Daily
Crew
Production
Flow
Production
Engineering
Disciplines
Ten
Production
Principles
Continuous Improvement
Compounding Learning
Constructive Collaboration and Intervention
Respect for Employees and Partners
Auditing the “Current State” of
Construction Project Production Management
Over the past thirty years productivity within the construction industry has been on a
gradual decline. Many forces have been at work to cause this decline. Looking for who or
what to blame for this decline is a waste of time and energy. On the other hand, the decision
to pursue operational excellence is the first positive step a construction organization must
take if it is to reverse this trend within its own operations. But what is “operational
excellence”? Our vision of operational excellence is defined as Daily Crew Production Flow
(DCPF), which is achieved when:
“Every crew on every project effectively and efficiently completes their daily work
assignment and production goal free of accidents and defects.”
DCPF is a combination of optimally effective and efficient operations that are reliably and
predictably “pulled” through the project with minimal buffers within or between operations.
Thus, project throughput (total rate of production) is maximized, project duration is
minimized and production flow is extremely reliable and predictable. In this way the
customer’s project is completed in the shortest time possible with minimal waste. It is both
logical and reasonable to assume that when Daily Crew Production Flow is achieved the
customer will be satisfied, the safety of the workforce and the public will be ensured and the
construction company will have significantly differentiated itself from its competitors.
No company will achieve Daily Crew Production Flow by simply mandating it or putting it in
its vision statement. The achievement of operational excellence requires changes in
corporate strategy, structure, systems and overall competence. The pursuit of operational
excellence is a journey, not a destination. But how does a company start that journey? Just
as a patient is subjected to a battery of tests and laboratory work before a care plan is
prescribed, a strategy for the pursuit of operational excellence is best prescribed by first
evaluating a company’s current state of production management and then comparing it to a
“future state” production system designed to achieve a real and lasting breakthrough in
project safety, quality and productivity. A strategy to bridge the differences between the
“current state” and “future state” can then be developed and implemented.
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Auditing Crew Work Assignments and Work Areas
Daily Crew Production Flow can only be achieved if the project production system
consistently produces both a high quality daily crew work assignment and a high quality
work area in which each crew can achieve its production goal safely without any
interruptions or quality defects. It is the quality of these two production system outputs
(daily crew work assignments and work areas) that determine the effectiveness (doing the
right thing with minimal interruptions) and the efficiency (employing a work process that
uses minimum effort with minimal waste of resources) of the assigned work.1 If a company
desires better safety performance, improved product quality, and significant improvements
in the productivity of its workforce it must first ensure each crew receives a high quality
work assignment and high quality work area.
But how does one measure the “quality” of any crew assignment or a work area in which the
work of a crew is performed? Clearly there must be more than a vague vision of “quality” if
quality assignments and work areas are to be produced. First one must understand how
quality is defined, how to measure it and how to ensure the required quality is achieved.
“Quality” is defined as conformance to requirements.2 The performance standard of quality
is zero defects. The financial measurement of quality is the cost of nonconformance. And,
the required quality of the output of any production system is built in through a system of
defect prevention, not through “after the fact” inspection of the final products of that system.
Daily Crew Work Assignments and Production Goals
Establishing quality requirements for construction crew work assignments and production
goals is a relatively new concept. It wasn’t until 19983 that a package of quality
requirements for crew work assignments was first published. The following crew
assignment requirements have been refined slightly over the last ten years and are
fundamental to the achievement of Daily Crew Production Flow.
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The work covered by the assignment has been planned in enough detail to
clearly define the operations scope, scheme, duration, batch sizes,
production rate and pace, workzone design and daily production goals (clear
and specific definition as to the “what, how, who, where and when”),
The assignment has been sequenced within the overall flow of other project
work activities to ensure the most effective and efficient order of completion,
The buffers (time/distance, capacity, material stockpiles and work-in-process
buffers) that have been placed within this operation and between predecessor
and successor crew assignments have been specifically sized to accommodate
any remaining uncertainty but not for “comfort” or “contingency”.
The certainty of the assignment being completed as planned when planned
has been assured and verified, (prerequisite work has been completed, the
1
Note that the design of both the work process and work area determine the effectiveness and efficiency of
the work. The ability and willingness of the craftsmen performing that work can and will have a big effect on
the overall output of the crew, but “ability” and “willingness” can only be measured fairly within an effective
and efficient operation.
2 Crosby, P. (1979), Quality is Free; Crosby first defined quality in terms still used today. In this document
most references to quality and the process of making it certain come from Crosby’s work.
3 Ballard, G. and Howell, G. (1998). Shielding Production: An Essential Step in Production Contro l
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work area has been prepared, assembly inputs are available and staged; it can
be done as assigned)
At a minimum the field manager (foreman) has reviewed the overall work
plan and has provided input and feedback. Ideally a Before Action Review
(BAR) has been held with the full crew and their input and feedback have
been made part of the plan, ensuring some level of ownership in the plan and
a personal commitment to it.
Note that within the “Crew Assignment Requirements” there is a reference to the work area
being prepared and assembly inputs available and staged. Note also that this requirement
requires that these conditions be verified, for sending the crew into a work area that will not
accommodate their assignment will negate all the effort upstream of the creation of the
assignment and the assignment will become a “happening”, not an effective and efficient
operation. Experience has shown that this brief reference to the work area is simply too
vague to enable the verification that is critical to being able to assure the work assignment
can4 be completed as planned. Like crew work assignments, a “quality” workarea will only
be prepared if there exists a set of work area requirements that define what a quality work
area is.
