LCI Research

Looking back at previous LCI research

What research questions have been explored by LCI, with what results?

		How to control work flow on projects?
			Last Planner System of Production Control
		How to conceptualize lean project delivery?
			Lean Project Delivery System™ (see LCI White Paper # 8)
		How to improve safety performance beyond current best practice?
			See papers by G.A. Howell et al. in the proceedings for IGLC 10 and 11
		How to structure project schedules in handoffs between specialists, thus setting the goals for production control?
			Phase Scheduling  - see LCI White Paper #7, “Last Planner Update”— IGLC 11 proceedings
		How to manage design “lean”?
			Lean Design Management (see LCI White Paper # 10, “Negative vs  Positive Iteration”, “Managing Work Flow on Design Projects” )
		How to apply activity based costing to construction?
			See the PhD thesis and papers of Professor Y.W. Kim, University of Houston Overhead Cost Analysis
		How to manage project definition within the Lean Project Delivery System?
			See the PhD thesis and papers of M.W. Whelton The Development of Purpose in the Project Definition Phase of Construction Projects - Implications for Project Management Application of Design Rationale Systems to Project Definition - Establishing a Research Project Wicked Problems in Project Definition
		How to manage the delivery of engineered-to-order products?
			See the PhD thesis and papers of Jan Elfving (below) and the papers of Iris Tommelein , et al. Exploration of Opportunities to Reduce Lead Times for Engineered-to-Order Products An International Comparison of the Delivery Process of Power Distribution Equipment Impact of Multitasking and Merge Bias on Procurement of Complex Equipment Improving Capital Projects Supply Chain Performance , I.D., Walsh, K.D., and Hershauer, J.C. (2003), Research Report PT172-11, Construction Industry Institute , Austin, TX, 241 pp.
		How to integrate product and process design?
			See “Digital Prototyping at T5” by R.Arbulu & P.Gwynn, LCI Congress 2003.
		Reforming project management
			See the papers of Greg Howell and Lauri Koskela

Key Research Issues

Reducing Lead Time for Engineered-to-Order Products

While construction projects themselves produce engineered-to-order products, we can begin to reduce total project durations by reducing the lead time for fabricated items; i.e., those engineered-to-order products that are the components of buildings, industrial plants, and other facilities. Examples: HVAC duct, piping, pre-cast concrete, curtain wall, structural steel, reinforcing bar, electrical equipment, mechanical equipment, etc. Fabrication is the intersection of construction and manufacturing. Lean techniques such as one piece flow and pull mechanisms can be applied directly to fabrication processes, since they are a type of manufacturing. Further, the engineering and procurement prior to fabrication can be radically shortened by elimination of non-value-adding steps and restructuring the relationships between the members of the value chain. An exploratory study in pre-cast concrete cut lead time down to 1 day, increased plant capacity by 4X, with a nominal increase in work force, and without a sacrifice in product quality—see “Learning to See Work Flow”. LCI is collaborating with Professor Iris Tommelein, University of California at Berkeley, in this area of research.

From Cost Accounting to Investment Decision Making

Construction cost control has been based on the thermostat model; i.e., budgets allocate money to cost accounts and spending is tracked to detect negative variances from budget, which triggers corrective action. This approach parallels the generation of detailed activity schedules at the beginning of projects, which allocate time to activities. Unfortunately, the only thing we know for sure about a detailed schedule or budget at the beginning of a project is that the project will not be completed according to that schedule or budget. The level of detail must be matched to the degree of uncertainty so we don’t confuse speculation and desire with a real plan. The allocation of both time and money to activities must be done in progressively greater detail through the course of a project. And rather than concentrating effort on tracking actual spending against those allocations, we need time and cost management systems that help project teams make good decisions regarding time and cost. This approach is being applied at the Boldt Companies, a construction contractor based in Appleton, Wisconsin. Cost reports are simplified and cost control is distributed to various levels in the company, following a philosophy of distributed decision making rather than central command. The goal is to have real time information on project cost and schedule status, and to continuously scan for risks and opportunities, producing for clients no less often than monthly, a set of alternative action plans for completing the project successfully, while maximizing customer value.

A contributing stream of research is being pursued by Dr. Yong-Woo Kim, who was awarded his PhD for studies of the application of activity based costing to construction. Dr. Kim’s PhD was directed by LCI’s Glenn Ballard in his role as Associate Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley.

Project Definition

There are three primary objectives for any project: 1) Deliver the project, while 2) maximizing value for customers and stakeholders, including producers, and 3) minimizing waste. Establishing and pursuing these objectives begins with a project definition process that aligns stakeholder purposes, design concepts, and design criteria for both product and process. Elements include involving downstream players in cross functional teams, the use of collaborative design conferences, and the use of techniques for translating from the ‘voice of the customer’ to the ‘voice of the designer/engineer’. In appropriate circumstances, project definition, and thence design, is pursued to target cost and time. Project Definition is the first phase in LCI’s Lean Project Delivery System™ and is being experimentally tested and developed with several LCI member companies. It was also the topic of research by Michael Whelton, formerly a PhD student at the University of California at Berkeley, whose studies were directed by LCI’s Glenn Ballard, an Adjunct Associate Professor at UC Berkeley.

