Collaborative Planning (Last Planner)
We have been working with Last Planner/Collaborative Planning for the past 20 years. In that time we have established a very good track record in implementing Last Planner on projects and sharing our knowledge through training. Our consultancy teams have led the complete range of implementations – from collaborative workshops on small projects to a complete programme delivery strategy based on Last Planner for major infrastructure projects. As founder members of the Lean Construction Institute UK, we have strong links with LCI in the USA and access to the originators of Last Planner. We follow the development of Last Planner via our academic colleagues at LCI both here and in the States and through membership of user and industry groups. We have been at the forefront of the development of Last Planner in the UK, both through our work with National Highways and through implementation across numerous projects at all stages of development. We’re also leaders in the development of training for Last Planner, delivering learning to National Highways and numerous major UK contractors.
Lean Visual Management
Lean Visual Management (also known as cell boards, control rooms, control boards) is a key tool in our Lean project toolbox. Through a structured design approach, specific to each of our clients and their individual projects teams, we have been helping our clients improve overall team performance through collaboration and helping them to deliver higher performance in Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, Environment and Stakeholder Satisfaction. Lean Visual Management is more than just boards and graphs on the wall, it’s a ‘whole system’ process that takes existing data and transforms this into management information which can then be used to improve project and business processes.
Lean Consultancy Services
We offer a complete range of Lean consultancy services for construction and related businesses. Our combined experience equips us to design and deliver consultancy support for long term whole enterprise Lean transformations at one end of the scale, to one off kick start workshops for minor projects at the other. We can support any stage of your project or any point in the Lean transformation of your business. We are as at home working on projects as we are with corporate processes and issues. In the end, it’s all about the people – we have the knowledge and experience to work with installers and directors and we are as comfortable on site as we are in the boardroom.
Like all good consultants:
• we focus on the customer
• we offer value for money
• we like to work at pace
• we operate as catalysts
Lean Transformation - Policy Strategy Deployment
We have a proven track record of successfully helping to design and deploy lean strategies across a range of different sized organisations, from public sector bodies, major construction programmes and with main contractor and consultancy firms. We can help our clients on this transformational journey using our Lean Route Map to guide the way and Policy Deployment to maintain momentum and direction.
Value Stream Mapping
In the context of the construction industry, Value Stream Mapping is a method used to improve individual business processes that support projects, such as contracts management, procurement, Payroll and HR. It can be much more effective when used to view an entire value stream, e.g. from the inception of a project, through to completion and handover. Value Stream Mapping helps us to ‘Learn to See’ where there is Waste in the delivery process and then work to eliminate this, which saves time and money for our clients.
Lean Practitioner Training
The FLITe programme (Focused Lean Improvement Techniques) is a hands on Lean Practitioner course, delivered in a practical ‘on site’ environment. Originally developed with Skanska to target improvement opportunities in the construction process, the FLITe programme is now widely used throughout the civils industry. Over the past four years, over 300 candidates have completed the course, generating millions of pounds in efficiencies and improvement. They’ve come from multiple disciplines and many organisations, contractors and subcontractors with over 95% scoring FLITe either excellent or good across a range of measures.
Download FLITe details
Organisational Design & Development
Good design is the primary requirement for high performance – for machines, systems or organisations. Organisational design can be functional, geographic, hierarchical or matrix. The choice of which to use depends on the length, duration and complexity of the team and the form of contract in use.
A well designed organisation is one in which:
• Everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing
• There are clear roles and responsibilities
• There is collaboration rather than conflict between departments and individuals
• There are clear rules on how people will work together
Organisational design maps the relationships between key project stakeholders, helps project teams to understand key interdependencies, inputs and outputs and from this we can set the design of the organisation, layout, roles and responsibilities and lines of communication.
Performance Coaching
We offer a range of coaching services to individuals and teams. For individuals we offer a non-psychological, values driven, highly collaborative service. We have full access to a range of on line questionnaires to provide 360 data in user friendly formats. For teams we offer our Lean Effectiveness programme which examines team performance from the customer point of view. This enables teams to identify what is important to each customer and how to prioritise their time. It also addresses the issue of team productivity which is the engine of team performance.
Workshop facilitation
The degree of collaboration needed for successful projects demands a range of collaborative events, usually referred to as workshops. We offer a full range of construction workshops, designed to your specification and delivered by professional facilitators with all the relevant construction experience. We define our workshops in two ways – Reactive and Proactive.
Lean Interim Management
Sometimes on construction project there is an urgent need for an experienced manager who can drop into a project and manage effectively from the start. These can be experts in services, fit out ground works or support functions such as finance or SHEQ. We have a stable of such managers who, whilst not experts in Lean, have enough experience to support Lean improvement work alongside the day job of managing project functions.
Lean Project & Programme Improvement
We are often called to help our clients develop and deploy lean thinking and methods at the project and programme level. Over the past 20 years, we have been successfully deploying Lean Project Improvement across a range of major infrastructure and building schemes inc, 2012 Olympics, Hinkley C, Smart Motorway Programme, Northern Rail Programme, Transpennine Route Upgrade, HS2, Terminal 5 Heathrow, Astra Zeneca and Cross Rail. Using our bespoke Lean Project Improvement Model and the expertise of our Lean construction consultants – we can help project leaders improve the performance of their teams and the delivery of the project overall.