Planning & Control Topics from survey of authors
I.
Integration of visual controls into production planning and control –
including daily progress planning
Integration of visual controls into construction is the conscious effort of effectively employing
visually attractive and easy-to-understand (simple) physical (e.g. kanban cards) and virtual
(e.g. touch screens) objects in construction planning and control activities. The effective use
of those objects is expected to lead to a more transparent production setting that will also
enable self-control. The transparent environment will rapidly highlight deviations and give an
opportunity for continuous improvement. The adherence to standards will be sustained.
Often, the workforce becomes actively involved in the planning and control activities thanks to
visual controls. The design of visual controls should comply with the principles of human
factors engineering and ergonomics. Before employing a visual control tool, the readiness of
a construction production system for the tool should be carefully evaluated. Different visual
controls can be combined for creating a comprehensive visual control system.
The research questions include:
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Is the materiality of a kanban card essential for its success as a production control tool?
How to arrange visual management in the context of computerized work (production
management)?
For its part, visual management is about promoting adherence to standards; would
rhetoric, as a discipline aiming at means towards adherence, provide new explanatory
mechanisms for the success of visual management?
Visual Management and visual controls often stem from the initiatives of top
management. What should be done to raise the construction workforce’s ownership of
visual management?
How can we systematically evaluate the readiness of a construction production system
for different visual controls?
How do visual controls differ depending on the construction context (e.g. building
construction project, refurbishment project, industrial construction project etc.)?
Apart from transparency, what could be the managerial impacts and outcomes of
employing visual controls?
References
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Brady, D. A, Tzortzopoulos, P., and Rooke, J (2012). “Using Design Science to Further
Develop Visual Management Application in Construction.” 20th Annual Conference of the
International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC), San Diego, USA.
Galsworth, G. D. (1997). Visual Systems: Harnessing the Power of Visual Workplace,
AMACOM, New York, USA.
Greif, M. 1991, The Visual Factory: Building Participation through Shared Information,
Productivity Press, Portland, USA.
Highways Agency. (2010) An Introduction to Lean Visual Management: Construction.
Suzaki, K. (1993).The New Shop Floor Management: Empowering People for Continuous
Improvement, The Free Press, New York, USA.
Tezel, A. (2011). Visual Management: an exploration of the concept and its
implementation in construction. PhD Thesis, University of Salford,UK.
Tezel, A., Koskela, L. & Tzortzopoulos, P. (2010) Visual Management in Construction:
Study Report on Brazilian Cases, SCRI Report, University of Salford, UK.
II.
Takt time planning – Combining location based planning and Last Planner
control
In the construction industry, it is often thought that to reduce time, either quality or cost must
degenerate. Takt time planning is an attempt to reduce project durations, reduce cost, and
improve quality—all at the same time. Takt time planning uses location breakdown structures
appropriate for each construction phase (e.g., areas for foundations, floors for
superstructures). The sequence of trades is identified for each phase, and the bottleneck
trade is identified-the trade that takes longest to perform its work in a location. The locations
are defined to minimize the variation in labor content for the bottleneck trade, but for complex
projects, some variation will be unavoidable, so there will likely be some loss of capacity,
even after attempts to find alternative uses for that capacity (workable backlog).
The research questions include:
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How to define locations in various construction phases-location breakdown structures-to
minimize variation in labor content? How to structure models for this purpose?
How to minimize the loss of capacity through adjustments in capacity and in work
methods?
To what extent can/has the goal been achieved: reduce project duration, reduce project
cost, and reduce project defects and rework simultaneously?
References:
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III.
Wagner, Geraldine B. Thirteen Months to Go: The Creation of the Empire State Building.
New Burlington Books, 2002
Sacks, Rafael, and Rebecca Partouche. "Production Flow in the Construction of Tall
Buildings." IN Samuel, TA & Eddy, MR (Eds.) Construction Research Congress. Seattle,
Washington, ASCE. 2009.