In 1996 the author began working on a concept referred to as “The Three Zone Planning
Model” based on the idea that the work area of every crew could be broken into three
distinct zones (Preparation, Installation/Conversion and Completion) and that each of those
zones had unique needs and requirements. Then in 2004, the requirements of each of these
three workzones were specifically defined and given the title Minimum Workzone
Requirements or MWR’s5. The original goal of MWR’s was to provide a generic and
consistent mental model of the work area that could be used for planning it, preparing it and
evaluating it. As MWR's have evolved they have proven to be extremely effective as a set of
quality requirements that enable unbiased evaluation of the work area of any crew. The
following is the list of work area requirements broken into the three aforementioned unique
workzones.
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Preparation: “Laying track” for the operation
All necessary prerequisite work by other crews is complete as required.
Special site preparation requirements specific to this operation are completed
as planned.
Permanent/dispensable material, equipment and any special tools are onsite,
stored, inspected and protected as necessary.
Key assembly inputs (material, tools and equipment) are prepared, staged
and available as planned for a minimum of one shift’s work.
4
Ballard, G. and Howell, G. (1994), Implementing Lean Construction: Stabilizing Work Flow; In this
landmark paper, Ballard and Howell described a strategy for implementing lean concepts on complex, fast
track projects and introduced the mental model of stabilizing work flow by shielding operations from
upstream variation by only planning to do work that can be done as opposed to planning work to start simply
because the schedule says it should be done. This model has proven to be both easily understood and difficult
to implement but extremely effective when applied as initially described. The phrase, “Should, Can, Will,
Did” has become known all over he world.
5 Casten, M. (2004). The Breakthrough Project Production Model; Minimum Workzone Requirements
were first described in this early version of a construction project production system.
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Installation/Conversion: the value adding work
Personal protective equipment and other planned safety devices available and
in use
The work area has minimal direct interference or interruptions from other
crews or operations.
An operation plan is in place and understood by the crew.
The field manager6 is in the workzone and providing leadership, direction and
coordination
“Installation/Conversion” is performed per plan; sequence, flow, quality, yield
and production rates.
Contingency plans are being implemented in response to anticipated
uncertainties.
Miscellaneous material handling in the immediate work area is well organized
with no random piles of materials/supplies nor significant movement of
individual pieces or parts as they are used or temporarily collected
All trash and debris generated by this operation is cleaned up routinely per
trash management plan
Completion: the caboose of the operation
Completion is “Done-Done” and accomplished in accordance with the needs of
both the internal and external customer before the operation resources leave
the immediate work area
Work area secured, safe and made ready for follow on trades.
Any remaining debris and trash resulting from this operation has been
cleaned up and disposed of per plan.
The failure to meet any one of the assignment or crew work area requirements will
ultimately lead to waste in the form of delays, wasted effort, extended project duration,
quality defects within the final work product, and possibly even accidents. The resulting
cost of the waste will likely go unnoticed as it gets rolled into the resulting unit costs of the
crew’s work product if that unit cost is within the estimated budget. It is this “unnoticed”
waste that no cost report can identify; because as total costs or hours are accumulated and
unit costs calculated, it is impossible to differentiate dollars or hours spent doing productive
work from dollars or hours expended nonproductively.
On the other hand, by conforming to the required standards for both high quality crew work
assignments and work areas, “zero accidents”, “zero defects” and real breakthroughs in
performance become reasonable goals. Additionally Percent Planned Complete (PPC; a
measurement of the effectiveness of the planning and production control system) and
Percent Value Added (PVA; a measurement of the effectiveness of the
installation/conversion process within an operation) are both increased. As PVA increases
unit costs decrease. As PPC is increased, reliable and predictable flow increases allowing for
work in process to be reduced and project throughput to be increased, thereby reducing
overall project duration and cost.
6The word “manager” is used here in the sense of anyone who achieves results through the efforts of others,
regardless of their titles.
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Any audit of the current state of a company’s construction project production management
system must certainly start with an evaluation of current crew assignments and work areas
using the quality requirements just described as criteria for comparison. The purpose here
is not to find fault or point out failures, but to systematically describe the status of current
assignments and work areas and the defects within them. As a first step, the evaluation of
these two critical outputs of the current production system will both guide and assist the
auditors in their examination of the crews’ work as it is carried out within current work
areas and per current work assignments. Additionally, the audit of assignments and work
areas will provide insight as to where failures may be occurring within the current
production management system. This will prove helpful as the existing production system
itself is audited later in the overall auditing process.
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Auditing The Work at the Crew Level
The effectiveness and efficiency of work at the crew level is the result of the leadership of
the project team, the project production system that team has implemented on their project
and the leadership and management policies of the company. While project supervisors
frequently observe the work as it is being performed, it is the result of the work performed
that usually gets formally measured. That measurement takes the form of a calculation in
which the cost (in dollars or hours) of the work performed is divided by the quantity of
work produced. The resulting unit cost is then compared to a budgeted unit cost that was
likely the result of a compilation of final unit costs from similar work performed in the past.
Thus the standard for the acceptability of the current unit cost is based on previous
performance. Unfortunately this continuous cost loop is not designed to encourage a
breakthrough in field performance. By design it simply attempts to ensure the future is no
worse than the past. Worse, there is no way this cost measurement system can identify the
extent to which inefficiency and ineffectiveness has permeated field operations, since the
cost of that inefficiency and ineffectiveness get included in the overall cost of the operation
and passed along each time a new budget is created.