Integrating Product and Process Design

Deciding what is to be built and how it is to be built at the same time, rather than sequentially, is a central tenet of lean construction. More broadly, process design includes all life cycle stages of a product, not only its construction, but also operations, maintenance, alterations, decommissioning, and disposal. The question is how to make it happen. LCI member companies are experimenting with a number of different techniques and tools, including 3D modeling, target costing, set based design, and cross functional teams. Involving downstream players in upstream decision making is done by organizing the project in cross functional teams, typically around facility systems such as foundations, structure, etc. Set based design is a design management strategy dedicated to making design decisions at the last responsible moment in order to allow time for exploration of alternatives and evaluation of tradeoffs, including the process implications of potential product design decisions, and vice-versa. Target costing is appropriate when a client has a limited amount of money to spend or the production team has an incentive to minimize its cost. Available dollars are allocated to facility systems and to the cross functional teams responsible for their design and delivery. Product design is to be developed within that spending constraint, or other teams must agree to reduce their spending to keep total facility cost within the target. One of the challenges of target costing is for cost estimating to keep pace with design development. Obviously, it won’t work for estimates to be updated monthly, and even weekly may be insufficient on fast-paced projects. 3D modeling can help solve this problem through the automatic generation of bills of materials, but obviously offer many more advantages, including interference checking and the ability to drive fabricating equipment with model data. Specific to the issue of product/process integration, 3D product models can be coupled with process and organizational models for more comprehensive representation and simulation of both product and process. Strategic Project Solutions and the Boldt Companies are taking the lead in this area of research.

Supply Management

This rich area covers standardization, modularization, prefabrication and preassembly initiatives, supply chain and supplier development, and discovering the appropriate methods for managing different types of materials. The closely related IGLC championship for Prefabrication and Assembly is co-championed by LCI’s Glenn Ballard and LCI member Owen Matthews. Just a few of the many research questions:

• How to design products for prefabrication and assembly?
• How to use modeling and simulation to reduce or eliminate the physical trials now necessary to assure that modules will fit together?
• How to structure incentives that promote collaborative pursuit of value generation and waste reduction by members of supply chains?
• What types of materials should be managed using kanban systems?
• What types of materials should be kitted and delivered in work packages to fabricator and installer teams?

Looking forward

Moving from the general to the specific, the following are continuing or new LCI research projects:

How to improve safety performance beyond current best practice?

In recent years, safety performance has improved tremendously. We believe that the key to further improvement will be found in better planning. Research by others shows that planning related failures are associated with over 45% of all accidents. The same research identifies “Inappropriate Construction Operations” as a proximal cause of 88% of all accidents but fails to link these to planning, apparently in the belief that planning and the design of operations are separate activities. This research will test and improve the ability of the planning system (including the design of operations) to produce hazard free assignments. One project will use existing data from commonly applied pre-task safety analysis to determine if hazards encountered in the field were foreseen in planning. Feedback from this study should improve safety planning but we will also test a more rigorous planning process using First Run Studies to assure, through simulation and experimentation, the capability of an operation’s design as regards safety, quality, cost, and time before allowing assignments to be placed on weekly work plans. We believe that this process will eliminate hazards well in advance of assignment and reduce the number of circumstances where workers are faced with choices that lead to unsafe actions. Those who participate in the first run will be involved in a Shewhart Cycle (plan-do-study-act) along with others providing expert advice. Incidents will be analyzed by asking if it was anticipated in the plan. If so, the plan will be revised and the planning process improved. This is an IGLC research initiative (explained below). LCI’s Greg Howell is initiative champion.

How to manage design within the lean project delivery system?

Managing design poses many challenges. LCI is collaborating with Penn State and member company Burt Hill Kosar Rittelman Associates in this area. One initiative is to measure profitability, work flow reliability (PPC), change orders, team performance, and labor-time so we will be able to measure the impact of changes in practice. One hypothesis to test is whether Last Planner is improving project performance; i.e., does an increase in PPC correlate positively with increases in profitability, reductions in change orders, higher ratings of team performance, and reductions (or reallocations) of labor time? Reports on findings are scheduled to begin appearing in the third quarter of 2004.

How to design to target cost?

Designing to target characteristics might seem at first glance to be standard practice. However, the objective is to learn how to generate and select design alternatives that meet minimum criteria for target characteristics such as cost, reliability, and sustainability as opposed to the traditional practice of applying criteria to previously produced design. Designing to target cost is a well-developed practice in product development, from which construction is likely to be able to learn. On the other hand, construction projects are (usually) not product development projects, and the relationship between cost and profitability is different.

The Boldt Company has launched a target costing initiative, supported by LCI. Results of experiments will first be presented at IGLC 12 in July, 2004.