Kenley, Russell, and Olli Seppänen. Location-based management for construction:
Planning, scheduling and control. Taylor & Francis, 2006.
Frandson, Adam, Klas Berghede and Iris Tommelein (2013). “Takt Time Planning for
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Construction of Exterior Cladding” in Proceedings, 21 annual conference of the
International Group for Lean Construction, Fortaleza, Brazil, July, 2013
Linnick, Meeli, Klas Berghede and Glenn Ballard (2013). “An Experiment in Takt Time
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Planning Applied to Non-Repetitive Work” in Proceedings, 21 annual conference of the
International Group for Lean Construction, Fortaleza, Brazil, July, 2013
Integration of safety, quality, and cost into production planning and control
Last Planner was originally designed to focus only on time, on the assumption that safety,
quality and cost were being managed by other means. That has proved a bad assumption in
many cases, and it seems plausible that all the performance dimensions of work should be
treated together. When we design (plan) a production system, we design for safety, quality,
time and cost altogether because they are interdependent outcomes.
There have been several attempts to make safety the driver of operations design, motivated
by two assumptions: 1) Safe operations are also likely to have high quality, time and cost
performance (although we should note that the safest thing is to do nothing), and 2) the
importance generally accorded safety makes it ideal for introducing problem solving routines
that are applicable beyond safety; e.g., learning from breakdowns through 5 Whys analysis.
Note that there is also a Safety championship at IGLC 22 led by Sigmund Aslesen. Papers
that concern safety are best in that championship.
References
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IV.
Aslesen, Sigmund, Eunike Sandberg, Steinar Stake and Trond Bolviken (2013).
“Integrating Safety Analyses in Production Planning and Control – A Proposal”, in
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Proceedings, 21 annual conference of the International Group for Lean Construction,
Fortaleza, Brazil, July, 2013
Leino, Antti, Jan Elfving and Glenn Ballard (2010). “Accident Rate down from 57 to 9 in
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five years”, in Proceedings, 18 annual conference of the International Group for Lean
Construction, Haifa, Israel, July 2010
Leino, Antti and Jan Elfving (2011). “Last Planner and Zero Accidents Program
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Integration – Workforce Involvement Perspective”, in Proceedings, 19 annual
conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, Lima, Peru, July 2011.
Leino, Antti and Sacha Helfenstein (2012). “Use of Five Whys in Preventing Construction
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Incident Recurrence” in Proceedings, 20 annual conference of the International Group
for Lean Construction, San Diego, California, July 2013.
Metrics for managing and improving the lookahead process
The Last Planner System helps increase the reliability of weekly work planning by properly
connecting the master or phase schedule to the weekly work plan through lookahead
planning. Several metrics are used to measure the performance of lookahead planning
including: tasks anticipated (TA) first measures the percentage of anticipated activities on the
look-ahead plan a couple of weeks before execution, tasks made ready (TMR) that
measures the performance of lookahead planning in identifying and eliminating constraints to
make activities ready for implementation, percentage of constraint removal (PCR) which is
percentage of planned tasks that are constraint free, percentage of planned work completed
(PWC) which is the average of task completion percentage for all tasks. Other metrics used
in earned value analysis are the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) which is the ratio of
earned hours to planned hours.
Understanding the role of those metrics and their relationship with Percent Plan Complete
(PPC) and the project duration is crucial in analyzing the performance of lookahead planning.
References:
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V.
Hamzeh, Farook R. and Omar Z. Aridi (2013). “Modeling the Last Planner System
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Metrics: A Case Study of an AEC” in Proceedings of the 21 annual conference of the
International Group for Lean Construction, Fortaleza, Brazil, July 2013.
Jang, Jin W. and Kim, Yong W. (2007). “Use of PCR to measure the make ready
process” in Proceedings of the 15th annual conference of the International Group for
Lean Construction, Michigan, USA, July 2007.
Olano, Ricardo M. , Alarcón , Luís F. and Rázuri Carlos (2009). “Understanding the
Relationship between planning reliability and schedule performance: A Case Study” in
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Proceedings of the 17 annual conference of the International Group for Lean
Construction, Taipei, Taiwan, July 2009.