To truly understand the effectiveness (doing the right thing) and the efficiency (employing a
work process that uses minimum effort with minimal waste of resources) of the work at the
crew level, one must get past casual field observations and conventional lag measurements
such as cost reports and schedule updates. To truly understand and evaluate the work at
the crew level one must purposively discover7 the consistency with which prerequisite
work is completed as planned, the reliability of the supply of assembly inputs, the details of
the work process, the utilization of the resources employed and the cost of nonconformance
to the quality requirements of the crew’s work assignment and the work area. Only then
can one really understand the effectiveness and efficiency of an operation.
Construction Concepts has developed four distinct purposive discovery techniques, each
designed to achieve increasing levels of detail as an operation is studied8. These four
purposive discovery techniques are:
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Observation: “Observation” provides a relatively quick but focused operation
overview while specifically looking for safety and quality concerns, idle
resources, resource ergonomics (resources straining to perform their work
task) and the waste or misuse of material or equipment. While quite shallow
in its focus, “Observation” is always the first step in the purposive discovery
process and provides a broad understanding of the work being performed and
where to focus follow on discovery techniques.
Documentation: “Documentation” provides a more thorough representation
of the work itself by, 1.) Capturing the flow of the work, materials and
resources by charting them in work-area plan view, 2.) Performing field
7
Juran, J.M. (1964). Managerial Breakthrough: The work of Joseph Juran and his concept of breakthrough
and the need for purposive discovery first described how output control measures fail to bring about
significant improvements within any process.
8 Casten, M. (2007). The Mechanics and Application of Formal Reactive Analysis: A Workshop;
within this workshop and workbook the four levels of Purposive Discovery are described as a proven way to
fully understand the both the input-process-output details and the economics of construction operations.
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stopwatch studies of process cycle times and individual step times within the
overall process, 3) Determining the apparent efficiency of the operation by
monitoring individual resource usage, 4.) Using some form of Process
Mapping or Value Stream Mapping technique as a way to document the
relationship the observed operation shares with its upstream (supplier)
operations and downstream (customer) operations, and 5.) Researching and
recording actual production performance over the recent past and the
resulting performance using output measurements. Digital still image
pictures are often a big part of the documentation process, as they can capture
overall workarea layout and individual steps that make up the process.
Evaluation: “Evaluation” provides a package of detailed evaluations using
three distinct evaluation criteria. Each of these three criteria focuses on a
separate aspect of the operation being evaluated. The three evaluation
criteria are:
Indicators of Instability: Indicators of Instability are the opposite of MWR’s and
provide the criteria for evaluating the three zones of the work area. Using
Indicators of Instability descriptors and still image digital pictures, the evaluator
develops an extremely accurate portrayal of the existing condition and
physical state of affairs of the three work zones within the work area being
evaluated.
Work Effort Types: Creating value for both the external and internal customer
is the goal of every construction project crew. Doing those things that directly
add to or create the product the customer desires creates value. Laying block
within a masonry building creates value for the customer and is considered
value-adding work. Regardless of how one classifies any other activity within
a masonry crew it is not value adding work. By definition, any work effort
other than adding value is non-value-adding work. Putting up and taking
down scaffolding is necessary and very laborious but does not add value to
the end product. Anything other than value adding work and non-value
adding but necessary work is non-productive effort and is a waste of effort
and resource time. Yet rarely does a project leadership team focus on the
types of effort being performed by each and every resource within the
operation.
Using three categories of work types, Work Effort Types evaluation can
provide a clear understanding as to the percent of total resource effort used to
create value for either the external or internal customer or both. The
resulting information nearly always reveals huge opportunity for process
reengineering.
Waste Types: Taichi Ohno9, a production engineer for the Toyota Motor
Company, was the first person to develop a list of the types of waste found in
manufacturing. He came up with seven types of waste prevalent in most
manufacturing environments. A construction project is quite different from a
9
Ohno, T. (1988), Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production: Ohno was a true
pioneer in the area of manufacturing production system design. His contributions were more than can be
listed here, but his description of waste and the method of teaching protégés to see it by “Standing in the
Circle” for hours completely changed the way work processes and work effort are evaluated.
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manufacturing facility, but construction has every bit as much, or more, waste
as does manufacturing. The banishment of waste through the pursuit of
operational perfection within a construction organization starts by first
identifying the waste in our operations. Ohno defined waste as any
expenditure of time, energy, effort or money that does not add to the value of
the product the customer is willing to pay for. There is little grey in this
definition. The biggest challenge in this regard is not defining what waste is.
The biggest challenge is to get our organization to quit looking past it and
accepting it as the nature of our work. Construction Concepts has developed a
list of nine waste types for evaluating construction operations and projects. It
is similar to the list originally developed by Engineer Ohno, but has been
modified to be specific to our work. The nine waste types are:
 Waiting The most visible and common type of waste on our projects is
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“waiting”. On most projects there are two categories of waiting. The first
category, “workers waiting to work”, involves the key resources assigned
to an operation (workers and/or equipment) that are idle while waiting
for prerequisite work or special site preparation to be completed by
others and supply source failures that result in the crew not having the
“stuff” they need to complete their work, such as material, tools,
additional equipment or information. The other type of waiting, “work
waiting for workers”; is work that can and should be done but is waiting
for a crew and equipment to be assigned to it. In this case, waiting may
well be adding to the overall duration of the project and the attendant
cost of general conditions.
Excessive Effort or Slowed activity due to Overcrowded/Congested Work Areas
While it is very common and very costly, this type of waste is quite
different from “waiting” in that it is often seen as unavoidable or simply
the nature of construction project environments. Therefore, it is rarely
seen as waste. Excessive effort caused by overcrowded or congested
work areas includes things such as the need for climbing over, walking
around, stepping through or going under obstructions or hazards, such as
exposed nails, trash, overhead loads, etc.. Slowed activity, such as
intentionally slowing the pace of an operation because of an operational
traffic jam upstream of this operation or other crews working in the
immediate work area, is also this type of waste.