How to improve work flow reliability?

How to improve work flow reliability beyond the level typically achieved through implementation of the Last Planner System? LCI is working on this question with Professor Marton Marosszeky of the University of New South Wales (who is working with Multiplex in Sydney) and also with Paul Reiser, VP for Productivity & Quality at the Boldt Companies, and with Strategic Project Solutions. An initial paper will be presented at IGLC 12 in Elsinore, Denmark in July, 2004. Key hypotheses are that improving work flow reliability requires: 1) Learning from plan failures, and 2) Improving the lookahead process both in terms of making tasks ready and in terms of anticipating needed tasks.

How to design reinforcing steel and reinforced concrete structures for constructability?

This belongs to the more general question how to make design criteria drive design and design decision making. As such, it belongs with the issue: designing to target cost. However, designing for constructability poses its own challenges and opportunities for advancing knowledge, not least of which is the question how to design products that lend themselves to prefabrication and assembly strategies.

Iris Tommelein and Glenn Ballard are seeking grants for this research, which will start in June 2004 if funded.

How to manage materials on construction projects?

LCI is working on this issue with Strategic Project Solutions and two of their business partners. Materials are divided into made-to-stock and made-to-order. Inventories are to be maintained for low cost, high volume made-to-stock materials and replenished by kanban—see R. Arbulu’s paper from the 2003 LCI Congress. Other made-to-stock and all made-to-order products are to be pulled to site in kitted work packages. Larger contractors and larger projects will use logistics centers for staging and kitting. Third party providers of logistics services may arise regionally to serve smaller contractors and projects.

How to structure and manage the delivery of engineered-to-order products?

Iris Tommelein and Glenn Ballard are currently executing an NSF-funded research project on the rebar delivery system, working closely with an industry panel that includes the Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute. Papers reporting the findings will appear in the second quarter of 2004. Funding will be sought to continue this research by working with representative industry players to implement innovations in the rebar delivery system and measure the results. Innovations may include involving fabricators and placers in the design process, use of 3D modeling to integrate designing and detailing, and application of pull mechanisms to control work flow from detailing to fabrication to installation.

Other Important Research Questions

LCI cannot do all the research needed to advance knowledge regarding the theory and implementation of project-based production systems and the tools and techniques of a Lean Project Delivery System. These are some of the key research issues we urge others to pursue:

How to structure contracts to support pursuit of the lean ideal?

What technologies best support pursuit of the lean ideal by project-based organizations?

How to structure and manage construction operations?

• Craft multi-skilling
• Continuous flow processes

How to coordinate the use of shared resources on site?

Is the project the fundamental form of production system and if so, what are the implications?

Historically, production theory developed around the problem of making multiple copies from pre-existent designs. However, products are designed and made the first time in projects, and only some of these designs are subsequently reused. The project is arguably the most fundamental form of production system, but has been neglected by theorists of production.

Building the Project in the Model

The pressure for speed of project delivery has thus far been met by fast tracking; i.e., starting construction before all design is complete, with the attendant ‘overdesign’. The degree of concurrency is inevitably limited to that point at which the time required to do the additional work generated by overlapping equals the time saved by overlapping. An alternative LCI is exploring with others is to learn how to build the project in the model so completely that site installation can be simplified to final assembly and commissioning, thus reducing total project duration below what fast tracking can deliver.

Implementation/Organizational Change

Implementing ‘lean’ faces the usual challenges of organizational change, but what are the unique challenges posed and how best to overcome them? LCI contributors become members because they are committed to implementing lean construction within their organizations. Their willingness to share and learn from each other offers a rich resource for the study and understanding of implementation issues, which includes both the ‘soft’ issues of overcoming resistance to change, threats perceived in changes in status and distribution of power, etc., and also issues of business strategy. As companies develop their production management capabilities and become better able to generate value and to eliminate waste, they naturally seek commercial opportunities to exploit that capability. Current commercial structures often limit that exploitation. Consider, for example, the seemingly innocuous proposal that stakeholder incentives be structured so that it is never against the interest of a producer to increase value for its customer. How often is that alignment achieved in current practice? LCI is exploring commercial issues, working with its member companies.

International Group for Lean Construction

The International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) is one of the important vehicles for LCI research. IGLC has champions for various research initiatives, responsible for staying abreast of related research, providing status reports at each annual conference, and promoting collaborative research throughout the world. LCI’s Greg Howell is IGLC champion for the research initiative: Safety through Planning. Glenn Ballard is IGLC co-champion (with Owen Matthews) for Reducing Lead Time for Engineered-to-Order Products and also IGLC co-champion (with Steffen Goth for Project Financial Management. LCI Board Member Professor Iris Tommelein is IGLC champion for Standardizing and Modeling Interfaces, and also for coordination with the Open Design movement represented by Ype Cuperus, Director, OBOM Research Group, Delft University of Technology.

© 2007 Lean Construction Institute. All rights reserved. 05/25/08
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