Practical methods for learning from breakdowns
Breakdowns are unintended outcomes, of which broken promises (plan failures), defects, and
accidents (including near misses, and occupational illness) are perhaps dominant in the
construction industry. While we want to do what we can to prevent breakdowns, we are not
likely to avoid them altogether, but we can aspire to never making the same mistake twice.
Breakdowns are signals that we either made a false assumption about causality or did not
properly execute a process, hence we need to learn what we don’t know about how the world
works, or to learn how to prevent deviation from effective processes.
Sidney Dekker argues that we cannot prevent reoccurrence of a breakdown if we don’t
understand why people did what they did in the circumstances as they understood them. It is
not enough to identify a sequence of steps, which if taken, would have prevented the
breakdown—the question is rather, why those steps weren’t taken, and what
countermeasures are needed to prevent someone else doing the very same thing in the
future.
Research questions:
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What has/is being done to learn from breakdowns and how effective has this been in
reducing reoccurrence?
What are the obstacles to learning from breakdowns and how might they be overcome?
References
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VI.
Dekker, Sidney. The field guide to understanding human error. Ashgate Publishing,
Ltd., 2006.
Achieving the goal of having direct workers control work flow/Using the
stability that results from Last Planner to (finally) embrace collaborative
design of construction operations (first run studies)
Production systems that distribute planning and control functions rather than rely exclusively
on centralized planning and control seem to work better. An example in construction is having
front line supervisors (Last Planners) decide what commitments to make based on the
criteria: task definition, soundness, sequence, and size. This increases work flow reliability
(reliable release of work between specialists), which encourages planning and preparation.
Where front line supervisors cannot say ‘no’, work flow reliability tends to degenerate,
discouraging planning and preparation, which further deteriorates performance, arguably
encompassing productivity, quality, and safety, as well as cost and overall project duration.
Some possibilities to be explored:
Collaborative design of operations has long been a component of the Last Planner system.
Once planned tasks are broken down to the level of operations, the individual workers who
are to execute those operations are to be engaged in deciding how to do the work.
Development of default weekly work plans two weeks in advance has also been
recommended as standard practice in Last Planner. If that is done, front line supervisors can
review these lookahead plans with their crews to get their input on definition, soundness,
sequence, and size. This would extend the request for commitment, and the right to say ‘no’,
to direct workers.
Research question:
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How to effectively engage direct workers in planning and control? What’s been or being
done, with what results? What could be done?
References:
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VII.
Ballard, Glenn and Gregory Howell (1994). “Implementing Lean Construction: Improving
Performance Behind the Shield.” Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Meeting of the
International Group for Lean Construction, Santiago, Chile. (Available in Lean
Construction, A.A. Balkema Publishers, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1997.)
Ballard, Glenn, Gregory Howell, and Michael Casten (1996). “PARC: A Case Study.”
Proceedings of the 4th Annual Conference on Lean Construction, Birmingham, England.
(available at http://www.vtt.fi/rte/lean/)
Howell, Gregory and Glenn Ballard (1999): "Design of Construction Operations". White
Paper #4, Lean Construction Institute, Portland, OR, January, 1999.
Howell, Gregory A., Glenn Ballard and Jerome Hall (2001). “Capacity Utilization and Wait
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Time: a Primer for Construction.” Proceedings of the 9 annual conference of the
International Group for Lean Construction, National University of Singapore, August
2001, pp. 271-278.
Social aspects of last planner
It is essential to cultivate certain behaviors to enhance the collaboration and team aspect of
production planning. Observations on construction sites have shown that even when LPS is
implemented only partially, it can still achieve positive results through its impact on behaviors;
first and foremost, reliable promising. Implementation of the LPS appears to play a strong
role in engendering development of a social network among the project participants including
front line supervisors and direct workers. Work groups on sites where LPS is implemented
have a different understanding of the concept of reliability compared with sites where it is not
implemented. The main question is “what are the drivers and barriers to implement a
collaborative planning process and what makes LPS strengthen the social network on a
project?”. Another question is “what are the main keys for superintendents’ buy-in and
adoption of LPS?”