Unnecessary Movement Unnecessary movement includes any motion or
movement by workers and/or equipment that could be reduced,
eliminated or combined with other tasks. This includes things such as,
going out of the work area to get anything that is needed by the crew but
not in the immediate work area, looking for or locating material or
information not readily available, excessive movement from one work
area to another due to disrupted production flow or interruptions by
others.
Unnecessary Transport Unnecessary transport is simply the movement of
or transporting any material, equipment or manpower that does not
directing contribute to the assembly or conversion of a crew’s product.
This includes moving material out of the way, moving it more than once
from its receipt on site to its incorporation into the product, inefficient
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handling or transportation of materials and moving materials into or out
of storage.
Ineffectively/Inefficiently Processing “Ineffectively/inefficiently processing”
waste is woven into the conversion or assembly process employed by
most crews as they do their work. It includes such things as using
unneeded or inefficient steps to process the assembly or conversion
inputs. It also includes unnecessary work or processing that far exceeds
what is required or wanted. It often results in poor utilization of the
individual resources assigned to the crew. Ultimately, waste of this type
can only be fully understood by thoroughly understanding the entire
operation, the production capacity of the resources assigned and the cost
of those resources.
Wastes, Damaged or Unused Material This is the waste of perfectly good
materials. This can be in the form of wasted plywood or dimensional
material by cutting up full sheets of plywood or twelve-foot 2x4’s into
small pieces that will be later thrown into a trash pile. The waste of
material also includes the loss of form accessories as walls are formed
and stripped. It also includes the breaking or damaging of pipe and other
permanent material or equipment as it is unloaded, stored, handled or
installed. Included within this category is the creation of waste and
rubbish as well as the collection, storage, handling and removal of that
waste and debris. This type of waste also includes the failure to maximize
the yields of stone, concrete, asphalt and other materials that can silently
get wasted. Additionally we can waste material by receiving it and then
lose it or simply not use it. It is easy to spot a crushed piece of pipe or a
damaged gang form; but poor yield is difficult to spot and it is difficult to
see the form hardware that got buried in the backfill or the galvanized
metal frame that got lost in the weeds and never used. This type of waste
often goes unseen because it is simply accepted as the nature of the
business without really knowing what it is costing until the project is
nearly complete.
Defects and Rework There is no type of waste more frustrating and
demoralizing to the workforce than “defects and rework”. Ironically, it is
one of the most easily avoided waste types because it is usually the result
of simply either not knowing what the customer wants or getting in such
a hurry that shortcuts and lack of attention lead to mistakes or poorly
done work. Unfortunately, if a crew does not fully understand what is
required of their work in terms of quality as they perform it, the defect
they are creating may well go undetected for quite some time. Waste of
this type includes all the wasted or destroyed material, the time and
effort of manpower and equipment and the cost of lost time and
momentum across the project.
Unused Employee Creativity While hard to see or detect in the work area,
unused employee creativity may well be one of the most prevalent types
of waste found on our projects. This type of waste includes ideas gone
unused, not engaging or listening to employees, and the lack of
collaboration that increases understanding and commitment to
production goals. It results in lost ideas, skills, improvements, and
learning opportunities by not engaging or listening to our employees.
Because we usually fail to solicit the creativity and ingenuity of many of
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our workers, we really have no idea how much we are wasting. This type
of waste is realized by seeing what is not happening on a project; a lack of
employee participation, collaboration and input regarding the planning
for and evaluation of their work; that is, the lack of an opportunity for
employees to have a voice in their work.
Accidents An accident is any unintended event that causes harm to
employees or property. Accidents waste not only the precious lives or
body parts of employees, they also waste property that must be replaced.
We all know it is our moral obligation to not hurt our people or damage
public property. And still accidents occur. They are the worst kind of
waste because they usually result in pain and injury, even possible death.
Accidents also cause unnecessary disruptions and work stoppages to our
construction operations.
By evaluating the work of a crew over an extended period of time using these
nine waste types, the evaluator develops an extremely detailed understanding
of the degree to which waste has infected the operations of the organization.
This information, while sometimes controversial because of the negative
connotation the word “waste” brings with it, is extremely valuable in
understanding and portraying the results of defects within the crew
assignment and the work area design and preparation.
Digital still images and short clips of digital video are often used to both
capture and document the results of the evaluation of an operation using
waste types.
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Analysis: “Analysis” provides the most detailed information of all the
purposive discovery techniques. Building on the discovery of the other three
techniques, “Analysis” typically employs the use of digital video, which
provides the analyst the opportunity to review the work in real time, various
fast forward speeds and slow motion for as many times as is required. That
enables a series of detailed film breakdown studies and attendant calculations
designed to portray the operation in its most basic level of activity.
The Short Step Delay-Free cycle time of a process can be determined by
reviewing four to five cycles of an operation on film. Concurrently
information can be collected to enable the development of an extremely
accurate calculation of Percent Value Added (PVA) for each resource as well
as the overall resource package. The logical follow up to the PVA calculation
is to reengineer the operation to achieve a much higher PVA and rate of
production.
