EGLC Meeting - Our Experience aplying the Last Planner System

The EGLC Meeting took place last Wednesday May 8th and I was there presenting. A great event, a pity not more people showed up.
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EGLC 16 :: European Group for Lean Construction Meeting

The Meeting of the European Group for Lean Construction will take place in Valencia, Spain, next May
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Ferrovial's Handbook Against Waste [1962]

A Handbook against "waste" dated back from 1962.
Català - Castellano - Deutsch
Recently, I got news of the realease of the "handbook against waste" written as an internal document for Ferrovial (one of the biggest general contractors in Spain). I had heard of this docuemtn for a while but had not had the chance to read it. Now it is available for everyone from this link. [The handbook is in Spanish]. I am also keeping here a mirror copy just in case the link goes down and I am not available to update it. Click on the image below.
It is a very interesting read, and what is specially interesting is that it dates back to 1962. Sometimes we tend to think that all the fuzz about Lean, Last Planner or Location Based Scheduling is something new that just came out of nowhere just a few years back. 
This handbook is the proof that some companies and many professionals have worked with better standards and processes for a long time, they just didn't publish it openly. Competition is fierce in the construction sector, and maybe this fierce competition is what for a long time has made it impossible for companies to share their knowledge and improve so the Construction Industry as a whole. Luckily, I think the internet and the advent of Social Media, has changed this, and more and more companies are sharing part of their better processes.  I am back! ;-) 
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First Pull Session of the Last Planner System™

Just sharing a short summary video of our first Pull Session.
Català - Castellano - Deutsch
One of the reasons I haven't been blogging in the past month is that I have been very busy at work. One of the two reasons (the second one I will explain soon if I can) I've been so busy is because we have been implementing the Last Planner System™ (LPS)at one of our projects to control the works on site.

I am not sure yet if I will share this type of information on this site in the future or if I will start a new blog on the topic somewhere else, but for now, let me share a short summary video of this 1st Pull Session. See below.



The Last Planner System™ is a set of processes to improve predictability of construction works through a series of planning and controlling conversations between the stakeholders of the project. We have been for now testing the LPS in one of our projects and we are trying to turn it soon into the standard methodology to plan an control the works on all of our construction projects.

We are proud to be of the few pioneers who are implementing this in Spain, and we will be sharing our experiences on the coming meeting of the Spanish Group for Lean Construction that will take place in Madrid on February 14th.

What you see in the video might be the first Pull Session in the history of Spain, so it might become a historic document ;-). The Pull Session is the first meeting to collaboratively agree on a schedule of the works were the Last Planners (those who actually will perform the tasks on site) share their insights and opinions on what is the best sequence to be able to do their tasks.

This is of course a very simple way of describing a Pull Session, if you need any help or more information or if you want a Construction Company that can / wants to work with this system, please do get in touch with me.

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Brief Introduction to the benefits of Lean Construction implementation by Glenn Ballard

A short video with some insight on Lean Construction by Glenn Ballard
Català - Castellano - Deutsch
For those who don't know about Lean Construction (and for those who do) I think this video is a nice way to learn a bit about it from one of the initiators of these way of working that is rapidly spreading all over the world. It is just a short conversation with Glenn Ballard, but it highlights some of the principles behind Lean Construction, specially the need for a change in mentality rather than a simple change in tools and software.


Of course the savings of 15-20% being accomplished by using this methodology should not be forgotten. At the end, some AEC professionals are only driven by cost, and it is logical.

via Lean Construction Spain

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Presentations of the First Meeting of the Spanish Group for Lean Construction

Now available online the presentations of the first meeting of the Spanish Group for Lean Construction.
English - Català - Deutsch
As I recently published, I recently attended the first meeting of the Spanish Group for Lean Construction. The presentations of this first meeting are now available online.

The two that I found most interesting were undoubtedly the one by Paul Napolitano from General Contractor Herrero of the United States on the theme of the Last Planner System (Last Planner System). A very interesting introduction to this method of collaborative planning. Unfortunately this one is not available online.

The one that you can see online is that of Antonio Rodriguez, from the firm BECS on the same topic. Here are the slides of the presentation (in Spanish).

Primera Reunión del SGLC. Antonio Rodríguez

View more presentations from SGLC

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First meeting of the Spanish Group for Lean Construction

I just came back from spending the day in Valencia, Spain were today I attended the first meeting of the Spanish Group for Lean Construction.
Català - Castellano - Deutsch
It was an interesting day with some very good presentations on Lean Management, Lean Processes and some quite interesting case studies.
My favourite one was the presentation by Paulo Napolitano from the US general contractor Herrero, who explained their use of the Last Planner System.
Overall it was a great way to see that everyday there are more and more people in the AECO industry in Spain who understand the need for a more eficient industry and are willing to do something about it and share it with others.
Hopefully on the next meeting we will be able to show something of what we have been working on at Croxley to improve the Design and Construction process. Of course I will share as much as I can here with you.
Sorry for the long period of posting silence. Hopefully will post more regularly from now on.



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Lean Construction and Lean Architecture

Can Lean principles be applied to Architecture? To architects? Or are they only for Construction?
Català - Castellano - Deutsch
I was doing some research on Lean principles applied to Architecture and found some interesting articles I thought I'd share. But first, and for those who don't know anything about "Lean", I'll do a very brief introduction.

The term "Lean" applied to industry comes from the methodology applied by Toyota in their manufacturing to eliminate what is commonly known as "waste". Related to Lean, waste means anything that doesn't bring value to the end customer. I think the wiki article on Lean manufacturing is good to get an insight of the Lean principles, so I will not extent myself much more on the topic.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, some pioneers (mainly Koskela, Ballard and Howell) started to push for the implementation of the principles applied in Lean Manufacturing to the construction industry. This is now referred as Lean Construction, and to summarize in one sentence, it tries to improve the construction industry by eliminating anything in the process of construction that doesn't bring value to the project.

Lately, I was doing some research on how this Lean Principles can be applied to the everyday practice of architectural firms, and to architects in general. I came across this website called Lean Architecture. They have a couple of the articles there available that I found quite interesting, so I thought I'd share them here. Then I thought I needed a bit of an Introduction, and so I ended up with this relatively long post. So hope you find it interesting.

Lean principles can be important to optimize the way things are done in the AEC industry, will dig into them further on later posts, this was just a first intro on the topic. What is your opinion on Lean? Did you know about it? Do you think the principles are useful? Do you think they are too theoretical?


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Location Based Management System (LBMS) and the Last Planner System (LPS)

Learn about LBMS and LPS with a free webinar by Vico
Català - Castellano - Deutsch
Just got this on my mail and I actually joined the webinar. Next Friday December 17th Vico Software is hosting a free online webinar about the basics of LBMS and LPS. This seems to be just an introduction to both systems and their relationship.

LBMS is a system for planning and controling the project, using the technique that long ago helped build the Empire Estate Building in just 11 months. Vico Software has incorporated this system in their planning an control software package called Vico Control. If you want to learn more about LBMS, besides joining the webinar, you can check this link, and if you really want to get serious about it you can get this book.

The Last Planner System was developed by the Lean Construction Institute to help control building production. There are a couple of good papers available out there too. This one by Gregory Neil Associates and the Doctoral Thesis of Herman Glenn Ballard.

Both systems are worth learning if you are in the Project or Construction Management fields.
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