References:
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VIII.
Priven, V., Sacks, R. (2013) SOCIAL NETWORK DEVELOPMENT IN LAST PLANNER
SYSTEM™ IMPLEMENTATIONS, Proceedings for the 21st Annual Conference of the
International Group for Lean Construction.
Fauchier, D., Alves, T. (2013) LAST PLANNER® SYSTEM IS THE GATEWAY TO LEAN
BEHAVIORS, Proceedings for the 21st Annual Conference of the International Group for
Lean Construction.
McConaughy, T., Shirkey, D. (2013) SUBCONTRACTOR COLLABORATION AND
BREAKDOWNS IN PRODUCTION: THE EFFECTS OF VARIED LPS
IMPLEMENTATION, Proceedings for the 21st Annual Conference of the International
Group for Lean Construction.
Hamzeh, F.R. (2011). ”The Lean Journey: Implementing the Last Planner System in
Construction”, Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference of the International Group for
Lean Construction, IGLC 19, 13-15 July, Lima, Peru, pp. 379- 390.
Integration of LPS and BIM
Integrating schedules and BIM models (4D) offers many advantages for communicating the
schedule and visualizing constraints. However, research on this topic has so far been mainly
concerned with linking a master schedule or a baseline schedule with model elements or
supporting constructability analysis. Many potential benefits could be gained by very detailed
4D simulations based on LPS look-ahead and weekly work plans. Some research projects
have already been started on this area (for example KanBIM, Sacks et al. (2010)).
Possible research questions:
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How can BIM models support look-ahead planning?
How can constraints and ready work be best visualized in BIM models?
Can BIM models be used for selecting work for weekly workplans?
How can technology be used to support the social process of committing to the plans and
visualizing those commitments?
References:
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IX.
Hartmann, T., and Fischer, M. (2007). “Supporting the constructability review with 3D/4D
models.” J. of Constr. Engrg. and Mgmt., ASCE, 134 (10) 776-785
Hartmann, T., Gao, J. and Fischer, M. (2008). “Areas of Application for 3D and 4D
Models on Construction Projects.” Building Research & Information, Taylor & Francis,
35(1) 70-80.
Khanzode, A., Fischer, M. and Reed, D. (2008). “Benefits and lessons learned of
implementing Building Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) technologies for
coordination of Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) systems on a large
Healthcare project.” Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction, 13,
324-342
Mahalingan, A., Kashyap R. and Mahajan, C. (2009). ”An evaluation of the applicability of
4D CAD on construction projects.” Automation in Construction, Elsevier, 19, 148-159
Sacks, R. Radosavljevic, M., and Barak, R. (2010). “Principles for Building Information
Modeling based Lean Production Management Systems for Construction”. Automation in
Construction, 19, 641-655
Understanding when push turns into pull
The Last Planner System has generally been understood as a pull system of production
control (Ballard, 2000). However, for optimal results, some form of push is also required. For
example, the Empire State Building had a very aggressive predetermined plan which was
tracked using location-based methods (Willis, 1998). The initial plan sets up the framework
for measurement and forces more aggressive make-ready operations to get best results
when pulling. For example, it can be argued that pull controlling will result in much better
results if the goal has been set to achieve structural floor cycles of three days rather than five
days (Empire State Building completed one floor a day).
In Lean Construction conferences, there has been a lot of debate about the level of detail
required in master schedules and phase schedules. In LPS, phase schedules are developed
using pull planning – however, this pull planning should not be confused with pull controlling
where the status of production system rather than a predetermined plan determines whether
work will be allowed into the system (Hopp & Spearman, 1996). In LPS, the weekly work
planning process fulfills the definition of pull controlling because only ready work is allowed
into weekly workplans. Thus LPS includes both pull and push components. The same applies
to LBMS where the baseline schedule pushes and decision making based on the forecast
(current status of production system rather than the plan) is based on pull control (Seppänen,
2009).
