The construction industry is the least digitized and digitally unplanned of all industries which is a chronic problem that delays workflow, marks lower productivity and poor coordination at the workplace, which ends up in increased costs with messed up work schedules. Only about 50% of the planned activities are executed well in the construction industry. Utilizing the Digital and Lean principles proved to make the execution of planned activities to 70%.
Companies successfully incorporate Digital and Lean in high-end IT processes of the organization-- the building information modeling (BIM) level but don’t make it come to the basic levels; the construction site itself to realise the narrow objectives and derive tangible results within a limited time. Digital and Lean can transform the industry from scratch.
Once a company has perfected its digital lean techniques, it can expand to other related activities to aid constructive growth. Given the low level of digitization in the industry, those companies that embrace digital lean experience a steep rise in productivity and competitive advantage.
WHERE CONSTRUCTION STANDS
Despite the booming digital revolution, the construction industry is still stuck at the same productivity levels as it was in the mid-1990s. Workers at construction sites spend about 30% of their time simply waiting to do their jobs, for any number of reasons—materials haven’t been delivered, equipment isn’t in working condition, or a precursor step is delayed. To tackle this problem, “percentage plan complete” (PPC) is to be employed. The PPC of the construction industry is stuck at 50% to date.
To start with, traditional lean techniques can be applied to contribute to PPC.
Traditional lean planning ensures the activities planned at the work site are feasible. It also structures proper communication and problem fixing between the work site and centralized functions at headquarters, including the technical or design office, procurement, health and safety, the quality department, and budget reduction.
Lean planning has three pillars:
1) Weekly site meetings between the site manager, area planner, and foreman or supervisor—to plan site activities, and formulate the upcoming week’s activities.
2) Joint operation meetings between the construction manager, area planner, and site managers—for performance review and work tracking, analyse of plan failures and develop weekly operational targets.
3) Problem-solving routines between the site manager, area planner, and technical office manager—to review and prioritize the action list and conduct work status updates.
Using lean systems to thoroughly analyse the root cause of plan failures can yield appreciated insights. Lean gives a deeper understanding of the root cause of a conflict, in order to design solutions more precisely to expand productivity. By involving subcontractors in planning, harmonizing the daily assignments and headcount, and improving equipment functionality, lean can reduce budget costs and rise PPC from 50% to about 62%.
UPGRADE TO DIGITAL LEAN
While traditional lean brings forth substantial progress to the construction space, it has its own limitations. Even after applying traditional lean techniques to fruition, supervisors can’t access the information they need for design and procurement decisions and must make choices. Not surprisingly, 23% of traditional lean plans miss the mark due to inaccurate planning.
Digital lean helps construction companies to see improvements beyond what traditional lean planning offers. These include improving the efficiency of meetings, identifying additional metrics to gauge productivity, reducing time spent on report generation, and tracking people’s contribution to the planning and resolving issues effectively.
To grab these opportunities and boost productivity, construction companies should apply digital to lean planning so foremen, subcontractors, and support staff in the field can more easily communicate, receive task assignments, check documents, and report progress through digital platforms such as their mobile phones and laptops. In addition to the incremental improvements to traditional lean listed above, digital lean offers new functionalities also. These include: keeping physically distant team members connected, with access to real-time, up-to-date plans; analysing huge chunks of information to better business decisions; and information sharing, roles and responsibilities to assigned people.
Numerous digital lean planning platforms are available, supporting an efficient collaboration. One can adopt such one to regulate and supervise construction work site tasks and make people connected.
Such apps need four key design principles:
Tailored Interfaces. All the key personnel—including planners, engineers, and those in operations—need interfaces assigned to specific roles.
Visually Effective. A digital lean planning tool with a simple interface that delivers easy-to-read reports and clear graphs to engage people at all levels of the organization up to their capabilities.
Enhanced Meetings. Digital lean applications can make it easier to plan meetings, and conduct meetings remotely; a commitment button or similar function can make team members click to commit to a plan. Digital lean leads to well-organized meetings, delivering all materials electronically before the meeting starts and during progression.
Modular and Expandable. Any lean planning platform should be modular, allowing people to implement lean planning in steps over time. Any lean planning application should also be expandable, with the ability to interface with other digital apps to share data in diverse formats.
To the construction industry, digital lean planning adds up to the ease and management skills to monitor employees and address and provide instant solutions to work site problems. The company should digitize activities that can complement and strengthen planning.
Here are two ideal tools to complement digital lean planning:
1) Digital Quantity Surveys. These collect data on the quantity of material and work accomplished on-site.
2) Digital Bid Database. These gather previously saved data on project budgets and productivity rates
These activities, digital lean planning, digital quantity surveys, and digital bid databases complement one another to assemble and share a huge load of accurate data to monitor and run various site activities. Together they enable instant responses when site plans unpredictably change, allow site managers to make informed decisions with precision, and help companies and employees make more detailed project bids based on actual data about previous project cost acquisition and previous project performance in detail.
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