By injecting resource costs, permanent material costs and revenue into an
iterative analysis and design process known as operation economics, the
analyst can calculate the best combination of resources and production rates
to optimize the rate the operation generates revenue. The resulting
reengineered rate of revenue creation can then be compared to the rate at
which the existing operation currently generates revenue and, thereby,
determine the potential revenue enhancement of the operation. The
inverse of this, the cost of lost potential revenue is the cost of
nonconformance to the quality requirements for crew work assignments and
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work areas. The cost of nonconformance creates a “virtual” budget with
which to justify the cost of reengineering the operation. Only an economic
analysis of this type will reveal the cost of nonconformance; conventional
cost reporting systems have no means with which to make this calculation.
Depending on the nature of the audit, a combination of one or more of the purposive
discovery techniques will be employed while studying a group of representative operations.
The more operations studied and the greater the detail of the purposive discovery, the more
the audit will reveal the “ground truth” of the work at the crew level and the degree to
which defects in crew assignments and work area design and preparation are impacting the
work. Additionally, the cost of lost potential revenue will reveal what the failure to create
high quality crew work assignments and well managed work areas is costing in real dollars.
It is this calculation that eventually establishes a “virtual” budget for funding the initiatives
required to reduce the defects of the crew assignments and work areas produced within the
current project production system.
Up to this point the audit has focused on the quality of crew work assignments and work
areas as well as the specific realities of the work performed as a result of those assignments
and within those work areas. The defects detected within the “quality” portion of the audit
will provide insight as to where or why the current state production system is not the
system of prevention it should be if high quality crew assignments and MWR’s are to be
achieved. Next, the audit shifts to an examination of the current project production system
itself and the degree to which it favorably compares to one designed specifically to prevent
defects from getting into the crew assignments and work areas.
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Auditing the Current State
of the
Construction Project Production Management System
As one considers how to audit the current state of the existing project production
management system itself, it is important to point out the differences between project
management and production management. The focus of project management typically
includes contracts, project schedules, budgets, cash flow, changes, negotiations and client
relationships. Production management, on the other hand, includes the development of a
production scheme and sequence, operation and value stream planning, production
scheduling and weekly planning, the preparation of work assignments and work areas, and
the follow–up to the start of operations to ensure their compliance with planned safety,
quality and production goals.
Obviously there is overlap between these two disciplines and the two are, in many ways,
interdependent. However, over the last twenty-five to thirty years, the dramatic shift of
focus and reliance on project management activities and systems within many construction
organizations has significantly reduced the emphasis on production management. In fact,
project management accounting and cost reporting systems are usually the only
measurement of a company’s production management process. Additionally, within most
construction organizations it is not unusual to find the production management system
employed on any one project to be a unique combination of preferences and techniques
used by the project manager and project superintendent on that project. The result is often
a construction company with a collection of project production systems, each one different
from all others within the company. Thus, project scheduling, operation production
planning, short-term production scheduling, weekly production planning and the
management of the work areas and supply storage areas on one project look different from
that of another project within the same company.
In the mid nineties a new mental model of construction project production management and
control began to emerge. That model was built around the Toyota Motor Company’s
production system and became known as “lean” construction10. The lean construction
model, known as The Last Planner™, was built around a process of systematically going
from a milestone project schedule to a quality individual crew assignment while increasing
the level of planning detail at each step in the process. That initial departure from what was
the traditional approach to project production management was the start of a long journey
toward a much more effective project production management system.
Over the last fifteen years, Construction Concepts has developed the Construction Project
Production Management system (CP2Ms). Based on our own experience and the
contributions of too many to mention here, the CP2Ms was initially designed and continually
modified through field testing to provide self performing infrastructure contractors a
reliable and agile production system capable of converting customer requirements into a
steady stream of high quality crew assignments and work areas. Like a quarry starting with
10 Ballard, G. (1994); The
Last Planner; in this paper Glenn Ballard described a new approach to managing
and controlling production within a construction project environment. It was the beginning of a flood of new
thinking and approaches to construction project production systems.
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boulders and eventually producing washed #57 stone, this conversion process is
accomplished in four stages. They are briefly described here to provide the reader with
enough information as to understand the purpose and function of each stage and to
understand how the project production system being audited will be evaluated.
 Pre-Construction Production Planning – Pre-Construction Production Planning is a step
often overlooked on most projects. That is not to say an activity described as preconstruction planning does not occur within most companies. Unfortunately,
much of the initial “planning” effort, often performed by only the project
manager, is related to risk and project management issues such as budgets,
contracts and schedules. As important as the project management issues are,
they contribute very little to the creation of the crew work assignments and work
areas previously described. For example, a popular project management
“production planning” activity, known as “production budgeting”, mathematically
establishes the net duration of the operation by dividing the operation’s total
labor budget by the daily resource cost of the crew. Then the daily crew
production goal is determined by dividing the operation’s total budget by the net
duration. In this way, “production budgeting” creates no real production plan but
does ensure the operation will eventually spend all the money and use all the
time.
Within the CP2Ms, Pre-Construction Production Planning is the first stage of the
conversion of customer requirements into quality crew assignments and work
areas. It starts with the identification and assembly of the key project leadership
team members, such as the project manager, project superintendent, project
engineer and other team members as necessary. (Unfortunately the project team
is often only fully assembled after the project has mobilized, usually dramatically
reducing any real possibility for team formation or pre-construction production
planning.) In their initial meeting this team reviews the scope of the project, the
estimate and basic scheme for its construction. Additionally they start the
process of identifying, prioritizing, assigning and managing the myriad
administrative, production planning and site preparation tasks and activities that
must be completed prior to mobilization. One of those tasks is to identify the
critical operations and major “chunks” of work (value streams) that will require a
collaborative planning effort and then create a Production Planning Calendar,
which establishes dates and attendees for the required planning meetings.