Possible research questions:
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What is the role of the initial plan?
What are the optimum levels of detail for different levels of planning?
How should high level production targets influence the look-ahead / make-ready process?
What is the role of push and pull in construction process?
References:
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Ballard, G. (2000) The Last Planner™ System of Production Control. Doctoral thesis.
University of Birmingham, School of Civil Engineering. Birmingham, U. K.
Ballard, G. & Howell, G. (1998) Shielding Production: Essential Step in Production
Control. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Vol. 124, No. 1, pp. 11-17.
Hopp, W. & Spearman, M. (1996) Factory Physics: foundations of manufacturing
management. McGraw-Hill, Boston
Seppänen, O. (2009) Empirical Research on the Success of Production Control in Building
Construction Projects. Ph.D. Diss. Helsinki University of Technology, Finland. (available at
http://goo.gl/sLKIc) /).
Seppänen, O., Ballard, G., and Pesonen, S. (2010) The Combination of Last Planner System
and Location-Based Management System. Lean Construction Journal, 6 (1), 43-54.
Willis, C., Ed. (1998). Building the Empire State, W.W. Norton and Company with the
Skyscraper Museum. NY.
Understanding the advantages of using Last Planner.
It has been widely reported that the proper use of Last Planner brings benefits, but the
supporting data is a bit thin. Some possible advantages are noted in the research objectives
below; specifically productivity, time, safety, and quality. Others could be added; for example,
job satisfaction, stress reduction, possibly even environmental sustainability. The intent of this
topic is to promote documentation and data analysis.
Research objectives:
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Analyze the statistical correlation between PPC and productivity; adding data to the
previous study by Liu et al.
Analyze the statistical correlation between PPC and safety, and PPC and quality.
Analyze the statistical correlation between TMR (Tasks Made Ready) and TA (Tasks
Anticipated).
Analyze the statistical correlation between TMR and schedule performance, with and
without pull planning.
References:
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XI.
Liu, Min, Glenn Ballard, and William Ibbs (2010). “Work Flow Variation and Its Relation to
Labor -- A Case Study”. Journal of Management in Engineering, ASCE
Hamzeh, Farook R. and Omar Z. Aridi (2013). “Modeling the Last Planner System
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Metrics: A Case Study of an AEC” in Proceedings of the 21 annual conference of the
International Group for Lean Construction, Fortaleza, Brazil, July 2013.
What are the theoretical foundations of Last Planner?
The Last Planner System (LPS) of production control was developed as a practical solution to a
long-standing problem embedded in an under-theorized domain – construction management.
This method has been exceptionally generative regarding theorizing – the practical success of it
has encouraged and compelled to a search for explanation.
One cluster of theorizing has focused on identifying different phenomena involved in production
management, such as planning, controlling and production, and on pinpointing the theoretical
concepts underlying the LPS regarding these phenomena (Koskela & Ballard 2006). A
comparison to the theories underlying the mainstream view of construction and project
management became also possible (Koskela & Howell 2002b).
A second cluster of theorizing has endeavoured to relate the LPS to other current approaches,
such as agile methods (Koskela & Howell 2002a), critical chain (Koskela et al. 2010), line of
balance (Seppänen et al. 2010), kanban based approaches (Rybkowski 2010, Brady & al. 2012)
and waste based management (Koskela 2004). This theorizing has, for its part, been motivated
by the long-standing pursuit of bringing lessons from other fields to construction. However, a
counter-current is also visible, bringing lessons from construction to other fields, like systems
engineering (Papke & Dove 2013), ship-building and film-making.
Now, a third cluster of theorizing starts to be visible. Here the focus is on using more general
theoretical resources from underlying scientific fields to explain phenomena related to the LPS,
such as complexity theory (Bertelsen 2004), activity theory (Kerosuo et al. 2012), rhetoric (Ballard
& Koskela 2013), game theory (Sacks et al. 2006) and learning theory (Kalsaas 2012).
