successfully since 2004 at various Bovis Lend Lease projects: 2005 National Green Apple Award winner 2006 Building Magazine Sustainability Award: Waste Initiative of the Year 2007 Construction News reported that NoWaste reduced 25% of site waste 2009 “Most Effective Training” award Olympic Park & Athletes Village

Specifics

Aimed at the construction operatives and supervisors

Takes a construction-site centric approach about construction and waste issues

Looks at issues as the workers see them

Delivered via a cartoon interface…

And Lean / Six Sigma

Lean issues are embedded into the training materials and with no jargon Specific techniques are designed such that they became part of the route

towards solving problems Best demonstrated by the product

The teams are shown a graphic describing a waste situation and they are then guided to associate this with their own work and solve problems

Tools deployed: DMAIC – Six Sigma Quality Fish Bone (Cause/Effect) analysis – Lean Asking Why? (Root Cause) analysis - Lean

Results

Saving Money, Reducing Environmental Impacts £136K over 3 months in waste

disposal costs only (2010)

Motivating People Over 400 people trained (2010) Achieving over 50 NVQ awards

Is Lean Mean?

The alternative to cutting waste is to damage the UK’s economy and its environment

It is much “meaner” to pay that price

Lean may be tough to do, but it is also the right thing to do