Since many subcontracts and purchase orders often fail to tie performance
requirements and or delivery dates to the ultimate rate and pace of key
operations, it is often critical that the team completes preliminary production
planning of these operations in order to determine the optimal rate of
production, resulting duration and the rate of delivery of assembly inputs. This
critical initial production planning information can then be fed into the initial
project schedule and incorporated into specific performance expectations within
purchase orders and subcontracts.
One of the most important outcomes of this first stage of production planning
is the formation and growth of the team itself as they participate and collaborate
all the initial production-planning activities. This early transition from a diverse
work group into an effective team must occur as quickly as possible if this new
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

team is to build the individual and collective accountability and internal
discipline they will need as the challenges of the project unfold once they are in
the field. Formation of an effective team prior to mobilization is one of the most
important achievements within this critical first stage of the CP2Ms.
Value Stream Production Planning – Like Pre-construction Production Planning, Value
Stream Production Planning is often skipped or not even considered. Value Stream
Production Planning is the stage within the production management system in which
the key stakeholders of the operations within a value stream collectively and
collaboratively develop the sequence, flow and relative pace of those operations.
With the goal of achieving daily crew production flow11 within each value
stream, the duration of each operation is scrutinized and reduced where possible,
buffers are minimized within and between operations, and stakeholders
representing upstream supplier operations and downstream customer
operations agree to specific performance standards as to how work is to be
batched, sequenced and completed. In this way “pull” is injected into the
production process by defining the sequence, batch sizes, initial production rates
and “customer requirements” of all operations and the manner in which work
will be completed and turned over to successor operations. It is during this
process of collaboratively aligning to value stream production plans and the
concept of daily crew production flow that the Value Stream Production Planning
participants begin to view themselves as teammates within a production cell as
opposed to a group of individual supervisors, each looking out for themselves and
their operation.
Using As-Late-As-Possible (ALAP)12 scheduling techniques individual
operation start dates and buffers between operation completions are established,
ensuring the shortest duration and optimized throughput of the entire value
stream.
Without this critical stage in the production system, the start of most
operations will be “pushed” onto a short-term look-ahead schedule with
inadequate planning and preparation and the completion of each operation will
be done in the best interest of that operation with little regard for the needs of its
downstream customer. Additionally, “contingency” will be injected into the
schedule and excessive buffers into the individual operations, leading to extended
durations and reduced effectiveness and efficiency within individual operations.
Operation Production Planning – The outputs of Pre-Construction Production Planning
and Value Stream Production Planning become the inputs to Operation Production Planning.
It is here that the work process and resource package are finalized and the
remaining details of the production plans are completed. If the operation being
11
Ohno, T. (1988), Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production: In addition to his
breakthrough ideas regarding waste, Engineer Ohno also introduced the concepts of “pull” and “single piece
flow”. Combined, these three concepts revolutionized production management theory. Daily Crew Production
Flow was developed as an adaptation of these concepts as the ideal construction production system model.
12 Goldratt, E. (1997), Critical Chain; Goldratt describes in this book the many shortcomings of traditional
CPM scheduling and how it tends to become loaded with extended durations due to “contingency” and
“comfort” and how most schedules are distrusted due to all the games played with early and late starts and the
various types of float.
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
planned is part of a value stream, the resulting operation production plan must be
designed to ensure achievement of the production rate, batch sizes, flow
sequence and customer requirements committed to during the creation of the
Value Stream Production Plan. Then, according to the level of planning detail
determined appropriate for each operation (Tier I, II and III) during the PreConstruction Production Planning activities, final details of the operation can be
completed and will include some combination of: the definition of specific safety
and quality requirements, production rate and daily production goals, PVA and
economic analysis (including the cost of lost potential revenue), final work batch
sizes and sequence of completion, detailed workzone design depicting resource
flow and ergonomic material movement, and the identification and assignment of
the MakeCertain! tasks13 required to ensure quality crew assignments and create
quality work areas. Resulting daily crew production goals will then be “pulled”
onto a short-term look-ahead production schedule where they will likely be
slightly refined as their attendant work areas are prepared and remaining
uncertainties resolved.
Assured Production Planning and Control – During the three to four weeks just
prior to a crew assignment being issued, all of the MakeCertain! tasks required to
ensure quality crew work assignments and high quality work areas must be
completed as each assignment works its way through the Look-Ahead Production
Schedule. The completion of these MakeCertain! tasks ensures that the
assignments can be worked as planned and the attendant work areas have been
prepared as planned. With this verified, these crew work assignments are
considered “Workable Backlog” and are then “pulled” onto a Weekly Production Plan for
the upcoming week and reviewed and committed to during a weekly project team
production-planning meeting. The Weekly Production Plan is then monitored and
adjusted slightly each day as the events of the week unfold. It is during the Daily
End-of-Shift meeting that project leaders and field managers resolve minor
deviations from plan and recommit to the next day’s production goals.14
Thus within a critical three to four week Look-Ahead Production Schedule and
Weekly Production Plan timeframe, production planning and production control
merge as the completion of all remaining MakeCertain! tasks are verified and the
daily production goal of each assignment is finalized. Then as work unfolds
during the week in which the assignments are issued, the completion of each
assignment is monitored and minor adjustments made as required, assuring the
overall production goal for the week is achieved.
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MakeCertain! tasks are all the tasks and activities required to assure the quality requirements of the work
assignment will be met and that the work area will be in compliance with MWR’s. This process of “making
certain” is at the heart of creating a production system of defect prevention as described by Crosby. While
simple in concept, the identification, assignment and assuring the completion of MakeCertain! tasks may well
be one of the most elusive challenges facing the construction industry.
