Conclusion
Go Home Go to Lean Transformation
“The value of the whole approach is seen in the value of one´s intention. With perseverance and continuous effort, one becomes awake” Maria Corbí, epistemologist and Phd in Philosophy.
According to FlorianMueck (a teacher of rethoric), the beginning and the end of any lecture should be connected. This conclusion page tries to follow this quote and could be used as the start of the website, also. The next figure is an adaptation to the construction sector of Spanish Lean Consultancy (TheFlowFactory), about how to get excellence in construction.
To talk about excellence you need to have a holistic vision. A corporation is a system made up of people that are systems too (or subsystems of a larger system). Furthermore, everything that is good for the company is good for the workers and vice versa, but most decisions only benefit a few people. Systems Theory already demonstrates that decisions made by a group of people, with different levels of intelligence and different educational backgrounds, make less mistakes than a uniform group (link). Here, we´re getting closer to the idea of cooperative management. The 55th Congress of Systemic Sciencies in 2011 had the title “All together now”. Another approach to this subject is the concept of “Metaorganizations”. Companies and projects have to adopt integral visions and shared values where empathy, teamwork, assertiveness, etc…, will be essential.
“Any system without work tends to chaos” Second Principle Thermodynamics
1. Lean&SixSigma: not only the term lean (create continue value removing waste) but tools such as last planner, BIM (Jidoka tool) and IPD contracts. The next article written by Dennis Sowards shows the need for integrating these tools to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the projects.
2. Business Process Management (BPM): many corporations have a departmental organization and it is difficult to detect waste without an accurate study of the different processes in each department. A helpful tool to transform the company to processes is Value Stream Mapping. They can also learn about project management: the budget in a project is made up of tasks that can be measured. Cost loading and Location Based Management System helps to fulfil deadlines, avoid cost variances and create kaizen routines.
3. Human Capital: not everyone is happy with this definition, especially when we talk about human resources. People are not a means to an end; but everyone agrees that CEOS, stakeholders, managers, engineers and workers seek and desire professionals with high performance. For this reason, any consultant and manager needs to focus on people in addition to the two others aspects (Lean and BPM). It is necessary to create new habits and routines, improving skills and competencies throughout the company. Excellence starts in people´s site work, factory or the store. Glenn Ballard, one of the founders of the Lean Construction Institute, corroborates this, emphasizing the importance of behaviours as a complement to software, last planner or others tools. If we consider the issue of human excellence, we have to take in account that we ourselves are thoughts, feelings and intuitions, or according to the Master Raimon Panikkar, we have to consider the three eyes: spiritual, body and cognitive. Then, education should also be, to use Ken Wilber´s term, integral.
We should not forget the IT. We are not in the Information Age yet; we are in the Access Information Age. Currently, we can use Bim in the cloud, and with our smartphones and tablets, too. Another example is the control of the progress of the support of a bridge using Google Earth and the GPS in our smartphone.
In addition, we must consider off-site construction. We will reduce the deadlines of our projects while maintaining quality standards. Of course they are lean solutions, because they are seeking automation (Jidoka). You can examine the construction of ArkHotel, which was completed in six days. It is also important to consider the building life cycle and choose the right materials. An innovative example is this agrobuilding made in Sweden. The next article is an example of lean and green integration from the Chilean Construction Magazine, Scielo.
In 2008, Mr. Egan castigated the English Construction Industry in his speech in the British Parliament celebrating the 10th anniversary of this previous report. The challenge in Europe is to align the interest of Universities and Contractors. Encord and the European Lean Construction Institute promote lean construction methodologies, but there is no real collaboration as in other countries. Universities, architects, contractors and owners must work together if we want to develop the construction industry. Several examples: the universities of Berkeley, Michigan and Catholic Chile and this document promoting the IPD Contracts signed by different American Associations.