We are often asked by clients to help start their Lean journey. We help them take a strategic view of Lean and Lean Construction and understand the benefit to their business. We adopt our Understand: Collaborate: Improve: Sustain approach to design a deployment approach that is right for our clients circumstances., processes and culture.
We support the deployment of Lean across a wide range of clients. This includes where we help develop strategy and direction and also with clients who are already part way on their Lean journey. Our team of Lean experts guide clients on adopting Lean, benefit realisation, managing and overcoming pitfalls and ensuring sustainability.
Read our case study about Deploying Lean across Highways England.
Some clients look to assess their adoption of Lean, either because of lack of perceived progress or from pressure from Customers and Clients. In either case our Lean Maturity assessment tools allow us to measure Lean deployment, diagnose effectiveness and identify improvements. We also work with clients supporting their development and use of their own Lean maturity tools (e.g. Highways England HELMA).
Are you as Lean as you think you are?
Do you think that you operate a truly Lean organisation. We challenge you to take our Lean assessment to see how Lean you really are! Our Lean assessment is quick and easy to use and asks you to score against ten key characteristic’s of a successful and sustainable Lean organisation. Want to take the challenge then CLICK HERE
Our Lean Maturity Assessment measures clients Lean and Lean Construction capabilities. We review Lean skills and experience across our clients teams as well as their effectiveness of their Lean development and training approaches. We are able to design and support a Lean training approach tailored to their specific needs. We can improve and focus Lean delivery skills and also develop people to deliver in-house Lean development programmes.
Read our case study about Developing a Self Sufficient Lean Capability at Sellafield.
Some problems that Infrastructure Clients face can be complex. In these circumstances basic Lean techniques may not be powerful enough to tackle the problem. Our team includes Six Sigma experts (Master Black Belt level) who offer the type of support needed and provide specific technical support to resolve complex problems. We also help clients to build this capability for themselves by developing Six Sigma training programmes ranging from Yellow Belt to Master Black Belt, including Design for Six Sigma and Robust Design.
Read our case study about how Six Sigma Speeds up the Rail Network at Network Rail.
The biggest challenge to successful adoption of Lean is in the way that Leaders behave and operate. Poor Leadership (at all levels) is the biggest cause of Lean deployment failures. We know what Lean Leadership looks like and what critical success factors are needed to make it work. We have qualified and experienced coaches with extensive experience of working alongside leaders (at all levels) who ensure the right support is in place to maximise success.
The use of Lean in a Construction and Infrastructure environment is often focused around Lean Collaborative Planning. This aims to adopt Lean principles in a scheme (or programme of schemes) both in design and construction phases.
There are three core elements:
Collaborative Programme Planning is the approach to coordinating scheme delivery within an overall programme and involves getting collaborative agreement of all internal and external stakeholders on an overall programme of works. This agreed programme is then delivered in the optimum sequence, balancing capacity and demand, to meet the needs of the customer/client.
Collaborative Planning refers to events within a specific scheme where people from different suppliers and cross functional teams come together and apply Lean principles to agree a medium to long term delivery plan. It involves getting collaborative agreement of all stakeholders on a programme of work that is delivered in the quickest , safest, most efficient and leanest way.
Production Control is the ongoing process to ensure that the Collaborative Plan is delivered. It involves ongoing measurement of performance against plan with pro-active activities to correct deviation. Lean improvement tools can be used to identify root causes of delays and to develop corrective actions.
Our Lean experts support clients to adopt these methods and use them to drive significant improvements in scheme delivery lead times.
Our clients sometimes face specific problems and challenges that need tour specialist Lean Constriction expertise. All of our team have in depth and extensive experience facilitating and delivering targeted improvement projects. Recent examples include: £1.5m efficiency improvements in Earthworks processes on a specific highways scheme; £0.5m efficiency improvement as a result of improving the Structures design process; On-time delivery improved from <25% to>80% as a result of a Lean intervention on a rail scheme planning process.
Keep up to date with best practice about Lean and Leadership and hear from others in similar continuous improvement and leadership roles about their success stories
Sign Up
01926 633333