14 Macomber, H. and Howell, G. (2003), Linguistic Action: Contributing to the Theory of Lean
Construction; In this paper Macomber and Howell introduced the concept of making and keeping
commitments and how to structure the process of requesting, making and honoring commitments within the
environments of Weekly Production Planning and Daily End-of-Shift meetings. In simple terms, the very
success of the Assured Production Planning and Control stage of the CP2Ms depends on the project team’s ability
to request, make and honor commitments
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At this point an assignment has been given to a crew and they are carrying out that
assignment within the work area that has been prepared for them. Regardless of the level of
planning or the quality of the work area, this is often where the foreman and crew are left to
fend for themselves. An assignment and work plan in some form is tossed to the foreman
and then he is expected to carry it out. The CP2Ms, on the other hand, takes a different
approach by adding a fifth stage in the process of converting customer requirements into
effective and efficient work. This fifth stage presumes that, for a variety of reasons, things
may not go as planned when the work starts. It also assumes there may well be some things
that were missed or faulty assumptions made during the first four stages of the CP2Ms. This
fifth stage, Implementation and Follow Through is described below.

Implementation and Follow Through – By the time an individual crew assignment
is issued, a tremendous amount of production planning and control effort has
been expended. Each assignment and the overall operation production plan must
be performed as planned to assure the efficiency and effectiveness of the work
itself and the sequence and relative pace of production flow as defined within the
value stream production plan. However, there is no real assurance that the work
will start and continue as planned. The only way to “stay right” is to first “start
right”. Using tools such as After Action Reviews and root cause analysis and
problem solving, every effort is made to get the operation started right, the
“learning curve” eliminated and the learning of the entire process captured. In
this way, Implementation and Follow Through assures immediate production “control”
(plan compliance), continuous improvement, new learning and a continuously
refreshed Retained Learning Library from which future operations can be better
planned and controlled.
A diagram depicting the concepts and steps just described is shown below. Note that the
diagram portrays reduction or loss of options and opportunities as time goes by. Thus,
the early identification of critical MakeCertain tasks results in options and opportunities
that would otherwise have been lost.

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As stated earlier, the CP2Ms described here is not necessarily the perfect project production
system nor as the only way to ensure the creation of high quality work assignments and
work areas, but it is one that has been developed over the last fifteen years and has proven
to be incredibly effective even when not all the components and subcomponents of it are
fully implemented. However the CP2Ms system of defect prevention will become
compromised if one or more of the five components and subcomponents are skipped or
diluted. The consequences of this compromise are defects within crew assignments and
work areas.
Evaluating the existing project production system
As described earlier, “evaluation” requires criteria against which the process is being
compared. The CP2Ms is described here because it is against this basic project production
system that the current state of production management and control will be evaluated.
Using structured interviews with key project leaders, thorough document reviews of
existing production planning materials and structured observations of planning sessions
and project leadership involvement as operations are implemented, an accurate portrayal of
the current state of production management is developed.
The information resulting from of this portion of the audit will be compared to and laid over
the “quality” portion of the audit to determine the extent to which shortcomings in the
current production system are reflected in the work at the crew level, the work areas and
the work assignments and vice versa. This will provide a thorough and detailed portrayal of
the current state of the production system itself and the results of that production system as
reflected in the quality requirements of individual crew assignments, work areas and the
effectiveness and efficiency of the work itself.
In terms of “hard” information, the audit will provide very objective and unbiased “ground
truth” information regarding the current state of the project production system. While
more than one project may have been studied and each have a slightly different approach to
how construction work gets planned and done, an overall understanding of the commonly
used practices and resulting quality of crew work assignments and work areas can be
developed. The differences between projects will be noted if they are dramatic enough to
warrant attention.
But there is still one more aspect of the audit left to cover. That is, the “soft” information
that is a more subjective report on the apparent cultural foundation on which individual
project production systems and the company-wide approach to production management are
based. A brief description of that portion of the audit is presented in the following material.
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The Cultural Foundation and Production Engineering expertise
Nearly every company has a vision statement and an accompanying set of corporate values.
In many cases the value statements truly reflect the underlying values of the company. In
others the value statements stress how people are “supposed” to act, perform and believe.
This is no minor difference. As vision and value statements come together, lots of words get
carefully organized and statements crafted that describe what a company aspires to become
and what it stands for. Some companies do a better job than others in getting these values
woven into their organization. Some have short-term missions that define a specific
milestone to be achieved on their journey to achieve their vision. These all have a varying
degree of positive impact on overall company identity and direction, although in some
companies these just become posters and slogans that have little real impact on day-to-day
activities. Consequently, there is always some doubt as to whether or by how much the
desire for cultural values and the quest for the achievement of an inspiring vision really
have on the performance of a company.
Then there are those rare companies whose cultural foundation is so strong that the cultural
DNA of the company, not carefully crafted slogans drives the company as it radically
differentiates itself from its competition. The Toyota Motor Company, irrespective of its
recent problems, has, since its earliest beginnings, been a company that inherently strives to
continuously improve throughout the corporate structure. Apple has always set incredibly
high standards for their products in terms of quality of design and ease of use. The culture
and values in both these companies led to their success. It is important to note that within
both these companies there exists a culture of highly respected, involved and participative
employees that live the culture each day.
Others have attempted to adopt the Toyota Production System or imitate Apple products
without adopting the fundamental culture that drove the development of the production
system or design expertise in the first place. Any attempt to copy a production system or
product design without the cultural foundation and values that drove the development of
the desired result will eventually fail, simply because the strategy, structure and systems of
these highly successful companies were shaped by their culture and their culture permeates
every aspect of their company. You simply cannot inject “breakthrough” thinking into a
“command and control” culture!