Given the long-standing neglect of related theories, further work in all three clusters seems
necessary and fertile. However, this situation also invites to new angles and openings.
Research questions:
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There is a long tradition, from Aristotle’s three sciences to Popper’s three world, to identify
different aspects or parts of the world, each requiring a specific approach for scientific
pursuits. Production management seem to span the major categories forwarded: there are
physical phenomena, human action (aiming at man-made artefacts and/or guided by ethics),
and social and cognitive phenomena. Typically, these categories have been considered
separately. How could we provide an account on production management in a more holistic
way?
Regarding constituent phenomena (planning, execution, control, etc.) in production
management, what can be learned through empirical studies (say ethnographic,
phenomenological etc. approaches?
Is it possible to create a general taxonomy of production management situations, which
would guide in the selection of a suitable production management approach for a given
situation?
In terms of explaining the LPS through more general theories, is it possible to proceed from
mere explanation to improvement (or at least improvement ideas) of practices based on the
sharpened theoretical understanding?
Would the explanation of the emergence of the Last Planner System provide new hypotheses
to the field of managerial innovation? Especially: Can a theoretical anomaly be a starting
point for innovation? Do new ideas just emerge or can any systematic approach be
recognized as helpful?
Does the LPS support the widely subscribed idea in innovation transfer studies that
management innovations get transformed and diverge in their transfer – or can rather a
tendency to converge back, through accumulated distributed learning, be recognized?
References:
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Ballard, G and Koskela, LJ 2013, Rhetoric and design, in: The 19th International Conference
on Engineering Design, August 19 - 22, 2013, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea..
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Bertelsen, S. (2004). Lean Construction: Where are we and how to proceed. Lean
Construction Journal, 1(1), 46-69.
Brady, D. A, Tzortzopoulos, P., and Rooke, J (2012). “Using Design Science to Further
Develop Visual Management Application in Construction.” 20th Annual Conference of the
International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC), San Diego, USA.
Kalsaas, B. T. (2012). The last planner system style of planning: its basis in learning theory.
Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management, 2(2), 88-100.
Kerosuo, H., Mäki, T., Codinhoto, R., Koskela, L. & Miettinen, R. (2012). In Time at Last:
Adaption of Last Planner Tools for the Design Phase of a Building Project. Proceedings for
the 20th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction. San Diego,
USA.
Koskela, L. & Ballard, G. (2006) What is Lean Construction - 2006. Construction in the XXI
Century: local and global challenges - ARTEC - Rome, Italy, October pp184-185
Koskela, L. J. (2004). Making do-the eighth category of waste. In Proceedings of the 12th
annual conference of the International Group for Lean Construction.
Koskela, L. J., Stratton, R., & Koskenvesa, A. (2010). Last planner and critical chain in
construction management: comparative analysis. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual
Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (pp. 538-547). National Building
Research Institute, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
Koskela, L., & Howell, G. (2002a). The theory of project management: Explanation to novel
methods. In Proc., Int. Group for Lean Construction 10th Annual Conf.(IGLC-10).
International Group for Lean Construction.
Koskela, L. J., & Howell, G. (2002b). The underlying theory of project management is
obsolete. In Proceedings of the PMI Research Conference (pp. 293-302). PMI.
Papke, B., & Dove, R. (2013). Combating Uncertainty in the Workflow of Systems
Engineering Projects.
Rybkowski, Z. K. (2010). Last planner and its role as conceptual kanban. In 18th Annual
Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (pp. 63-72).
Sacks, R., & Harel, M. (2006). How Last Planner Motivates Subcontractors to Improve Plan
Reliability–A Game Theory Model. In Proceedings 14th Annual IGLC Conference, Santiago,
Chile, July 25th–27th.
Seppänen, O., Ballard, G., & Pesonen, S. (2010). The Combination of Last Planner System
and Location-Based Management System. Lean Construction Journal, 2010(1), 43-54.