While it is not the desire of the author to be perceived as prescribing cultural values or
beliefs, it is important to point out the effects cultural values, assumptions and beliefs can
have on the performance of any organization. There can simply be no doubt that the
underlying culture of a company will have a profound effect on the working environment
within the company as a whole and each of its projects. Just as the quality of current state
crew work assignments, work areas, the work itself and the effectiveness of the current
production system must be understood, the underlying culture of the organization must also
be considered and understood for it will have permeated every aspect of the current
organization. An honest appraisal of corporate culture must be part of any operations audit
in order to both understand the underlying assumptions being made by field managers and
those cultural traits that must be addressed as part of the implementation of a future state
production system.
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Regarding the adaptation of the project production management system and the quest for
the achievement of Daily Crew Production Flow there are three cultural characteristics that
must eventually be woven into a construction company’s culture, if they are not already
there, or the organization will fall way short of achieving anything close to operational
excellence. In the simplest terms these are:
1. Respect for employees and partners – As Douglas McGregor15 described years
ago, it is often a fundamental lack of respect for and distrust of employees that
often determines how employees are really treated, irrespective of any
company slogans, policies or proclamations. On the other hand it is a deeply
held respect for and trust in employees (all employees) and partners
(suppliers and subcontractors) and the underlying positive opinion of them
that sets the expectation of ordinary people achieving the extraordinary
results of companies like Apple, Toyota and Cisco. In companies like these it
is the deeply held respect for employees and partners that leads to a safe and
challenging working environment in which their creativity is solicited, their
performance challenged, their efforts supported and their potential achieved
as they participate, grow and learn. Anything less is perceived as simply
disrespectful.
2. Constructive Collaboration and Intervention – Virtually every aspect of the
future state production management system requires changes of varying
degrees throughout the organization relative to focus, performance
expectations, behavior, skills, and habits. These require an environment in
which enthusiasm, candor, honesty, accountability, and respectful speaking
and listening are present most of the time. Alignment to breakthrough
production goals cannot be achieved without collaboration and corrective
actions will not achieve the desired results without constructive intervention
experience. While most organizations “assume” they collaborate well and “all
get along”, it is usually because the organization rarely holds conversations
around the topics of alignment to breakthrough production expectations,
team discipline, collective and individual accountability, and lasting behaviorchanging interventions.
3. Continuous Improvement and Compounding Learning – It is the organizational
desire for continuous improvement and compounding learning that ensures
accelerating progress along the journey toward operational excellence. It also
ensures the journey is constantly refreshed and reenergized. It is the
15
McGregor, D. (1960), The Human Side of Enterprise; In this landmark book McGregor describes the
inadequacies of the most basic assumptions (implicit and explicit) held by many managers regarding how to
best manage people. McGregor claimed that behind every managerial decision or action are assumptions
about human nature and human behavior. For example (per Theory X), many managers’ decisions or actions
are actually based on the assumption that the average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will
avoid it if possible, and the assumption that, therefore, most people must be coerced, controlled, directed, and
threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organizational
objectives. McGregor pointed out how misguided these assumptions usually are and the negative and
frustrating effect they have on an organization. Unfortunately, forty years later, there is strong evidence that
the construction industry may well be one of the last bastions of Theory X management.
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persistent pursuit of continuous improvement and compounding learning that
ensures leaders at all levels will eventually:
o Go from “knowing” to “learning,”
o Go from reliance on technical, individual computerized processes to being
comfortable with simple, highly interactive collaboration events,
o Go from fixing blame to fixing a problem’s root cause, and
o Go from monitoring, tracking, reporting and documenting to supporting
collaborative planning, leading through helping others learn, and ensuring
continuous growth of competence and confidence among all employees
and partners.
Throughout the auditing process every attempt will be made to determine the extent to
which these three cultural characteristics are present. The current state production system
will, to a large part, be a reflection of the project leaders’ attitudes regarding employees and
partners, their ability and desire to collaborate and intervene in a constructive way and the
extent to which they expect daily improvements and new learning throughout the project.
While subjective in nature, any conclusions drawn by the audit team in the area of culture
and values will be corroborated in other aspects of the audit.
Production Engineering; a Required Discipline
Last, it is important to understand that each and every stage of the CP2Ms requires some
understanding and basic competence in the discipline we refer to as Production Engineering.
Most project teams have not been exposed to the basic and most fundamental production
principles that drive sound operation engineering and daily crew production flow.
Additionally, the specific technical knowledge and facilitation skills required to perform and
facilitate operation engineering, value stream production planning and assured
production control activities will only exist within the project team if they were taught and
developed over some period of time. Thus, throughout this portion of the audit every
attempt will be made to determine the extent to which project leaders have been exposed to
and have knowledge of Production Engineering principles, concepts and activities. This is a
very important part of the overall audit because a project team cannot be held accountable
for failing to do something they have not had an opportunity to first understand, learn and
apply and improve.
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Conclusion
As the audit of the current state of a company’s production management process is
concluded, material resulting from three key areas of examination will surface; a report as
to the quality of assignments, work areas and the work itself, the process with which the
current production management system converts customer requirements into assignments
and work areas and the apparent underlying culture and production engineering expertise
on which the production system is based.
The presentation of the audit finding will package this information as a comparison with the
quality requirements, production management conversion process and supporting culture
of the Construction Project Production Management system to simply portray the
differences between the two and, where possible, the extrapolated cost of non-conformance.
At that point the audit team and senior managers can work toward defining what the
company desires to do in response to the information and a strategy for whatever action is
to be taken.
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